From time to time the ranger tried the com,
only to meet the crackle of interference. But suddenly he indicated
an ice-edged river.
“The Veecorox!”
“You’ve seen that before?” inquired Tau.
Perhaps, thought Dane, the medic was now as uneasy as he over
their very vague route.
“An expedition got this far last year.” Meshler
settled back in the pilot’s seat with a relaxation that could
have been relief. The ranger must have been just as disturbed as they
about their unknown course.
“We have only to follow this to where the tributary, the
Corox, feeds in, then turn east. That is the beginning of
Cartl’s land.”
He banked the flitter and turned to follow the river. The land
under them showed no signs that men had ever ventured this far.
“Your southland is largely wilderness then,”
commented the medic.
“It is hard to clear land—to import machinery is
wasteful. We cannot keep bringing in fuel and techs to service the
machines or repair parts. And horses or duocorns from Astra or any
of the off-world draft animals do not do well here—not in
the first generation, anyway. They have been trying to breed some
at the Ag stations, to develop a strain that can live here without
being constantly cared for. There is a native insect, the tork fly,
which goes for their eyes. So far we haven’t been able to
build up any immunity in imports. There are no native animals that
can be used for heavy labor. The result is that the holdings have
machinery in community ownership and move the pieces from place to
place for clearing. Then in some dry seasons they try a burn-off;
only that must be controlled, which means an army of men on the
job.”
“So settlements have not advanced much since First
Ship,” commented Tau.
Dane saw the line along the ranger’s jaw tighten, as if he
were biting back some hot and hasty comment, and then Meshler
replied.
“Trewsworld’s done enough to keep autonomous. We
won’t go up for any resettlement auction, if that’s
what you mean.” Then he paused, looked to Tau, and Dane saw a
shade of worry on his face. “You think—that might be
it?”
“A chance, is it not?” Tau asked. “Suppose
what you have so hardly won could be lost, or even a part of it?
Enough so you could not claim autonomy any more?”
Dane understood. Any planet under pioneer settlement had to
grow, to show appreciable gains each year in size of population and
then in exports, or else the Grand Department of Immigration could
legally put it up for auction. Then if the settlers could not match an outside bid, they lost
all they had worked so hard to gain.
“But why?” asked Meshler. “We’re an Ag
planet. Anyone else here would face the very same difficulties we
have been fighting from the first. There’s nothing to attract
outsiders—no minerals worth that much for
exploiting—”
“What about the rock from the sealed compartment of the
prospectors’ crawler?” Dane asked. “They had
found something they thought rich enough to lock in. They were
killed, and that was taken. Perhaps there is more here on
Trewsworld than you know, Meshler.”
The ranger shook his head. “A mineral survey was run by
detect on second survey. There are normal amounts of iron, copper,
other ores, but nothing worth shipping off-world. We use what we
can ourselves. Besides, those men may not have been blasted for
what they carried but what they saw and the rock taken to confuse
us. You said the antline was roaming near there. They might have
run into a party trying to get it back.”
“Perfectly possible,” agreed Tau. “At the same
time, I would suggest that another minerals survey be
run—if you are left time to do it.”
“The basin camp,” Dane said, “was not a recent
setup. How long have the Trosti people been here?”
“Eight years—planet time.”
“And how about any new holdings cut in their direction
during that time?” Now Tau had given him the clue Dane was
groping for.
“Cartl—let’s see. Cartl had his clearing
gathering in the spring of ’24, before grass growth. And this
is ’29. He has the southmost holding.”
“Five years then. How about other holdings—east,
west, north?”
“North is too cold for lathsmers. They have only a couple
of experimental Ag stations north of the port,” Meshler
answered promptly. “East—Hancron. Hancron cleared in
’25. And west—that was Lansfeld. He was in
’26.”
“Three years since the last new clearing was established
then,” Tau commented. “And in the years before that,
how many?”
But Meshler, prodded by their questions, was already reckoning
the list, judging by his expression.
“Up to ’24 we had one, maybe two, sometimes three
new clearings a year. Had four emigrant ships come in ’23.
Only one since then, and its passengers were mainly techs and their
families to settle at the port. The push-out had
stopped.”
“And no one noticed?” Dane asked.
“If they did, there wasn’t any talk about it. Mostly
the holding people are self-sufficient and don’t come to the
port more than once or twice a year—just when they have cargo
to ship. There are five-six families to a holding under the signee
who puts up the bond. They use self-repair robos for light field
work, but robos of that size are no good for first clearing. Since
the lathsmer trade has begun, it’s been easier. You
don’t have to crop for the birds, just give them clear living
space and put in one or two fields of smes seeds for extra winter
food. They like the native insects and a couple of native berry
plants and thrive on them. The buyers think that’s what gives
them the unique flavor and makes them worth more. You can run
lathsmers on ground that has been only partly cleared and patrol
the field with robos to do the extra feeding. But it takes men and
women to pluck for the down for export—and that comes in the late
spring. Then they take the down, and it’s baled at the
port.”
“So you are getting to be a one-crop world?”
Again Meshler showed uneasiness at Tau’s question, as if
he might have drifted and never really thought of it before.
“No—well, maybe, yes. They raise lathsmers more and
more because they’re all that’s worth exporting. A
one-crop world and no new holdings—” The grim set of
his jaw was more pronounced now.
“I’m a ranger. It’s never been my concern to
do more than patrol, do some mapping and exploring, make the rounds
of the border holdings. But, the Council—someone must have
realized what was happening!”
“Undoubtedly,” Tau agreed. “It remains to be
seen if this situation wasn’t given impetus to go along on
just the road it has been traveling. You saw how those dragons
finished off the lathsmers—and they were developed via
radiation from the modern lathsmer embryos. Suppose one of those
horrors behind the force field, or that antline, were to overrun
the perching fields? Or one of those boxes be planted in some
outlying district to affect all the birds coming near
it—”
“The sooner we get to Cartl’s and the com
there,” said Meshler, “the better!” And the note
in his voice matched the set of his jaw.
It was not long before the river formed a vee with its
tributary, and Meshler turned the flitter to follow the smaller
stream, which was ice-roofed in places. A little later they crossed
the first of roughly cleared fields with a roost set up. But there
were no lathsmers. And the light skim of snow on the ground was
unmarked by tracks.
That first field fed into another, also bare of life. Meshler
turned the flitter and made a low run over the clearing.
“I don’t understand. These are breeding
fields—they are the main roosting sections.”
Once more he thumbed the com and sent out his futile call. But
the interference, though not as ear-torturingly loud, was still
present. He raised again to cruising level and sent the flitter
ahead at the highest rate of speed.
Two more fields—and in the last the birds were gathered,
black masses of them, milling about. When the shadow of the flitter
moved across them, they seemed to go mad with fear, rushing around,
some of the smaller ones trampled upon as they wheeled and
stretched their ineffectual wings, attempting to fly. The birds
made a dark heaving mass, and then the flitter was past.
“I suppose,” Tau said, “that such a gathering
as that is not natural.”
“No,” Meshler replied in a single curt
monosyllable.
There was a screen of one of those brush-woods and then more
fields, which had been more carefully cleared than those for the
lathsmers. Here the stubble of some kind of crop pricked through
the snow. The river made a long curve and in its bend was the
holding.
It was not a house but rather a series of houses and buildings
constructed in the form of a square. In the midst of that was a com
tower, set well above the outer walls, and bearing halfway up its
length the symbol that was Cartl’s brand, which would appear
on all he sold.
The houses were of stone blocks, but there were roofs of clay,
their lower layers, as Dane knew from the inform tapes he had read,
baked into tile consistency but overlaying that other earth, which
was thickly studded with bulbs. In the spring those would bloom in
colorful array, and in the fall their seeds were carefully gathered and ground into a
powder that was the planet substitute for off-world caff.
For a world without any native dangers, or so Trewsworld had
been designated, Dane thought that the cluster of structures had
the appearance of a fort. The houses, their doors all opening on a
court within, were linked one to the next with clay walls again
planted with bulbs.
A smooth length of ground just outside the gate was the vehicle
park. There was a crawler drawn to one side and a smaller scooter,
which Dane would have thought too light to travel this rough and
roadless country. Meshler set down their flitter there.
The ranger swung out almost before the vibration of the motor
was stilled. Cupping his hands about his mouth, he gave a loud
hail.
“Ho, the house!”
It would seem that Cartl’s holding was as inexplicably
empty of life as the first two lathsmer fields had been. Then from
out of the wall before them a voice called thinly, “Name
yourself!”
Meshler threw back his hood so that his face could be clearly
seen.
“Wim Meshler, ranger. You know me.”
The voice did not answer. They stood waiting in the cold, Dane
holding the brach. Then the heavy door grated open only part
way.
“Come, and quickly!”
The urgency in that was enough to make Dane glance over his
shoulder. This place had all the marks of a fort under siege. But
who—or what—had driven the inhabitants to this
extremity? They had seen no living thing except the lathsmers,
though the wild fear of those had been a warning that all was not
well.
He crowded through the narrow space the gate had opened. Then
the man waiting there slammed the portal shut as if he expected
death itself to follow in upon their heels and dropped in place a
bar to lock it.
The householder was a tall man, wearing a shaggy coat loose
about his shoulders as a cloak, the empty sleeves flapping as he
moved. He was of a different racial stock than Meshler, being dark
of skin, as dark as Rip, his hair a wiry brush, as if encouraged to
stand so from his head.
He wore a shirt of lathsmer skin, the inner down left on, though
rubbed away here and there by the friction of use, belted in with a
wide belt that carried the customary two knives of the holdings
men, one at the fore for eating and general use, the ornamentally
sheathed one to the back as a sign of adulthood, to be used on the
now rare occasions of honor-feud.
His leggings and boots were of furred hide, and with the shaggy
coat he seemed as well “feathered” as his lathsmers.
But there was something new. In his hand he carried an old-time
projectile gun, such a weapon as Dane had seen only in museums on
Terra, or which was used on a few primitive worlds where blaster
charges were too expensive for importation and the settlers had
made their defenses of native materials.
“Meshler!” The man held out his hand, and the ranger
laid his beside it, so they clasped each other’s elbow in the
customary greeting.
“What’s going on?” demanded the ranger, not
introducing his greeter.
“Perhaps you can tell us,” returned the other as
sharply. “Or rather tell Jaycor’s widow. He got back
here last night just—And all he could tell us was a garbled
story about monsters and men. He had been inspecting the far fields
when they savaged him.”
“Savaged him?” echoed Meshler.
“Right enough. I never saw such wounds! We forted up when
we discovered the com was ng—interference! Kaysee took the
flitter to the port. But that was before we realized that Angria
and the children weren’t back! I tried to reach them via com
at Vanatar’s—no chance. Inditra and Forman took off in
the big hopper for there.” He spilled it in a rush of speech
as if he needed badly to tell someone. Meshler, who had kept the
arm grip, now cut into that flow.
“One thing at a time. Vanatar—then he is
establishing his holding at last?”
“Yes, they called us by com for a gathering to clear. I
had the shakes again, but Angria, Mabla, Carie, and the children
and Singi, Refal, Dronir, Lantgar—they all went in the
freight flitter. Kaysee had to make the west rounds, Jaycor the
east, and Inditra and Forman were setting up the new tooling shed.
And what will I tell Carie—Jaycor dead! We set for the noon news from the port day before yesterday. Got
only some story about criminals off a trader making trouble and
then—slam—interference. We haven’t been able to
get through since.
“Kaysee got back all right. But Jaycor was late. Then we
saw the crawler coming, weaving all over the place, as if it were
running on its own. It just about was. Jaycor was in the
driver’s seat, almost dead. He said something about men and
monsters out of the woods—then he was gone!
“We couldn’t use the com, so Kaysee said he’d
lift in to the port. Inditra and Forman got the hopper to working
and went off to Vanatar’s to see about the women. With these
damned shakes I was no good for anything. Ya, here they come
again!”
The tall man began to shudder violently and instantly Tau
stepped forward to steady him. “Vol fever!”
“Not quite,” Meshler returned. “It acts like
vol, but the reserbiotics won’t cure it. They haven’t
found anything that will yet. Maybe you can do something for
him.”
The shudders that ran through the overthin body of the settler
made him sway back and forth. His head rolled limply back, and he
might have fallen to the ground had not the ranger and the medic
held him up between them.
“Get him to bed and warm,” Tau said. “Reser
may not work, but warmth will help.”
They half led, half supported him between them to the middle
house opposite the gate, and Dane hastened ahead to throw open the
door.
That warmth was a remedy used by the settlers was plain, for
there was a blazing fire in the wide, deep fireplace, and before it
someone had pulled a cot with a tangle of thick blankets. They
lowered the man to this, and Tau packed him in a cocoon of
coverings, while Meshler went to a pot hanging on a rod that could
be swung around to lower it over the flames. He sniffed at the
steaming contents and picked up a cup from a nearby table and a
long-handled spoon, which he used to transfer some of the contents
of the pot into the cup.
“Esam brew,” he explained. “It’s hot
enough to warm up his insides. But he’s in for a stiff bout by the looks of
it.”
Tau braced up the well-covered man and, with Meshler’s aid, got a cupful of liquid down his throat. But when they
lowered him again, he seemed to have lapsed into
unconsciousness.
Dane set down the brach, who padded over to crouch in the full
heat of the fire. The alien gave such a sign of relief and pleasure
that Dane wondered how he had been able to stand the cold of most
of their wayfaring.
“He is the only one here?” Tau nodded at his
patient.
“The way he said it, yes. That’s Cartl. He must be
half crazy, what with the shakes and knowing he daren’t try
to reach the women himself. In this cold he would black out if he tried it.”
“This Vanatar—so there is another south
holding?” Dane asked.
“I knew Vanatar had been talking about coming for about
two years now but not that he had really decided. He must have made
up his mind in a hurry. Anyway, I’ve been on detached duty
and not on field patrol. Let’s see—”
He walked to the left wall, and when Dane followed him, the
Terran saw there was a map painted there. Portions with the more
or less regular lines of such fields as they had flown over were
colored yellow, the uncleared land gray. But to the east was the
edge of another set of boundaries, these dotted in as if not
permanent.
“Vanatar had this surveyed about five years ago.”
Meshler indicated the dotted area. “Then he was in two minds
about ever taking it up. It lies east and farther south.”
Dane examined the gray blot of the wilderness. Where in that was
the wood of the force field, the basin? Or was that area on this
map at all?
“Vanatar would have no defenses. And a
gathering—they would be spread out, working on field barriers
all over, women and children watching. If those monsters came at
them—” Meshler’s half-finished sentences needed
no clarification for Dane.
“Take our flitter and try to pick them up?” Tau
suggested as he joined them.
“Couldn’t take them all at one time,” but
Meshler was thinking about it.
“This com interference,” Dane asked, “how far
do you suppose it reaches?”
Meshler shrugged. “Who knows? At least when Kaysee gets to
the port, he can bring help.”
“There’s the LB,” Dane said. The LB with Rip
and Ali—and that box planted near. What if those for whom it had
been intended now knew where to look for it?
But Meshler misunderstood him. “You couldn’t fly
that. And besides, we have no way of contacting those on board her.
At any rate, they will have been taken back to port
already.”
“There’s something else.” Tau stood looking
intently at the ranger. “What did this Cartl say about
criminals off a spaceship? That sounds as if our men may be in
worse trouble than when we left. And this mess is of your making,
not ours! The sooner the authorities realize that, the
better.”
Meshler looked exasperated. “I know no more of what is
going on at the port than you do. What matters most is right here
and now. We’ve got to see about those people at
Vanatar’s. Have you tried that detect lately?”
What might lie behind that question Dane did not know, but Tau
unhooked the detect from his belt and pressed its button. And the
assistant cargo master was close enough to see that the needle
swung swiftly, not in a confined space between two of the markings,
but halfway around the dial, speeding between north and south
points in a whirl, as if it were drawn by two equal forces at
once.
“What does that mean?” demanded the ranger.
Tau turned it off, examined the box closely, then started it
again, holding it at a different angle. It was to no purpose, for
the needle still spun in the same direction as before, still as if
it were trying madly to record two different sources of radiation
at opposite ends of the compass.
“Can mean only two strong readings,” Tau
replied.
“Their box and perhaps the LB one!” Dane made a
guess. Could the radiation broadcast from the south have stimulated
that of the box they had buried to a higher output? If
so, how would that affect the LB? But Ali and Rip had had orders to
take those left behind in the escape craft into the port. Did it
mean they were still there, in the path of possible trouble?
“Could it pull”—Meshler still stood with his
hand on the Vanatar section of the wall map—“those
things to it?”
“Who knows? Both sources are strong,” was the
medic’s answer.
“There is something.” Dane was trying to remember a
conversation he had heard on the Queen. The com system had
been Ya’s duty, and all Dane knew were the basic fundamentals
of sending and receiving should the need he do so arise. But Ya had
been yarning once with Van Ryke, and he had said something about
being jammed by a jack ship and what they had done to get a signal
through for help. It had been a pulsating counter-jam, which
spelled out a crude message by ebb and flow. It was too technical
for him to try, but this holding had a com, and someone had to be
able not only to operate it but also to know enough to keep it in
expert repair.
“What?” Meshler was impatient.
“Something I
heard once. Who runs the com here?”
“Cartl mostly. He
was a tech at the port when he first came. Got enough planet credit
to take up this section. But the com’s no
good—or—we can see—” He crossed the room
swiftly to where a com board almost as complex as that of the
Queen was built into one corner. The crackle of answer
when he opened the beam was not so hard on the ears, but it was
steady.
“Still jammed.”
Dane looked now to the medic. “How sick is he? Could he
come around enough to try something with the com?”
“If this follows the vol fever pattern, he’ll be
pulling out in about four or five hours. He’ll be weak and
shaky then, but clear-headed enough. Trouble is I don’t know
how many bouts he’s had, and that makes a
difference.”
“He can’t do anything with the com anyway,”
Meshler protested. “Don’t you think he must have tried
earlier?”
“He tried only straight sending,” Dane answered.
“There’s counterinterference by pulsation. And if they
have someone with a keen ear on the receiving end at the
port—”
“Ya’s story about the Erguard!” Tau caught him
up. “You might have something at that. But we’ll have
to wait until he comes around.”
Meshler looked from one trader to the other. “You may know
what you are talking about. I don’t, but I don’t see
that we have much choice. I am not even sure I can locate
Vanatar’s holding site.”
From time to time the ranger tried the com,
only to meet the crackle of interference. But suddenly he indicated
an ice-edged river.
“The Veecorox!”
“You’ve seen that before?” inquired Tau.
Perhaps, thought Dane, the medic was now as uneasy as he over
their very vague route.
“An expedition got this far last year.” Meshler
settled back in the pilot’s seat with a relaxation that could
have been relief. The ranger must have been just as disturbed as they
about their unknown course.
“We have only to follow this to where the tributary, the
Corox, feeds in, then turn east. That is the beginning of
Cartl’s land.”
He banked the flitter and turned to follow the river. The land
under them showed no signs that men had ever ventured this far.
“Your southland is largely wilderness then,”
commented the medic.
“It is hard to clear land—to import machinery is
wasteful. We cannot keep bringing in fuel and techs to service the
machines or repair parts. And horses or duocorns from Astra or any
of the off-world draft animals do not do well here—not in
the first generation, anyway. They have been trying to breed some
at the Ag stations, to develop a strain that can live here without
being constantly cared for. There is a native insect, the tork fly,
which goes for their eyes. So far we haven’t been able to
build up any immunity in imports. There are no native animals that
can be used for heavy labor. The result is that the holdings have
machinery in community ownership and move the pieces from place to
place for clearing. Then in some dry seasons they try a burn-off;
only that must be controlled, which means an army of men on the
job.”
“So settlements have not advanced much since First
Ship,” commented Tau.
Dane saw the line along the ranger’s jaw tighten, as if he
were biting back some hot and hasty comment, and then Meshler
replied.
“Trewsworld’s done enough to keep autonomous. We
won’t go up for any resettlement auction, if that’s
what you mean.” Then he paused, looked to Tau, and Dane saw a
shade of worry on his face. “You think—that might be
it?”
“A chance, is it not?” Tau asked. “Suppose
what you have so hardly won could be lost, or even a part of it?
Enough so you could not claim autonomy any more?”
Dane understood. Any planet under pioneer settlement had to
grow, to show appreciable gains each year in size of population and
then in exports, or else the Grand Department of Immigration could
legally put it up for auction. Then if the settlers could not match an outside bid, they lost
all they had worked so hard to gain.
“But why?” asked Meshler. “We’re an Ag
planet. Anyone else here would face the very same difficulties we
have been fighting from the first. There’s nothing to attract
outsiders—no minerals worth that much for
exploiting—”
“What about the rock from the sealed compartment of the
prospectors’ crawler?” Dane asked. “They had
found something they thought rich enough to lock in. They were
killed, and that was taken. Perhaps there is more here on
Trewsworld than you know, Meshler.”
The ranger shook his head. “A mineral survey was run by
detect on second survey. There are normal amounts of iron, copper,
other ores, but nothing worth shipping off-world. We use what we
can ourselves. Besides, those men may not have been blasted for
what they carried but what they saw and the rock taken to confuse
us. You said the antline was roaming near there. They might have
run into a party trying to get it back.”
“Perfectly possible,” agreed Tau. “At the same
time, I would suggest that another minerals survey be
run—if you are left time to do it.”
“The basin camp,” Dane said, “was not a recent
setup. How long have the Trosti people been here?”
“Eight years—planet time.”
“And how about any new holdings cut in their direction
during that time?” Now Tau had given him the clue Dane was
groping for.
“Cartl—let’s see. Cartl had his clearing
gathering in the spring of ’24, before grass growth. And this
is ’29. He has the southmost holding.”
“Five years then. How about other holdings—east,
west, north?”
“North is too cold for lathsmers. They have only a couple
of experimental Ag stations north of the port,” Meshler
answered promptly. “East—Hancron. Hancron cleared in
’25. And west—that was Lansfeld. He was in
’26.”
“Three years since the last new clearing was established
then,” Tau commented. “And in the years before that,
how many?”
But Meshler, prodded by their questions, was already reckoning
the list, judging by his expression.
“Up to ’24 we had one, maybe two, sometimes three
new clearings a year. Had four emigrant ships come in ’23.
Only one since then, and its passengers were mainly techs and their
families to settle at the port. The push-out had
stopped.”
“And no one noticed?” Dane asked.
“If they did, there wasn’t any talk about it. Mostly
the holding people are self-sufficient and don’t come to the
port more than once or twice a year—just when they have cargo
to ship. There are five-six families to a holding under the signee
who puts up the bond. They use self-repair robos for light field
work, but robos of that size are no good for first clearing. Since
the lathsmer trade has begun, it’s been easier. You
don’t have to crop for the birds, just give them clear living
space and put in one or two fields of smes seeds for extra winter
food. They like the native insects and a couple of native berry
plants and thrive on them. The buyers think that’s what gives
them the unique flavor and makes them worth more. You can run
lathsmers on ground that has been only partly cleared and patrol
the field with robos to do the extra feeding. But it takes men and
women to pluck for the down for export—and that comes in the late
spring. Then they take the down, and it’s baled at the
port.”
“So you are getting to be a one-crop world?”
Again Meshler showed uneasiness at Tau’s question, as if
he might have drifted and never really thought of it before.
“No—well, maybe, yes. They raise lathsmers more and
more because they’re all that’s worth exporting. A
one-crop world and no new holdings—” The grim set of
his jaw was more pronounced now.
“I’m a ranger. It’s never been my concern to
do more than patrol, do some mapping and exploring, make the rounds
of the border holdings. But, the Council—someone must have
realized what was happening!”
“Undoubtedly,” Tau agreed. “It remains to be
seen if this situation wasn’t given impetus to go along on
just the road it has been traveling. You saw how those dragons
finished off the lathsmers—and they were developed via
radiation from the modern lathsmer embryos. Suppose one of those
horrors behind the force field, or that antline, were to overrun
the perching fields? Or one of those boxes be planted in some
outlying district to affect all the birds coming near
it—”
“The sooner we get to Cartl’s and the com
there,” said Meshler, “the better!” And the note
in his voice matched the set of his jaw.
It was not long before the river formed a vee with its
tributary, and Meshler turned the flitter to follow the smaller
stream, which was ice-roofed in places. A little later they crossed
the first of roughly cleared fields with a roost set up. But there
were no lathsmers. And the light skim of snow on the ground was
unmarked by tracks.
That first field fed into another, also bare of life. Meshler
turned the flitter and made a low run over the clearing.
“I don’t understand. These are breeding
fields—they are the main roosting sections.”
Once more he thumbed the com and sent out his futile call. But
the interference, though not as ear-torturingly loud, was still
present. He raised again to cruising level and sent the flitter
ahead at the highest rate of speed.
Two more fields—and in the last the birds were gathered,
black masses of them, milling about. When the shadow of the flitter
moved across them, they seemed to go mad with fear, rushing around,
some of the smaller ones trampled upon as they wheeled and
stretched their ineffectual wings, attempting to fly. The birds
made a dark heaving mass, and then the flitter was past.
“I suppose,” Tau said, “that such a gathering
as that is not natural.”
“No,” Meshler replied in a single curt
monosyllable.
There was a screen of one of those brush-woods and then more
fields, which had been more carefully cleared than those for the
lathsmers. Here the stubble of some kind of crop pricked through
the snow. The river made a long curve and in its bend was the
holding.
It was not a house but rather a series of houses and buildings
constructed in the form of a square. In the midst of that was a com
tower, set well above the outer walls, and bearing halfway up its
length the symbol that was Cartl’s brand, which would appear
on all he sold.
The houses were of stone blocks, but there were roofs of clay,
their lower layers, as Dane knew from the inform tapes he had read,
baked into tile consistency but overlaying that other earth, which
was thickly studded with bulbs. In the spring those would bloom in
colorful array, and in the fall their seeds were carefully gathered and ground into a
powder that was the planet substitute for off-world caff.
For a world without any native dangers, or so Trewsworld had
been designated, Dane thought that the cluster of structures had
the appearance of a fort. The houses, their doors all opening on a
court within, were linked one to the next with clay walls again
planted with bulbs.
A smooth length of ground just outside the gate was the vehicle
park. There was a crawler drawn to one side and a smaller scooter,
which Dane would have thought too light to travel this rough and
roadless country. Meshler set down their flitter there.
The ranger swung out almost before the vibration of the motor
was stilled. Cupping his hands about his mouth, he gave a loud
hail.
“Ho, the house!”
It would seem that Cartl’s holding was as inexplicably
empty of life as the first two lathsmer fields had been. Then from
out of the wall before them a voice called thinly, “Name
yourself!”
Meshler threw back his hood so that his face could be clearly
seen.
“Wim Meshler, ranger. You know me.”
The voice did not answer. They stood waiting in the cold, Dane
holding the brach. Then the heavy door grated open only part
way.
“Come, and quickly!”
The urgency in that was enough to make Dane glance over his
shoulder. This place had all the marks of a fort under siege. But
who—or what—had driven the inhabitants to this
extremity? They had seen no living thing except the lathsmers,
though the wild fear of those had been a warning that all was not
well.
He crowded through the narrow space the gate had opened. Then
the man waiting there slammed the portal shut as if he expected
death itself to follow in upon their heels and dropped in place a
bar to lock it.
The householder was a tall man, wearing a shaggy coat loose
about his shoulders as a cloak, the empty sleeves flapping as he
moved. He was of a different racial stock than Meshler, being dark
of skin, as dark as Rip, his hair a wiry brush, as if encouraged to
stand so from his head.
He wore a shirt of lathsmer skin, the inner down left on, though
rubbed away here and there by the friction of use, belted in with a
wide belt that carried the customary two knives of the holdings
men, one at the fore for eating and general use, the ornamentally
sheathed one to the back as a sign of adulthood, to be used on the
now rare occasions of honor-feud.
His leggings and boots were of furred hide, and with the shaggy
coat he seemed as well “feathered” as his lathsmers.
But there was something new. In his hand he carried an old-time
projectile gun, such a weapon as Dane had seen only in museums on
Terra, or which was used on a few primitive worlds where blaster
charges were too expensive for importation and the settlers had
made their defenses of native materials.
“Meshler!” The man held out his hand, and the ranger
laid his beside it, so they clasped each other’s elbow in the
customary greeting.
“What’s going on?” demanded the ranger, not
introducing his greeter.
“Perhaps you can tell us,” returned the other as
sharply. “Or rather tell Jaycor’s widow. He got back
here last night just—And all he could tell us was a garbled
story about monsters and men. He had been inspecting the far fields
when they savaged him.”
“Savaged him?” echoed Meshler.
“Right enough. I never saw such wounds! We forted up when
we discovered the com was ng—interference! Kaysee took the
flitter to the port. But that was before we realized that Angria
and the children weren’t back! I tried to reach them via com
at Vanatar’s—no chance. Inditra and Forman took off in
the big hopper for there.” He spilled it in a rush of speech
as if he needed badly to tell someone. Meshler, who had kept the
arm grip, now cut into that flow.
“One thing at a time. Vanatar—then he is
establishing his holding at last?”
“Yes, they called us by com for a gathering to clear. I
had the shakes again, but Angria, Mabla, Carie, and the children
and Singi, Refal, Dronir, Lantgar—they all went in the
freight flitter. Kaysee had to make the west rounds, Jaycor the
east, and Inditra and Forman were setting up the new tooling shed.
And what will I tell Carie—Jaycor dead! We set for the noon news from the port day before yesterday. Got
only some story about criminals off a trader making trouble and
then—slam—interference. We haven’t been able to
get through since.
“Kaysee got back all right. But Jaycor was late. Then we
saw the crawler coming, weaving all over the place, as if it were
running on its own. It just about was. Jaycor was in the
driver’s seat, almost dead. He said something about men and
monsters out of the woods—then he was gone!
“We couldn’t use the com, so Kaysee said he’d
lift in to the port. Inditra and Forman got the hopper to working
and went off to Vanatar’s to see about the women. With these
damned shakes I was no good for anything. Ya, here they come
again!”
The tall man began to shudder violently and instantly Tau
stepped forward to steady him. “Vol fever!”
“Not quite,” Meshler returned. “It acts like
vol, but the reserbiotics won’t cure it. They haven’t
found anything that will yet. Maybe you can do something for
him.”
The shudders that ran through the overthin body of the settler
made him sway back and forth. His head rolled limply back, and he
might have fallen to the ground had not the ranger and the medic
held him up between them.
“Get him to bed and warm,” Tau said. “Reser
may not work, but warmth will help.”
They half led, half supported him between them to the middle
house opposite the gate, and Dane hastened ahead to throw open the
door.
That warmth was a remedy used by the settlers was plain, for
there was a blazing fire in the wide, deep fireplace, and before it
someone had pulled a cot with a tangle of thick blankets. They
lowered the man to this, and Tau packed him in a cocoon of
coverings, while Meshler went to a pot hanging on a rod that could
be swung around to lower it over the flames. He sniffed at the
steaming contents and picked up a cup from a nearby table and a
long-handled spoon, which he used to transfer some of the contents
of the pot into the cup.
“Esam brew,” he explained. “It’s hot
enough to warm up his insides. But he’s in for a stiff bout by the looks of
it.”
Tau braced up the well-covered man and, with Meshler’s aid, got a cupful of liquid down his throat. But when they
lowered him again, he seemed to have lapsed into
unconsciousness.
Dane set down the brach, who padded over to crouch in the full
heat of the fire. The alien gave such a sign of relief and pleasure
that Dane wondered how he had been able to stand the cold of most
of their wayfaring.
“He is the only one here?” Tau nodded at his
patient.
“The way he said it, yes. That’s Cartl. He must be
half crazy, what with the shakes and knowing he daren’t try
to reach the women himself. In this cold he would black out if he tried it.”
“This Vanatar—so there is another south
holding?” Dane asked.
“I knew Vanatar had been talking about coming for about
two years now but not that he had really decided. He must have made
up his mind in a hurry. Anyway, I’ve been on detached duty
and not on field patrol. Let’s see—”
He walked to the left wall, and when Dane followed him, the
Terran saw there was a map painted there. Portions with the more
or less regular lines of such fields as they had flown over were
colored yellow, the uncleared land gray. But to the east was the
edge of another set of boundaries, these dotted in as if not
permanent.
“Vanatar had this surveyed about five years ago.”
Meshler indicated the dotted area. “Then he was in two minds
about ever taking it up. It lies east and farther south.”
Dane examined the gray blot of the wilderness. Where in that was
the wood of the force field, the basin? Or was that area on this
map at all?
“Vanatar would have no defenses. And a
gathering—they would be spread out, working on field barriers
all over, women and children watching. If those monsters came at
them—” Meshler’s half-finished sentences needed
no clarification for Dane.
“Take our flitter and try to pick them up?” Tau
suggested as he joined them.
“Couldn’t take them all at one time,” but
Meshler was thinking about it.
“This com interference,” Dane asked, “how far
do you suppose it reaches?”
Meshler shrugged. “Who knows? At least when Kaysee gets to
the port, he can bring help.”
“There’s the LB,” Dane said. The LB with Rip
and Ali—and that box planted near. What if those for whom it had
been intended now knew where to look for it?
But Meshler misunderstood him. “You couldn’t fly
that. And besides, we have no way of contacting those on board her.
At any rate, they will have been taken back to port
already.”
“There’s something else.” Tau stood looking
intently at the ranger. “What did this Cartl say about
criminals off a spaceship? That sounds as if our men may be in
worse trouble than when we left. And this mess is of your making,
not ours! The sooner the authorities realize that, the
better.”
Meshler looked exasperated. “I know no more of what is
going on at the port than you do. What matters most is right here
and now. We’ve got to see about those people at
Vanatar’s. Have you tried that detect lately?”
What might lie behind that question Dane did not know, but Tau
unhooked the detect from his belt and pressed its button. And the
assistant cargo master was close enough to see that the needle
swung swiftly, not in a confined space between two of the markings,
but halfway around the dial, speeding between north and south
points in a whirl, as if it were drawn by two equal forces at
once.
“What does that mean?” demanded the ranger.
Tau turned it off, examined the box closely, then started it
again, holding it at a different angle. It was to no purpose, for
the needle still spun in the same direction as before, still as if
it were trying madly to record two different sources of radiation
at opposite ends of the compass.
“Can mean only two strong readings,” Tau
replied.
“Their box and perhaps the LB one!” Dane made a
guess. Could the radiation broadcast from the south have stimulated
that of the box they had buried to a higher output? If
so, how would that affect the LB? But Ali and Rip had had orders to
take those left behind in the escape craft into the port. Did it
mean they were still there, in the path of possible trouble?
“Could it pull”—Meshler still stood with his
hand on the Vanatar section of the wall map—“those
things to it?”
“Who knows? Both sources are strong,” was the
medic’s answer.
“There is something.” Dane was trying to remember a
conversation he had heard on the Queen. The com system had
been Ya’s duty, and all Dane knew were the basic fundamentals
of sending and receiving should the need he do so arise. But Ya had
been yarning once with Van Ryke, and he had said something about
being jammed by a jack ship and what they had done to get a signal
through for help. It had been a pulsating counter-jam, which
spelled out a crude message by ebb and flow. It was too technical
for him to try, but this holding had a com, and someone had to be
able not only to operate it but also to know enough to keep it in
expert repair.
“What?” Meshler was impatient.
“Something I
heard once. Who runs the com here?”
“Cartl mostly. He
was a tech at the port when he first came. Got enough planet credit
to take up this section. But the com’s no
good—or—we can see—” He crossed the room
swiftly to where a com board almost as complex as that of the
Queen was built into one corner. The crackle of answer
when he opened the beam was not so hard on the ears, but it was
steady.
“Still jammed.”
Dane looked now to the medic. “How sick is he? Could he
come around enough to try something with the com?”
“If this follows the vol fever pattern, he’ll be
pulling out in about four or five hours. He’ll be weak and
shaky then, but clear-headed enough. Trouble is I don’t know
how many bouts he’s had, and that makes a
difference.”
“He can’t do anything with the com anyway,”
Meshler protested. “Don’t you think he must have tried
earlier?”
“He tried only straight sending,” Dane answered.
“There’s counterinterference by pulsation. And if they
have someone with a keen ear on the receiving end at the
port—”
“Ya’s story about the Erguard!” Tau caught him
up. “You might have something at that. But we’ll have
to wait until he comes around.”
Meshler looked from one trader to the other. “You may know
what you are talking about. I don’t, but I don’t see
that we have much choice. I am not even sure I can locate
Vanatar’s holding site.”