The short corridor and the brach cage flashed
into view. The brach was on its feet, its head turning from side to
side as if in search of something. Then, showing more intense
emotion than Dane would have thought possible for those notoriously
amiable creatures, it flung itself at the door of the cage, grasped
bar and netting with its paws, and shook them vigorously, as if by
that exertion it could tear its way to liberty.
However, its frenzy did not last long. After a moment or two of
battering, it squatted back on its haunches, its gaze fixed on the
immovable barrier. Its attitude was, Dane thought, if he did not
know that was impossible, that of an intelligent consideration of
the situation, a pause to plan.
It approached the barrier opening again, inserted one paw as far
as it could through the open spaces, and explored by touch the new
fastening. In those seconds of watching, Dane was converted to the
idea he had dismissed so summarily after he had gone over the
records a second time. The brach had controlled its first reactions
of fear or rage or both and was now exploring the possibility of
again mastering the locks that held it prisoner.
Mutant? But if so, the Norax people had defaulted on their
permissions, and they were too well established a foundation to try
anything of the sort. Also, if these had come from the Norax lab,
there was no reason why the techs there should not know they were
super-super brains of their species. It left one possible
explanation: that, in spite of the records, these were not Norax
animals but part of a carefully planned deception, as elaborately
set up as the intrusion of the dead stranger. The brach and
him—was that the combination they should investigate?
Having run its paws over the fastening and been frustrated by the lock there, the brach squatted very still, staring
straight at the door that cut it off from freedom. Then, as if it
had made up its mind, it turned resolutely to the back of the cage
and, using the nose horn, pried up a portion of the soft covering
over the floor, thick and padded, devised to protect the animals
against ship acceleration and hyper jump. It disclosed a place
where one of the wires had been rooted up and broken off.
Pick-lock—this was where it had gotten the pick-lock!
Dane watched in fascination. Was it going to try the same thing
again? Apparently so, for it strained and pushed the nose horn into
the already frayed hole, jerking its head up and down to wear away
the stubborn wire. It worked steadily, with a concentration and
determination Dane had heretofore equated only with his own scale
of life.
At last it had broken off a longer section of the wire. Was that
by chance, or did it actually understand that the present lock was
farther from its reach than the one it had mastered and that it
needed more wire to touch it?
Approaching the door again, it poked the wire through, strove to
manipulate the new locking bar, and immediately dropped the wire,
leaping away with an upward toss of its head as if both alarmed and
hurt. Dane knew that it had received a mild shock rigged to prevent
just such action.
Again it squatted, drawn in tightly, shaking its paw. Then,
holding it tight to its chest, it extended a pale tongue and licked
the clawed digits as if to soothe them, though Dane knew that the
shock was mild, for a warning, and would not hurt. They had
certainly now seen enough to know they were dealing with no
ordinary brach.
“Captain!” The com gave out Tau’s call.
“Sick bay if you please!”
What now? Dane got up. Tau had called for the captain, but if
there was some difficulty about the female brach, it was his
responsibility, she being part of the cargo under his nominal
control. He was going, too.
Jellico was already in the sick bay as Dane came to the door.
But neither he nor the medic looked up as the assistant cargo
master joined them. They were gazing down rather at an improvised
nest in which lay the female brach, inert, so that for an anxious
moment or two Dane thought she was dead. There were two small
bundles of fur lifting small heads high. Though their eyes were closed, their noses were
sniffing as if they were trying to scent some necessary odor.
Dane had seen two very young kits at the lab on Xecho when he
had gone to make the arrangements for shipping the pair, but he had
not seen them this young. Still, compared with the adult brach they
were now nosing, there was something odd about them.
“Mutants?” Was Jellico asking that question of
himself or of Tau. “They—well, maybe just after birth
they—”
“See here.” Tau turned, not to the squirming kits
but to a box set at one end of the nest. There was a dial on its
surface, and there a needle swung back and forth. “Radiation,
radiation. And I can’t swear to their being mutants, but it
is plain that they do differ from their mother in some ways. There
is a bigger brain casing—and they are remarkably alert and
active for just-born kits. I’m no vet, and I don’t know
too much except the general information, but I’d say that
they are very well developed for premature births, and they are off
their general species pattern.”
“Radiation!” Dane caught the word that meant the
most to him. He was not given to many flashes of foreboding,
insight, or what the emotion might be named that struck him now,
but he was sure of disaster. Without another look at the newborn
brach he demanded of Tau, “Is that portable?” He
pointed to the box in the nest.
“Why?”
But the captain had seemingly caught Dane’s train
of thought. “If it isn’t, we’ll
have one that is!” He laid hand on the box while the medic
stared at them as if they had suddenly developed space fever.
Then Jellico was at the com. “Ya, bring down a planet-side
detect!”
With that Tau understood. “Radiation—in the ship!
But—”
There were no buts about it as far as Dane was concerned. If
what he suspected was true, then all the bits of the puzzle began
to fall into place. The stranger would have brought it aboard,
hidden it too well for their first search of the treasure hold,
and—as Jellico had pointed out—the brach cage was above
that.
Now he asked of Tau, “Damaging to the crew?”
“No. I tested for that, though maybe the brachs should be
put in isolation. This beam is off the known scale—”
“But what of the lathsmer embryos?” Again
Dane’s speculation followed a logical course, and he was on
his way to the treasure hold without waiting to hear Tau’s
reply.
He pried off the seal he had thought such a protection for their
cargo just as the captain arrived, Tau, Shannon, and Ya behind
Jellico. Ya held the box meant to be carried on the belt of a
planet-side explorer. Tau took it from him and made some
adjustment. He had no more than done so when its tell-tale needle
began the same swing as the one in sick bay.
They entered the hold. It took only seconds for the detect to
show that what they hunted did lie in the direction of the embryo
boxes—not among them, nor behind them where they had
painstakingly searched earlier, but overhead. Dane jerked out some
of the shelf panels not in use and, with that for a ladder, climbed
above the containers. Jellico handed him the detect.
It registered wildly at a point on the ceiling, and this close
Dane could see scratches there.
“Behind here.” He passed down the detect and brought
out a small cutter from a belt sling. Not trying to be gentle about
the plate, he set to work to pry loose the section that must have
been cut out and reset. He gouged at it until it loosened and fell
out. There was a pocket there just large enough to hold a box, the
box the probe had recalled to his mind.
“Don’t touch it with your bare hand!” Tau
warned. “Wait for a suit glove.”
Rip disappeared to get one, and Dane examined the recess more
carefully. The box did not rest on any shelf or hanger. It
apparently adhered or was in some way fastened to the ship’s
plates. Without the detect, they would not have found it. As hasty
as the cutting and reclosing of the opening had been, it was
skillfully done.
Rip returned, holding up one of the clumsy, well-insulated
gloves he had unscrewed from a space suit. Dane wriggled his hand
into that and reached up to the box. It adhered all right, as if it
had been welded to the metal. For a while as he jerked and pulled,
tried to slip it back and forth, he thought they would have to bring a cutting torch to get it
loose, perhaps irreparably damaging what it held.
Finally, as he gave it a last corkscrew twist, it came loose,
and he brought it out of the hole, holding it well away as he
dropped to the deck.
“Get Stotz on this with you,” Jellico told Ya.
“We don’t know what it is, but don’t take any
chances.”
Dane laid it on the deck well away from any cargo, slipped off
the glove for Ya to take in turn, and watched the com-tech carry
the find out, its destination Stotz’s workroom.
He no longer worried about the box. It was the condition of the
embryos. If the radiation through the decking had had such an
effect upon the brachs, what about their most precious cargo? Again
Jellico was with him.
“Scanning or sensor examination?” The captain walked
around the sealed container, frowning.
“Scanner and sensor both,” Tau replied promptly.
“I have their correct reading on file. It will be easy to
compare.”
“Was this aimed at the brachs, the lathsmers, or was it
only chance?” Dane asked, though he knew they had no answers
for him.
“Not chance!” The captain seemed very sure of that.
“If all that was wanted was transportation for that thing, he
could have more easily hidden it in your cabin. No, it was put here
for a purpose. And I’m inclined to believe it was aimed at
the lathsmers.”
With that Jellico faced the worst. They had the contract for the
mail run, but to have cargo spoilage of such a nature on their
first trip might mean blacklisting for the Queen. If they
had not discovered the box in time, if radiation-treated lathsmers
had been delivered to the settlers who had paid a small fortune for
the embryos—? Dane, back at his files, looked into a bleak
future. They might find themselves responsible for replacing a
cargo worth more than any year’s profit. And the
Queen was not prepared to take such a loss. If they could
borrow, to be in debt would automatically break their mail
contract, and the result would be ferrying jobs, risky and
unrewarding for just as long as they could keep up payments.
I-S? It was the first answer that came to mind. But the
Queen was so unimportant as far as Inter-Solar was
concerned. Sure, they had ruined two I-S plays. But for a company to go to so much trouble for revenge on a Free Trader—he
could not agree to that solution.
Dane could not help believing that the answer lay on Trewsworld.
The man wearing his face must have intended to land there. And the
box—maybe the captain was wrong and the placing of the box
was only by chance. They only needed Tau’s report on the
state of the embryos to know the extent of disaster.
The medic did not hurry to give that. He shut himself up in his
lab and was left alone—the crew waiting restlessly for his
verdict.
Stotz, always slow and sure, had his report first. The box could
not be opened, short of disintegration, and it was the source of
steady radiation. When he asked for permission to breach it by
force, Jellico refused. Instead Ali suited up, went to the fin end
of the Queen, and planted the thing against the outer hull
of the ship, where it could do, the engineers decided, the least
harm.
When Tau did at last get on the com, it was not to give them any
answers but rather ask for certain of the captain’s
collection of xenobiological tapes and a reader. Dane delivered
those and caught only a glimpse of the medic as he opened his door
long enough to snatch the material. Then he closed that portal
firmly in the cargo master’s face.
They were close to the time to come out of hyper run when Mura
called Jellico to look at the male brach. Dane, following, saw the
steward and the captain kneeling in the corridor, registering
concern.
The animal, which had earlier shown such a determined and
intelligent desire to get free, was now balled in the far corner of
the cage. Untouched food and water were cupped in the feeder. The
sheen that had lightened its body fluff was gone, and that was
matted about its nose as if it had not tried for some time to clean
itself. Nor did it rouse when Mura chirped to it and showed it a
juicy stalk of renton leaves through the bars.
“Tau had better have a look at it,” Jellico
said.
Mura was already loosing the extra safeguards on the cage door.
He had that half open and was stretching in a gentle hand to grasp
the plainly sick animal when the brach came to life. The nose horn
flashed, and Mura, with an exclamation, jerked back a hand on which
blood ran. Then there was a scurry, and the brach was out, showing such speed as
to avoid them in a way Dane had never seen before.
He ran after it, only to find it at last crouched at the door of
the sick bay, using both its horn and its less strong claws in a
fruitless attempt to force an entrance there.
Its purpose so consumed it that it did not seem aware of
Dane’s arrival until he tried to catch hold of it. Then it
whirled about and slashed with its horn at his hands, much as it
had wounded Mura. It stood on its hind feet, its back to the door
it had tried to open, its eyes wild and showing red. Now it began a
low, chittering noise, the sounds divided almost, Dane thought, as
if it spoke the words of some unknown language.
“The female.” Mura came up nursing his torn hand.
“It wants to reach the female.”
At that moment the door was pushed aside, Tau standing there.
The brach was ready, speeding past the medic before the latter was
aware of what was going on. As Dane and Jellico pushed forward,
they had a glimpse of the brach leaning over the nest box. Now that
chittering sound softened. The brach balanced uncomfortably with a
third of his small body leaning over the rim, his forepaws
stretched down as if it were trying to embrace his mate.
“Better get him,” began the captain, but Tau shook
his head.
“Let them alone for now. She’s been very restless.
Now she’s quieted down. And we don’t want to lose her,
too—”
“Too?” questioned Jellico. “The kits
then?”
“No. The lathsmer. Look here.” He motioned them to
the left, well away from the family reunion by the box. There was a
viewer on the table, and the medic triggered it. On its small
screen flashed a picture, a very vivid one. “That’s the
present state of the embryo I snooped. Do you
understand?”
The captain put his hands on the table and leaned closer to the
screen, as if that picture had some vital message. What it did show
was a reptile-like creature coiled in a tight package from which it
was difficult to separate legs, long neck, small head, or any other
portion clearly.
“That’s no lathsmer!”
“No, not a modern one. But see here—” Now Tau
switched on a record reader, and the tiny, very exact picture it
showed was that of a reptilian creature with a long neck, small head,
batlike wings, a long tail, and rather weak-appearing legs, as if
it depended more upon those wings than upon limbs for a mode of
transportation.
“That was a lathsmer ancestor,” the medic announced.
“No one is sure how many thousand planet years ago. It ceased
to exist, as far as our records run, about the time our own
ancestors stood reasonably erect and began to use a handy rock for
a weapon. We don’t have embryos of lathsmers; we have
something out of a time so remote that our specialists can’t
date it.”
“But how?” Dane was bewildered. The embryos
according to his records were of perfectly normal breeding stock of
the most recent well-established mutations, guaranteed to keep on
producing the strain without fault. How had they suddenly become
these—these dragon things?
“Retrogression!” Jellico stared from one picture to
the other.
“Yes,” Tau replied. “But how?”
“All of them so affected?” Dane went on to the most
important question for him, the present state of the cargo.
“We’ll have to test.” But Tau’s tone
was unpromising.
“I don’t understand.” Dane glanced at the
brachs. “You say the embryos retrogressed. But if the
intelligence of the brachs increased—”
“That is so.” Jellico straightened up. “If the
radiation worked one way on these, why a different reaction with
the brachs?”
“There could be several reasons. The embryos are just
that, not yet completely formed. The brachs were adult creatures
when they were exposed.”
Dane had another flash of speculation. “Could the brachs
have once been a higher type of life? Could they have already
retrogressed, so that now they are returned to an intelligent
species?”
Tau ran his hands through his short hair. “”We could
have half a dozen answers, and we can’t confirm any without
the proper equipment. We’ll have to leave that up to the lab
techs when we planet.”
“But can we?” Jellico absently rubbed the blaster
scar on his cheek. “I think we may be in no position to wait
upon the opinion of experts, not with settlers who have
invested their life savings waiting for lathsmer embryos. Thorson, what
was the agreed shipping date for those on the invoices?”
“When transport was possible,” Dane replied
promptly.
“When possible, no guaranteed date of arrival. Therefore,
they could assume that the embryos might come in on the next
trip.”
“We can’t hide those boxes,” Tau objected.
“No, not with customs coming on board at setdown. At the
same time, this situation is such that I want to appeal to the
Board of Trade before I make any other statements.”
“You think deliberate sabotage—the I-S, sir?”
Dane asked.
“Oddly enough, no. If the I-S saw a chance to score off us
in passing, they might do it. But too much planning has gone into
this. I think the roots lie on Trewsworld, and I want to know more,
much more, before we are any deeper in than we are now. If we show
up without the embryo boxes and the brachs, there may or may not be
unusual interest shown. That will be our clue to who is behind
this, who might protest too loudly if we land without the expected
cargo and what they had rigged on board.”
“Not jetsam!” Dane protested.
“Not in space, no. But Trewsworld is not a thickly
populated world. There is only one main spaceport, and our cargo is
consigned there. There will be no sky search if we follow a regular
orbit in. So, we load the embryos and the brachs on a lifeboat and
set that down in an uninhabited section. Van Ryke, if I can contact
him, will have friends on the board. Anyway, I shall ask for a
local hearing—in confidence.”
But he said nothing of going to the Patrol, Dane noted, spoke
only of the one authority the Free Traders could appeal to, which
must mean he wanted none of the formal law until he was sure they
had a defense. But a defense against what? As it stood, all of them
could go into deep probe and prove their innocence, if that drastic
step was needed. It must be that Jellico believed they were in some
way involved past the point that even a probe reading could clear
them.
“Who takes down the LB?” Tau asked.
Jellico looked to Dane first. “If anyone is expecting your
double, he or they won’t follow the planned orbit set if you
walk out of the Queen on landing. We have a dead man on
board. He might just as well be the one he claimed to be for a time—Dane Thorson. And we can spare a couple of
juniors—Shannon for your pilot—though the LB will home
in on automatics, so you won’t need to set a course—and
Kamil in charge of that infernal box. I want that out of the ship,
too, before we fin in at the port. Wilcox will chart you a course
that will take you away from any settlement. You’ll take a
beacon with you and set it on the Queen’s frequency.
Wait a couple of days—then turn it on. We’ll contact
you when we can.”
He turned back to Tau. “What about those embryos? Any of
them near decanting time?”
“No way of telling.”
“Then the sooner we get rid of them, the better. Mura, get
E rations, plus whatever the brachs eat. The LB will be
crowded.” Jellico spoke again to Dane. “But your ride
down won’t take long.”
Dane culled his own belongings, hoping he was making the right
choices as to what he would need. Trewsworld was Terran climate,
but it was an untamed world, save for the settlers’ holdings
spreading out slowly from the port. He took an extra change of
clothing in a jump bag, strapped on a belt with the number of small
tools carried by a scout, and made sure he had extra charges for
his stunner.
As he loaded it, he thought of the brach.
Intelligence—retrogressed to a higher form of intelligence? But
that would mean the brachs were not really animals at all! The crew
of the Queen had had one close encounter with ancient
Forerunner remains when they had raised the sum to buy at auction
trading rights to Limbo.
And Limbo, though partly burned off in some galactic
war—traces of which Terran explorers had come across again
and again during their travels—had also held a secret that
had been as potent in the present day as when its long-vanished
makers had first put it into action. There had been a force,
operated from a headquarters deep under the planet surface, that
had reached into the deeps of space to draw to it any ship
venturing within range, so that its half-devastated surface was
packed with the wrecks of vessels for centuries of time.
Though modern pirates had found it, made it more predictable, it
had been operating on its own for a long time before their coming.
Of those who had set it as a defense or assault weapon, no real trace had been left. They had never
found a tomb, a space-frozen derelict with bodies on board, any
trace of the Forerunners to learn what they had been like. Humanoid
or wholly alien—it was any man’s guess. However, if the
brachs had come to the animal state but had once been intelligent,
could they now have on board one answer to the Forerunner
riddle?
If that were true—Dane’s thoughts leaped—then
all the damage done to the embryos was unimportant. The brachs were
priceless treasures and ones that the scientists would give much to
have. But he could not believe the brachs had been the targets of
the man who had planted the box on the Queen. He might
have meant to destroy the lathsmers, but the opposite effect on the
brachs came from the accidental placing of their cage on just the
right spot and could not have been foreseen.
The short corridor and the brach cage flashed
into view. The brach was on its feet, its head turning from side to
side as if in search of something. Then, showing more intense
emotion than Dane would have thought possible for those notoriously
amiable creatures, it flung itself at the door of the cage, grasped
bar and netting with its paws, and shook them vigorously, as if by
that exertion it could tear its way to liberty.
However, its frenzy did not last long. After a moment or two of
battering, it squatted back on its haunches, its gaze fixed on the
immovable barrier. Its attitude was, Dane thought, if he did not
know that was impossible, that of an intelligent consideration of
the situation, a pause to plan.
It approached the barrier opening again, inserted one paw as far
as it could through the open spaces, and explored by touch the new
fastening. In those seconds of watching, Dane was converted to the
idea he had dismissed so summarily after he had gone over the
records a second time. The brach had controlled its first reactions
of fear or rage or both and was now exploring the possibility of
again mastering the locks that held it prisoner.
Mutant? But if so, the Norax people had defaulted on their
permissions, and they were too well established a foundation to try
anything of the sort. Also, if these had come from the Norax lab,
there was no reason why the techs there should not know they were
super-super brains of their species. It left one possible
explanation: that, in spite of the records, these were not Norax
animals but part of a carefully planned deception, as elaborately
set up as the intrusion of the dead stranger. The brach and
him—was that the combination they should investigate?
Having run its paws over the fastening and been frustrated by the lock there, the brach squatted very still, staring
straight at the door that cut it off from freedom. Then, as if it
had made up its mind, it turned resolutely to the back of the cage
and, using the nose horn, pried up a portion of the soft covering
over the floor, thick and padded, devised to protect the animals
against ship acceleration and hyper jump. It disclosed a place
where one of the wires had been rooted up and broken off.
Pick-lock—this was where it had gotten the pick-lock!
Dane watched in fascination. Was it going to try the same thing
again? Apparently so, for it strained and pushed the nose horn into
the already frayed hole, jerking its head up and down to wear away
the stubborn wire. It worked steadily, with a concentration and
determination Dane had heretofore equated only with his own scale
of life.
At last it had broken off a longer section of the wire. Was that
by chance, or did it actually understand that the present lock was
farther from its reach than the one it had mastered and that it
needed more wire to touch it?
Approaching the door again, it poked the wire through, strove to
manipulate the new locking bar, and immediately dropped the wire,
leaping away with an upward toss of its head as if both alarmed and
hurt. Dane knew that it had received a mild shock rigged to prevent
just such action.
Again it squatted, drawn in tightly, shaking its paw. Then,
holding it tight to its chest, it extended a pale tongue and licked
the clawed digits as if to soothe them, though Dane knew that the
shock was mild, for a warning, and would not hurt. They had
certainly now seen enough to know they were dealing with no
ordinary brach.
“Captain!” The com gave out Tau’s call.
“Sick bay if you please!”
What now? Dane got up. Tau had called for the captain, but if
there was some difficulty about the female brach, it was his
responsibility, she being part of the cargo under his nominal
control. He was going, too.
Jellico was already in the sick bay as Dane came to the door.
But neither he nor the medic looked up as the assistant cargo
master joined them. They were gazing down rather at an improvised
nest in which lay the female brach, inert, so that for an anxious
moment or two Dane thought she was dead. There were two small
bundles of fur lifting small heads high. Though their eyes were closed, their noses were
sniffing as if they were trying to scent some necessary odor.
Dane had seen two very young kits at the lab on Xecho when he
had gone to make the arrangements for shipping the pair, but he had
not seen them this young. Still, compared with the adult brach they
were now nosing, there was something odd about them.
“Mutants?” Was Jellico asking that question of
himself or of Tau. “They—well, maybe just after birth
they—”
“See here.” Tau turned, not to the squirming kits
but to a box set at one end of the nest. There was a dial on its
surface, and there a needle swung back and forth. “Radiation,
radiation. And I can’t swear to their being mutants, but it
is plain that they do differ from their mother in some ways. There
is a bigger brain casing—and they are remarkably alert and
active for just-born kits. I’m no vet, and I don’t know
too much except the general information, but I’d say that
they are very well developed for premature births, and they are off
their general species pattern.”
“Radiation!” Dane caught the word that meant the
most to him. He was not given to many flashes of foreboding,
insight, or what the emotion might be named that struck him now,
but he was sure of disaster. Without another look at the newborn
brach he demanded of Tau, “Is that portable?” He
pointed to the box in the nest.
“Why?”
But the captain had seemingly caught Dane’s train
of thought. “If it isn’t, we’ll
have one that is!” He laid hand on the box while the medic
stared at them as if they had suddenly developed space fever.
Then Jellico was at the com. “Ya, bring down a planet-side
detect!”
With that Tau understood. “Radiation—in the ship!
But—”
There were no buts about it as far as Dane was concerned. If
what he suspected was true, then all the bits of the puzzle began
to fall into place. The stranger would have brought it aboard,
hidden it too well for their first search of the treasure hold,
and—as Jellico had pointed out—the brach cage was above
that.
Now he asked of Tau, “Damaging to the crew?”
“No. I tested for that, though maybe the brachs should be
put in isolation. This beam is off the known scale—”
“But what of the lathsmer embryos?” Again
Dane’s speculation followed a logical course, and he was on
his way to the treasure hold without waiting to hear Tau’s
reply.
He pried off the seal he had thought such a protection for their
cargo just as the captain arrived, Tau, Shannon, and Ya behind
Jellico. Ya held the box meant to be carried on the belt of a
planet-side explorer. Tau took it from him and made some
adjustment. He had no more than done so when its tell-tale needle
began the same swing as the one in sick bay.
They entered the hold. It took only seconds for the detect to
show that what they hunted did lie in the direction of the embryo
boxes—not among them, nor behind them where they had
painstakingly searched earlier, but overhead. Dane jerked out some
of the shelf panels not in use and, with that for a ladder, climbed
above the containers. Jellico handed him the detect.
It registered wildly at a point on the ceiling, and this close
Dane could see scratches there.
“Behind here.” He passed down the detect and brought
out a small cutter from a belt sling. Not trying to be gentle about
the plate, he set to work to pry loose the section that must have
been cut out and reset. He gouged at it until it loosened and fell
out. There was a pocket there just large enough to hold a box, the
box the probe had recalled to his mind.
“Don’t touch it with your bare hand!” Tau
warned. “Wait for a suit glove.”
Rip disappeared to get one, and Dane examined the recess more
carefully. The box did not rest on any shelf or hanger. It
apparently adhered or was in some way fastened to the ship’s
plates. Without the detect, they would not have found it. As hasty
as the cutting and reclosing of the opening had been, it was
skillfully done.
Rip returned, holding up one of the clumsy, well-insulated
gloves he had unscrewed from a space suit. Dane wriggled his hand
into that and reached up to the box. It adhered all right, as if it
had been welded to the metal. For a while as he jerked and pulled,
tried to slip it back and forth, he thought they would have to bring a cutting torch to get it
loose, perhaps irreparably damaging what it held.
Finally, as he gave it a last corkscrew twist, it came loose,
and he brought it out of the hole, holding it well away as he
dropped to the deck.
“Get Stotz on this with you,” Jellico told Ya.
“We don’t know what it is, but don’t take any
chances.”
Dane laid it on the deck well away from any cargo, slipped off
the glove for Ya to take in turn, and watched the com-tech carry
the find out, its destination Stotz’s workroom.
He no longer worried about the box. It was the condition of the
embryos. If the radiation through the decking had had such an
effect upon the brachs, what about their most precious cargo? Again
Jellico was with him.
“Scanning or sensor examination?” The captain walked
around the sealed container, frowning.
“Scanner and sensor both,” Tau replied promptly.
“I have their correct reading on file. It will be easy to
compare.”
“Was this aimed at the brachs, the lathsmers, or was it
only chance?” Dane asked, though he knew they had no answers
for him.
“Not chance!” The captain seemed very sure of that.
“If all that was wanted was transportation for that thing, he
could have more easily hidden it in your cabin. No, it was put here
for a purpose. And I’m inclined to believe it was aimed at
the lathsmers.”
With that Jellico faced the worst. They had the contract for the
mail run, but to have cargo spoilage of such a nature on their
first trip might mean blacklisting for the Queen. If they
had not discovered the box in time, if radiation-treated lathsmers
had been delivered to the settlers who had paid a small fortune for
the embryos—? Dane, back at his files, looked into a bleak
future. They might find themselves responsible for replacing a
cargo worth more than any year’s profit. And the
Queen was not prepared to take such a loss. If they could
borrow, to be in debt would automatically break their mail
contract, and the result would be ferrying jobs, risky and
unrewarding for just as long as they could keep up payments.
I-S? It was the first answer that came to mind. But the
Queen was so unimportant as far as Inter-Solar was
concerned. Sure, they had ruined two I-S plays. But for a company to go to so much trouble for revenge on a Free Trader—he
could not agree to that solution.
Dane could not help believing that the answer lay on Trewsworld.
The man wearing his face must have intended to land there. And the
box—maybe the captain was wrong and the placing of the box
was only by chance. They only needed Tau’s report on the
state of the embryos to know the extent of disaster.
The medic did not hurry to give that. He shut himself up in his
lab and was left alone—the crew waiting restlessly for his
verdict.
Stotz, always slow and sure, had his report first. The box could
not be opened, short of disintegration, and it was the source of
steady radiation. When he asked for permission to breach it by
force, Jellico refused. Instead Ali suited up, went to the fin end
of the Queen, and planted the thing against the outer hull
of the ship, where it could do, the engineers decided, the least
harm.
When Tau did at last get on the com, it was not to give them any
answers but rather ask for certain of the captain’s
collection of xenobiological tapes and a reader. Dane delivered
those and caught only a glimpse of the medic as he opened his door
long enough to snatch the material. Then he closed that portal
firmly in the cargo master’s face.
They were close to the time to come out of hyper run when Mura
called Jellico to look at the male brach. Dane, following, saw the
steward and the captain kneeling in the corridor, registering
concern.
The animal, which had earlier shown such a determined and
intelligent desire to get free, was now balled in the far corner of
the cage. Untouched food and water were cupped in the feeder. The
sheen that had lightened its body fluff was gone, and that was
matted about its nose as if it had not tried for some time to clean
itself. Nor did it rouse when Mura chirped to it and showed it a
juicy stalk of renton leaves through the bars.
“Tau had better have a look at it,” Jellico
said.
Mura was already loosing the extra safeguards on the cage door.
He had that half open and was stretching in a gentle hand to grasp
the plainly sick animal when the brach came to life. The nose horn
flashed, and Mura, with an exclamation, jerked back a hand on which
blood ran. Then there was a scurry, and the brach was out, showing such speed as
to avoid them in a way Dane had never seen before.
He ran after it, only to find it at last crouched at the door of
the sick bay, using both its horn and its less strong claws in a
fruitless attempt to force an entrance there.
Its purpose so consumed it that it did not seem aware of
Dane’s arrival until he tried to catch hold of it. Then it
whirled about and slashed with its horn at his hands, much as it
had wounded Mura. It stood on its hind feet, its back to the door
it had tried to open, its eyes wild and showing red. Now it began a
low, chittering noise, the sounds divided almost, Dane thought, as
if it spoke the words of some unknown language.
“The female.” Mura came up nursing his torn hand.
“It wants to reach the female.”
At that moment the door was pushed aside, Tau standing there.
The brach was ready, speeding past the medic before the latter was
aware of what was going on. As Dane and Jellico pushed forward,
they had a glimpse of the brach leaning over the nest box. Now that
chittering sound softened. The brach balanced uncomfortably with a
third of his small body leaning over the rim, his forepaws
stretched down as if it were trying to embrace his mate.
“Better get him,” began the captain, but Tau shook
his head.
“Let them alone for now. She’s been very restless.
Now she’s quieted down. And we don’t want to lose her,
too—”
“Too?” questioned Jellico. “The kits
then?”
“No. The lathsmer. Look here.” He motioned them to
the left, well away from the family reunion by the box. There was a
viewer on the table, and the medic triggered it. On its small
screen flashed a picture, a very vivid one. “That’s the
present state of the embryo I snooped. Do you
understand?”
The captain put his hands on the table and leaned closer to the
screen, as if that picture had some vital message. What it did show
was a reptile-like creature coiled in a tight package from which it
was difficult to separate legs, long neck, small head, or any other
portion clearly.
“That’s no lathsmer!”
“No, not a modern one. But see here—” Now Tau
switched on a record reader, and the tiny, very exact picture it
showed was that of a reptilian creature with a long neck, small head,
batlike wings, a long tail, and rather weak-appearing legs, as if
it depended more upon those wings than upon limbs for a mode of
transportation.
“That was a lathsmer ancestor,” the medic announced.
“No one is sure how many thousand planet years ago. It ceased
to exist, as far as our records run, about the time our own
ancestors stood reasonably erect and began to use a handy rock for
a weapon. We don’t have embryos of lathsmers; we have
something out of a time so remote that our specialists can’t
date it.”
“But how?” Dane was bewildered. The embryos
according to his records were of perfectly normal breeding stock of
the most recent well-established mutations, guaranteed to keep on
producing the strain without fault. How had they suddenly become
these—these dragon things?
“Retrogression!” Jellico stared from one picture to
the other.
“Yes,” Tau replied. “But how?”
“All of them so affected?” Dane went on to the most
important question for him, the present state of the cargo.
“We’ll have to test.” But Tau’s tone
was unpromising.
“I don’t understand.” Dane glanced at the
brachs. “You say the embryos retrogressed. But if the
intelligence of the brachs increased—”
“That is so.” Jellico straightened up. “If the
radiation worked one way on these, why a different reaction with
the brachs?”
“There could be several reasons. The embryos are just
that, not yet completely formed. The brachs were adult creatures
when they were exposed.”
Dane had another flash of speculation. “Could the brachs
have once been a higher type of life? Could they have already
retrogressed, so that now they are returned to an intelligent
species?”
Tau ran his hands through his short hair. “”We could
have half a dozen answers, and we can’t confirm any without
the proper equipment. We’ll have to leave that up to the lab
techs when we planet.”
“But can we?” Jellico absently rubbed the blaster
scar on his cheek. “I think we may be in no position to wait
upon the opinion of experts, not with settlers who have
invested their life savings waiting for lathsmer embryos. Thorson, what
was the agreed shipping date for those on the invoices?”
“When transport was possible,” Dane replied
promptly.
“When possible, no guaranteed date of arrival. Therefore,
they could assume that the embryos might come in on the next
trip.”
“We can’t hide those boxes,” Tau objected.
“No, not with customs coming on board at setdown. At the
same time, this situation is such that I want to appeal to the
Board of Trade before I make any other statements.”
“You think deliberate sabotage—the I-S, sir?”
Dane asked.
“Oddly enough, no. If the I-S saw a chance to score off us
in passing, they might do it. But too much planning has gone into
this. I think the roots lie on Trewsworld, and I want to know more,
much more, before we are any deeper in than we are now. If we show
up without the embryo boxes and the brachs, there may or may not be
unusual interest shown. That will be our clue to who is behind
this, who might protest too loudly if we land without the expected
cargo and what they had rigged on board.”
“Not jetsam!” Dane protested.
“Not in space, no. But Trewsworld is not a thickly
populated world. There is only one main spaceport, and our cargo is
consigned there. There will be no sky search if we follow a regular
orbit in. So, we load the embryos and the brachs on a lifeboat and
set that down in an uninhabited section. Van Ryke, if I can contact
him, will have friends on the board. Anyway, I shall ask for a
local hearing—in confidence.”
But he said nothing of going to the Patrol, Dane noted, spoke
only of the one authority the Free Traders could appeal to, which
must mean he wanted none of the formal law until he was sure they
had a defense. But a defense against what? As it stood, all of them
could go into deep probe and prove their innocence, if that drastic
step was needed. It must be that Jellico believed they were in some
way involved past the point that even a probe reading could clear
them.
“Who takes down the LB?” Tau asked.
Jellico looked to Dane first. “If anyone is expecting your
double, he or they won’t follow the planned orbit set if you
walk out of the Queen on landing. We have a dead man on
board. He might just as well be the one he claimed to be for a time—Dane Thorson. And we can spare a couple of
juniors—Shannon for your pilot—though the LB will home
in on automatics, so you won’t need to set a course—and
Kamil in charge of that infernal box. I want that out of the ship,
too, before we fin in at the port. Wilcox will chart you a course
that will take you away from any settlement. You’ll take a
beacon with you and set it on the Queen’s frequency.
Wait a couple of days—then turn it on. We’ll contact
you when we can.”
He turned back to Tau. “What about those embryos? Any of
them near decanting time?”
“No way of telling.”
“Then the sooner we get rid of them, the better. Mura, get
E rations, plus whatever the brachs eat. The LB will be
crowded.” Jellico spoke again to Dane. “But your ride
down won’t take long.”
Dane culled his own belongings, hoping he was making the right
choices as to what he would need. Trewsworld was Terran climate,
but it was an untamed world, save for the settlers’ holdings
spreading out slowly from the port. He took an extra change of
clothing in a jump bag, strapped on a belt with the number of small
tools carried by a scout, and made sure he had extra charges for
his stunner.
As he loaded it, he thought of the brach.
Intelligence—retrogressed to a higher form of intelligence? But
that would mean the brachs were not really animals at all! The crew
of the Queen had had one close encounter with ancient
Forerunner remains when they had raised the sum to buy at auction
trading rights to Limbo.
And Limbo, though partly burned off in some galactic
war—traces of which Terran explorers had come across again
and again during their travels—had also held a secret that
had been as potent in the present day as when its long-vanished
makers had first put it into action. There had been a force,
operated from a headquarters deep under the planet surface, that
had reached into the deeps of space to draw to it any ship
venturing within range, so that its half-devastated surface was
packed with the wrecks of vessels for centuries of time.
Though modern pirates had found it, made it more predictable, it
had been operating on its own for a long time before their coming.
Of those who had set it as a defense or assault weapon, no real trace had been left. They had never
found a tomb, a space-frozen derelict with bodies on board, any
trace of the Forerunners to learn what they had been like. Humanoid
or wholly alien—it was any man’s guess. However, if the
brachs had come to the animal state but had once been intelligent,
could they now have on board one answer to the Forerunner
riddle?
If that were true—Dane’s thoughts leaped—then
all the damage done to the embryos was unimportant. The brachs were
priceless treasures and ones that the scientists would give much to
have. But he could not believe the brachs had been the targets of
the man who had planted the box on the Queen. He might
have meant to destroy the lathsmers, but the opposite effect on the
brachs came from the accidental placing of their cage on just the
right spot and could not have been foreseen.