“What is the situation, sir?”
Having done his best to throw the opposition off balance,
disregarding the last comment from the ranger, Dane turned to Tau.
He wanted to know just what they had to face.
It was Meshler who answered. “You are all under
arrest!” He said that weightedly, as if the words disarmed
them and made the odds of four to one wholly in favor of that one.
“I am to escort you to Trewsport, where your case comes under
Patrol surveillance—”
“And the charge?” Kamil had not moved from the hatch
door. His one arm was behind him, and Dane thought he still had a
hand on the latch. It was plain that Ali did not consider the odds
in Meshler’s favor.
“Sabotage of shipment, interference with the mail,
murder—” The ranger stated each charge as if he were a
judge pronouncing sentence.
“Murder?” Ali looked surprised. “Whom did we
murder?”
“Person unknown,” Tau drawled. His former rigidity
had eased. He leaned against the wall, one hand on the edge of the
hammock where the brachs sat in their nest of padding. “You
met him dead.” He nodded to Dane. “He was wearing your
face at the time—”
Now Meshler turned a sharp, measuring look at Dane, who, to aid
him in identification, pushed back his hood. And for the second
time the Terran saw a trace of surprise on the rather flat face of
the ranger. Tau uttered a sound not far from a laugh.
“You see, Ranger Meshler, that our tale was the truth. And the rest we can prove, as well as showing you a man with the
same features as that mask. We have the box that caused all the
trouble, the mutated embryos, the brachs—Let your science
techs test it all, and they will see we reported nothing but the
truth.”
There was a wriggling against Dane’s shoulders. He had
forgotten the brach in the pack. Now he loosened the straps and
held the bag so that its occupant could climb out to join his
family in the hammock. Meshler viewed that without comment.
Now the ranger produced a tridee shot from an inner pocket.
Holding it, he moved closer to the hammock that held the
“people” from Xecho, looking from the picture of the
brachs and back again several times.
“There are
differences,” he commented.
“As we told you. You heard
them, or rather her, talk,” Rip replied. There was a
tightness in his voice that suggested the time before Ali and
Dane’s arrival had not been pleasantly spent.
“And where is this mysterious box?” The ranger did
not look to them but continued to study the brachs. He gave the
impression of still being skeptical.
“We buried it, in its protective covering,” Dane
replied. “Only it may not be the first such shipment to arrive
here.”
Now he did have the full attention of Meshler. Those chill chips of ice that served the other for eyes fastened
on him. “You have reason for believing so?”
Dane told him of the antline. Whether he was making any
impression on Meshler, he could not tell, but at least the man
listened without any outward sign of incredulity.
“You found its lair, you say? And it was under stunner
influence when you last saw it?”
“We backtracked it to the lair.” Ali cut in.
“And, from the marks, it was on its way back there when it
left the cage. We didn’t trail it again.”
“No, you were after your other monsters, to cover up what
you had introduced here.” Meshler had not softened.
“And these monsters—where are they now?”
“We tracked them as far as the river,” Ali
continued. “The brach said they had flown across, and we were
hunting a way of getting over when we were recalled.”
Tau spoke then. “The brach said? How did it
know?”
“He”—Dane unconsciously corrected the
pronoun—“says they can sense emotions. That’s
what led to the dragons’ escape in the first place. One of
the brach kits “heard” their anger at being shut up in
the cage and went to open that. They turned on the kit and then got
away—”
He half expected the ranger to contradict that with scorn, but
the man did not. He listened impassively, glancing now and then at
the brachs.
“So we have a couple of monsters loose, besides this
antline—”
“As well as two murdered men,” Dane broke in,
“who were dead long before we planeted.”
“If they have been dead as long as you say,” the
ranger replied, “they can await attention for a short space
longer. What we have to deal with firstly are these
‘dragons’ of yours.” He put away the tridee and
brought out a tube, which, at a slight squeeze, rolled out a map.
Though it was in miniature, its points of references were so
clearly marked it was easy to read.
“The lake.” Meshler pointed. “Your river
drains from there?”
“We believe so,” Dane answered.
“And your dragons crossed it?” Slightly beyond the
river line were marks of pale green. The ranger tapped those with
fingertip.
“Cartl’s holding. If your dragons headed for
that—” Another pinch of finger and the map snapped back
into the tube. “It would be better that we locate them before
they get that far. This—this creature can track them? You are
sure of that?”
“He says he can. He took us to the river.” Dane
moved; he had no intention of allowing the ranger to take the
brach. After all, no matter what change had occurred, the alien was
still part of the cargo for which Dane was responsible. But Meshler
had not reached for the brach.
“You are under arrest.” He looked around, catching
them one by one with his straight stare, as if challenging them to
deny his authority. “If we wait for a search party from
Trewsport, it may be too late. I have my duty. If Cartl’s
holding is in danger, my first duty is there. But you loosed this
danger; therefore, you have a duty also—”
“We have not denied that,” Tau returned. “We
have done the best we could to insure that the port was not
infected.”
“The best you could? With these dragons loose to attack a
holding?”
“What I can’t understand,” Dane said slowly,
his words aimed at Tau, “is how they can withstand the cold.
They were let out in the very early morning. I expected to find
them frozen. Reptiles cannot take cold—”
“Lathsmers”—Meshler corrected—“are
not reptiles. And they are well adapted to cold. They are
acclimated for Trewsworld winters before they are decanted at
hatching.”
“But I tell you,” Dane said angrily, “these
are not your lathsmers—but probably the million-year-back
ancestors of them. They are certainly reptiles to look
at!”
“We can’t know just what they are”—Tau
corrected him—“until we have a chance to run them
through a diagnostic lab. Their immunity to cold might well be a
part of their conditioning the ray did not affect.”
“We have no time to argue about their nature!”
Meshler stated firmly. “We hunt and find them, before they
cause more trouble. First I beam in my report. You stay
here.”
He shouldered past Ali and went out the hatch, slamming it
behind him. Kamil spoke to Tau.
“What is going on?”
“We would all like to know a few details,” Tau
answered wearily. “When we landed, there was already
information out—we had come in under suspicious
circumstances. Then, we had to report a death on
board—”
“But how?” began Shannon.
“Just so, how?” Tau returned. “We had not had
time to report. We answered with the truth, showed them the body. I
gave the port doctor my conclusions. They wanted his papers. When
we told them he carried yours and showed them that mask, they were,
or pretended to be, incredulous. Said they didn’t think any
such switch could be pulled without our knowing, that an imposture
could not be maintained throughout the voyage, which is probably
true. That being so, they logically went on to a new point, what
would bring a man to stow away.”
“So you told them about the box,” Ali supplied.
“We had to at that point, since the lab people were
yammering all over the place for their brachs—as well as the
settlers for the embryos. We could have said one shipment was coming later but not both under the circumstances. Jellico
has demanded a Board of Trade hearing. In the meantime, the
Queen is impounded and the rest of the crew in custody.
They sent this Meshler out to pick you up—with me to handle
the brachs, since by trade law they have to have a medical officer
for a live cargo.”
“I-S behind this, you think?” Rip demanded.
“I don’t believe so. There is still the problem of a
big company doing a complicated plan to make trouble for one Free
Trader. And it is not that we nudged them out of this mail
contract. It had been Combine property for years. No, I think we
were just handy, and someone used us. Maybe the same thing might
have happened to a Combine ship if it were still on mail
run.”
“Craig”—Dane had been only half listening, his
thoughts turning in another direction—“that dead man,
could they have meant him to die? Was he expendable and that was
why they didn’t care if he lived long enough to be taken for
a stowaway?”
“Could be true. Only why—?”
“And why, and why, and why?” Rip threw up his hands
in a gesture of scattering unanswerable questions to the four
points of the compass.
But Ali had picked up the stone Dane had brought from the
wrecked crawler. He turned it around, studying it.
“Trewsworld is strictly an Ag planet, isn’t it?
Agriculture the only occupation?”
“That’s been its rating.”
“But dead prospectors in the bush, with a lock bin broken
open? Where was this exactly?” Ali shot that question
abruptly at Dane.
“Caught in under the melted door. I thought someone had
swept out the contents in a big hurry and overlooked this sliver
when it wedged fast.”
Rip looked over Ali’s shoulder at the stone. “Looks
like ordinary rock to me.”
“Ah, but you aren’t a mineralogist, nor are any of
us.” Ali weighed the rock in his hand. “I have a
distinct feeling that somehow an answer to all of this is hovering
right under our noses, but we are just a little too dense to grasp
its importance.”
He was still holding the rock when the hatch creaked open and
Meshler was again with them.
“You”—he pointed to Shannon—“stay
here. There will be a guard ship from the port to pick you up. And
you, also.” This time his pointing finger singled out Ali.
“But you and you, and this—this creature you say can
sniff out the dragons of yours—will come with me. We take the
flitter and pick up those things and do it quickly!”
For a moment it seemed that Shannon and Kamil might protest, but
Dane saw them look to Tau, and though there was no change of
expression on the medic’s face, Dane believed they had
received some message not to interfere with Meshler’s
arrangements.
For the second time Dane fitted the brach into the pack, the
alien making no protest, as if he had been able to follow their
conversation and knew the purpose of this second expedition. And
neither did the ranger demand Dane turn over his stunner before
they went out to the flitter.
“We go first to Cartl’s,” Meshler announced in
his authoritative voice. He motioned Dane to the side seat by his
own at the controls, the Terran settling the brach’s pack on
his lap, while Tau had one of the rear seats.
Whatever else he might be, the ranger was an expert pilot.
Perhaps flitter flight was the normal travel for one representing
the law in this wide territory. He brought them up effortlessly,
swung the nose of the craft to the southeast, and pushed the speed
to high.
It seemed only seconds until they flashed over the river. Then
there were billows of the fat-leaved trees under them again, almost
as if the forest were another kind of water. The brach sat quietly
on Dane’s lap, its head thrust well out of the coverings. The
cabin was warm enough so none of them pulled up their hoods, and as
that horned nose swung back and forth a little, Dane could almost
believe that it quested for some scent.
Suddenly it pointed to the right, more to the westward than
their present line of flight. The brach’s voice echoed thinly
in the mike of Dane’s hood.
“Dragons, there—”
Meshler, startled, turned his attention from the controls. The
brach’s nose continued to point as if registering to some
signal.
“How do you know?” the ranger demanded.
Dane repeated his question for translation.
“Dragons hungry, follow meat—”
Hunting! Well, hunger certainly had an emotional side, and it
could be very sharp in a feral creature. But Meshler did the
flying. Would he allow them to be hunters in turn, or would he
insist upon keeping to his original course? Before Dane could urge
the hunt on him, the ranger turned, and the brach’s nose, as
if it were indeed an indicator geared to the controls, now pointed
directly ahead.
“Holding,” Meshler informed them. Scattered among
the stumps were odd enclosures of poles, not set tightly together
to form fences but placed at even distances, apparently to support
rungs or rails. And in the light of the afternoon, they could see
that most of those had a living burden which pushed, jostled, and
shot out long necks to peck at companions crowding too close.
Lathsmers!
“They let them run loose—no guards?” wondered
Dane, remembering the antline—and perhaps
Trewsworld had native predators, too.
Meshler made a sound that might pass for a laugh.
“They have their own defenses. Now even a man comes in
such fields without a stunner. Though if you go in in a crawler and
take it slow, they don’t seem to notice. There aren’t
many things big or tough enough to take on a covey of
lathsmers.”
The brach on Dane’s lap screeched, not any intelligible
word, as they flew on, out over a battlefield where a bloody melee
was still in progress.
The roosting rails of the lathsmers at this point were fewer
than in the first field, and they were clear of the birds. There
were some battered bodies ripped and limp on the ground. But two of
the rightful inhabitants of the roost were still on their feet,
shooting out heads, naked of feathers, murderous beaks
spear-pointed at their enemies.
Those were—Dane could not at first believe what his eyes
reported. The embryos that had hatched had been then about the size
of the female brach. These things were a little larger than the
lathsmers. Their quick attacks, feints, use of talons, lashing
tails, battering wings on which they could raise high enough to
threaten the lathsmers from above, could have all belonged to adults fully matured and seasoned by many
such forays.
“They—they’ve grown!” His amazement made
him state the obvious. He still could not believe that a single day
or two days could have produced such alteration.
“Those your dragons? And you expect me to believe them
just decanted?” Meshler was incredulous, as well he might be.
But they were the same things Rip, Ali, and Dane had installed in
the cage—in miniature then.
“They are.”
Meshler brought the flitter around, for they had swept well over
the site of the savage struggle. They swooped down. Dane believed
the ranger was trying to frighten the dragons away from the
remaining lathsmers. He had his own stunner ready. They would have
to come within closer range before he could use it. Meshler fumbled
with one hand in the front of his tunic. Now he held out to Dane an
egg-shaped ball.
“Push in the top pin,” he ordered. “Drop it as
close to them as you can when we go over again.”
Once more they had skimmed away from the battle. Dane opened the
window to his right, moving the brach down between his knees for
safekeeping, and leaned out ready to drop the ovoid.
Meshler was taking them even closer to the ground on his third
pass. Dane only hoped he could judge distance. His thumb sent the
plunger even with the surface of the ball, and he let it go. The
ranger must have gunned the flitter, for their forward sweep was at
such a sudden excess of speed as to pin Dane against the seat, but
as they went, the speed decreased, and when the craft turned once
more, they had fallen to a landing rate.
Landing here among the stumps on rough terrain where brush had
been grubbed out without regard for smoothing was going to take
maneuvering. They headed once more for the broken roost. But now
around those splintered poles curled greenish vapor, which whirled
before it broke into thin wisps and rose up and up to disappear
well above the height at which they now flew.
Of the creatures that had, only moments earlier, been engaged in
ruthless war, there was nothing to be seen, unless they had joined
the bodies on the ground. Meshler set down in the only possible open space, still some distance from
the raided roost.
Dane left the brach in the flitter, running with Meshler and Tau
toward the scene of the struggle. If the dragons had come
originally to hunt for food, perhaps the resistance of the
lathsmers had sealed the fate of the whole covey. Or else it was
not mere wanton killing on the dragons’ part but defense
against the fighting prowess of creatures they had
underestimated.
The dragons and the last two of the lathsmers were lying as they
had fallen, but they were not dead. The discharge of the vapor had
had much the same effect as that of a stunner beam. Meshler stood
over the mutants, studying them.
“You say these are the ancestors of the lathsmers?”
He sounded unconvinced, and had Dane not seen them crawl from the
embryo containers, he would have been as hard to satisfy.
“Unless they were shipped wrongly,” Tau commented.
“But I think you can forget that. These were snoop-rayed at
the port of Xecho—routine—but the field experts
don’t miss anything.”
Meshler stooped, lifted the edge of a wing, which was ribbed
with rubbery skin spreading between the ribs, then allowed it to
fall back against the scaled body, where snorting breaths expanded
and contracted wrinkled, repulsive skin.
“If your trick box can do this—”
“Not our box,” Dane corrected. “And
remember the antline—that box is probably not the first of
its kind.”
“Report!” Meshler spoke as if to himself.
“Now—” He brought a tangler from his belt, a
weapon meant to render any prisoner completely immobile. He used it
with expert care, leaving each of the dragons well encased, limbs,
tail, wings, and cruelly toothed jaws.
They dragged them back to the flitter, loading them into the
cargo section. Meshler shook his head over the remains of the
lathsmers. The two who had fought to the last, he thought would
survive. But the rest were dead. To report this to the unfortunate
owner must be their next move.
“He’ll claim damages,” Meshler commented with
satisfaction. “And if he wants to swear land-hurt against you
all—”
Dane did not know what land-hurt might be, but from the
ranger’s tone it was more trouble for the Queen.
“Not our doing,” Tau answered.
“No? Your cargo was not officially discharged at the port—this part of it wasn’t—so you are still
responsible for it. And if a cargo damages—”
A nice legal point, Dane thought. They were responsible
certainly for damage to a cargo, but could they be held also for
damage by a cargo? He thought feverishly of all the
instruction tapes he had studied, both during his years of
schooling and after he had joined the Queen. Had such a
case of this kind ever come up before? He could not recall it. Van
Ryke would know, but Van Ryke was parsecs away—in another
galactic sector—and the Spirit of Outer Space only knew when
he was going to planet to join them.
“Take the shortest way.” Again Meshler appeared to
be talking to himself. But a few minutes later, instead of turning
east as his course had been earlier, the nose of the small craft
veered west.
Meshler gave an exclamation and thumped a fist against one of
the dials on the board. Its needle quivered a fraction but did not
turn. Then he went to work, snapping levers, pushing buttons. There
was no answering alteration in their course.
“What’s the matter?” Dane was enough of a
flitter pilot himself to know that the craft was now acting as if
it were locked on automatics, on a set course, and that the ranger
could not break to hand control.
Tau leaned forward, his head nearly even with Dane’s.
“Look at that indicator! We’re on a control
beam!”
One of the dials did read that they were riding a powerful and
pulling beam.
“I can’t break it!” Meshler’s hands
dropped from the board. “It won’t answer the
manuals.”
“But if no one set a course—and they
didn’t—” Dane stared at the dial. Automatics
could be set, even locked securely. But none of them had done that,
and though they had been engrossed in getting the dragons on board,
no one could have approached the flitter without being seen.
“Contact beam,” Meshler said thoughtfully,
“but that is impossible! There is nothing in this direction.
Oh, a few wandering hunters, maybe. And the Trosti experimental
station. But that’s well north of here. And even they do not
have the equipment to—”
“Somebody has,” Tau said. “And it would seem
your wilderness holds more than you supposed, Ranger Meshler. How
closely do you patrol it, anyway?”
Meshler’s head came up. There was a flush on his
cheeks.
“We face now half a continent of wilderness. Most of it
was aerial mapped. But as for exploring on land, we have too few
men, very meager funds. And our jobs are to patrol and protect the
holdings. There’s never been any trouble on Trewsworld
before—”
“If you are going to say before the Queen
arrived,” Dane retorted bitterly, “don’t. We
didn’t produce a retrogressed antline, nor murder those two
men in the crawler. And we certainly didn’t entangle our own
ship on purpose. If we are caught in a contact beam, it has to be
broadcast from an installation. So there’s more in the
wilderness than you know.”
But Meshler did not seem to be listening. Instead, the ranger
activated the com, holding the mike in his hand and rattling off a
series of letters that must have been in code. Three times he
repeated that, waiting each time for a reply. Then, as nothing
came, he hung the mike back on its hook with a small shrug of his
shoulders.
“Com out, too?” Tau asked.
“It would seem so,” Meshler answered. And still the
flitter bored into a coming dusk of twilight, heading west into
what the ranger admitted was the unknown.
“What is the situation, sir?”
Having done his best to throw the opposition off balance,
disregarding the last comment from the ranger, Dane turned to Tau.
He wanted to know just what they had to face.
It was Meshler who answered. “You are all under
arrest!” He said that weightedly, as if the words disarmed
them and made the odds of four to one wholly in favor of that one.
“I am to escort you to Trewsport, where your case comes under
Patrol surveillance—”
“And the charge?” Kamil had not moved from the hatch
door. His one arm was behind him, and Dane thought he still had a
hand on the latch. It was plain that Ali did not consider the odds
in Meshler’s favor.
“Sabotage of shipment, interference with the mail,
murder—” The ranger stated each charge as if he were a
judge pronouncing sentence.
“Murder?” Ali looked surprised. “Whom did we
murder?”
“Person unknown,” Tau drawled. His former rigidity
had eased. He leaned against the wall, one hand on the edge of the
hammock where the brachs sat in their nest of padding. “You
met him dead.” He nodded to Dane. “He was wearing your
face at the time—”
Now Meshler turned a sharp, measuring look at Dane, who, to aid
him in identification, pushed back his hood. And for the second
time the Terran saw a trace of surprise on the rather flat face of
the ranger. Tau uttered a sound not far from a laugh.
“You see, Ranger Meshler, that our tale was the truth. And the rest we can prove, as well as showing you a man with the
same features as that mask. We have the box that caused all the
trouble, the mutated embryos, the brachs—Let your science
techs test it all, and they will see we reported nothing but the
truth.”
There was a wriggling against Dane’s shoulders. He had
forgotten the brach in the pack. Now he loosened the straps and
held the bag so that its occupant could climb out to join his
family in the hammock. Meshler viewed that without comment.
Now the ranger produced a tridee shot from an inner pocket.
Holding it, he moved closer to the hammock that held the
“people” from Xecho, looking from the picture of the
brachs and back again several times.
“There are
differences,” he commented.
“As we told you. You heard
them, or rather her, talk,” Rip replied. There was a
tightness in his voice that suggested the time before Ali and
Dane’s arrival had not been pleasantly spent.
“And where is this mysterious box?” The ranger did
not look to them but continued to study the brachs. He gave the
impression of still being skeptical.
“We buried it, in its protective covering,” Dane
replied. “Only it may not be the first such shipment to arrive
here.”
Now he did have the full attention of Meshler. Those chill chips of ice that served the other for eyes fastened
on him. “You have reason for believing so?”
Dane told him of the antline. Whether he was making any
impression on Meshler, he could not tell, but at least the man
listened without any outward sign of incredulity.
“You found its lair, you say? And it was under stunner
influence when you last saw it?”
“We backtracked it to the lair.” Ali cut in.
“And, from the marks, it was on its way back there when it
left the cage. We didn’t trail it again.”
“No, you were after your other monsters, to cover up what
you had introduced here.” Meshler had not softened.
“And these monsters—where are they now?”
“We tracked them as far as the river,” Ali
continued. “The brach said they had flown across, and we were
hunting a way of getting over when we were recalled.”
Tau spoke then. “The brach said? How did it
know?”
“He”—Dane unconsciously corrected the
pronoun—“says they can sense emotions. That’s
what led to the dragons’ escape in the first place. One of
the brach kits “heard” their anger at being shut up in
the cage and went to open that. They turned on the kit and then got
away—”
He half expected the ranger to contradict that with scorn, but
the man did not. He listened impassively, glancing now and then at
the brachs.
“So we have a couple of monsters loose, besides this
antline—”
“As well as two murdered men,” Dane broke in,
“who were dead long before we planeted.”
“If they have been dead as long as you say,” the
ranger replied, “they can await attention for a short space
longer. What we have to deal with firstly are these
‘dragons’ of yours.” He put away the tridee and
brought out a tube, which, at a slight squeeze, rolled out a map.
Though it was in miniature, its points of references were so
clearly marked it was easy to read.
“The lake.” Meshler pointed. “Your river
drains from there?”
“We believe so,” Dane answered.
“And your dragons crossed it?” Slightly beyond the
river line were marks of pale green. The ranger tapped those with
fingertip.
“Cartl’s holding. If your dragons headed for
that—” Another pinch of finger and the map snapped back
into the tube. “It would be better that we locate them before
they get that far. This—this creature can track them? You are
sure of that?”
“He says he can. He took us to the river.” Dane
moved; he had no intention of allowing the ranger to take the
brach. After all, no matter what change had occurred, the alien was
still part of the cargo for which Dane was responsible. But Meshler
had not reached for the brach.
“You are under arrest.” He looked around, catching
them one by one with his straight stare, as if challenging them to
deny his authority. “If we wait for a search party from
Trewsport, it may be too late. I have my duty. If Cartl’s
holding is in danger, my first duty is there. But you loosed this
danger; therefore, you have a duty also—”
“We have not denied that,” Tau returned. “We
have done the best we could to insure that the port was not
infected.”
“The best you could? With these dragons loose to attack a
holding?”
“What I can’t understand,” Dane said slowly,
his words aimed at Tau, “is how they can withstand the cold.
They were let out in the very early morning. I expected to find
them frozen. Reptiles cannot take cold—”
“Lathsmers”—Meshler corrected—“are
not reptiles. And they are well adapted to cold. They are
acclimated for Trewsworld winters before they are decanted at
hatching.”
“But I tell you,” Dane said angrily, “these
are not your lathsmers—but probably the million-year-back
ancestors of them. They are certainly reptiles to look
at!”
“We can’t know just what they are”—Tau
corrected him—“until we have a chance to run them
through a diagnostic lab. Their immunity to cold might well be a
part of their conditioning the ray did not affect.”
“We have no time to argue about their nature!”
Meshler stated firmly. “We hunt and find them, before they
cause more trouble. First I beam in my report. You stay
here.”
He shouldered past Ali and went out the hatch, slamming it
behind him. Kamil spoke to Tau.
“What is going on?”
“We would all like to know a few details,” Tau
answered wearily. “When we landed, there was already
information out—we had come in under suspicious
circumstances. Then, we had to report a death on
board—”
“But how?” began Shannon.
“Just so, how?” Tau returned. “We had not had
time to report. We answered with the truth, showed them the body. I
gave the port doctor my conclusions. They wanted his papers. When
we told them he carried yours and showed them that mask, they were,
or pretended to be, incredulous. Said they didn’t think any
such switch could be pulled without our knowing, that an imposture
could not be maintained throughout the voyage, which is probably
true. That being so, they logically went on to a new point, what
would bring a man to stow away.”
“So you told them about the box,” Ali supplied.
“We had to at that point, since the lab people were
yammering all over the place for their brachs—as well as the
settlers for the embryos. We could have said one shipment was coming later but not both under the circumstances. Jellico
has demanded a Board of Trade hearing. In the meantime, the
Queen is impounded and the rest of the crew in custody.
They sent this Meshler out to pick you up—with me to handle
the brachs, since by trade law they have to have a medical officer
for a live cargo.”
“I-S behind this, you think?” Rip demanded.
“I don’t believe so. There is still the problem of a
big company doing a complicated plan to make trouble for one Free
Trader. And it is not that we nudged them out of this mail
contract. It had been Combine property for years. No, I think we
were just handy, and someone used us. Maybe the same thing might
have happened to a Combine ship if it were still on mail
run.”
“Craig”—Dane had been only half listening, his
thoughts turning in another direction—“that dead man,
could they have meant him to die? Was he expendable and that was
why they didn’t care if he lived long enough to be taken for
a stowaway?”
“Could be true. Only why—?”
“And why, and why, and why?” Rip threw up his hands
in a gesture of scattering unanswerable questions to the four
points of the compass.
But Ali had picked up the stone Dane had brought from the
wrecked crawler. He turned it around, studying it.
“Trewsworld is strictly an Ag planet, isn’t it?
Agriculture the only occupation?”
“That’s been its rating.”
“But dead prospectors in the bush, with a lock bin broken
open? Where was this exactly?” Ali shot that question
abruptly at Dane.
“Caught in under the melted door. I thought someone had
swept out the contents in a big hurry and overlooked this sliver
when it wedged fast.”
Rip looked over Ali’s shoulder at the stone. “Looks
like ordinary rock to me.”
“Ah, but you aren’t a mineralogist, nor are any of
us.” Ali weighed the rock in his hand. “I have a
distinct feeling that somehow an answer to all of this is hovering
right under our noses, but we are just a little too dense to grasp
its importance.”
He was still holding the rock when the hatch creaked open and
Meshler was again with them.
“You”—he pointed to Shannon—“stay
here. There will be a guard ship from the port to pick you up. And
you, also.” This time his pointing finger singled out Ali.
“But you and you, and this—this creature you say can
sniff out the dragons of yours—will come with me. We take the
flitter and pick up those things and do it quickly!”
For a moment it seemed that Shannon and Kamil might protest, but
Dane saw them look to Tau, and though there was no change of
expression on the medic’s face, Dane believed they had
received some message not to interfere with Meshler’s
arrangements.
For the second time Dane fitted the brach into the pack, the
alien making no protest, as if he had been able to follow their
conversation and knew the purpose of this second expedition. And
neither did the ranger demand Dane turn over his stunner before
they went out to the flitter.
“We go first to Cartl’s,” Meshler announced in
his authoritative voice. He motioned Dane to the side seat by his
own at the controls, the Terran settling the brach’s pack on
his lap, while Tau had one of the rear seats.
Whatever else he might be, the ranger was an expert pilot.
Perhaps flitter flight was the normal travel for one representing
the law in this wide territory. He brought them up effortlessly,
swung the nose of the craft to the southeast, and pushed the speed
to high.
It seemed only seconds until they flashed over the river. Then
there were billows of the fat-leaved trees under them again, almost
as if the forest were another kind of water. The brach sat quietly
on Dane’s lap, its head thrust well out of the coverings. The
cabin was warm enough so none of them pulled up their hoods, and as
that horned nose swung back and forth a little, Dane could almost
believe that it quested for some scent.
Suddenly it pointed to the right, more to the westward than
their present line of flight. The brach’s voice echoed thinly
in the mike of Dane’s hood.
“Dragons, there—”
Meshler, startled, turned his attention from the controls. The
brach’s nose continued to point as if registering to some
signal.
“How do you know?” the ranger demanded.
Dane repeated his question for translation.
“Dragons hungry, follow meat—”
Hunting! Well, hunger certainly had an emotional side, and it
could be very sharp in a feral creature. But Meshler did the
flying. Would he allow them to be hunters in turn, or would he
insist upon keeping to his original course? Before Dane could urge
the hunt on him, the ranger turned, and the brach’s nose, as
if it were indeed an indicator geared to the controls, now pointed
directly ahead.
“Holding,” Meshler informed them. Scattered among
the stumps were odd enclosures of poles, not set tightly together
to form fences but placed at even distances, apparently to support
rungs or rails. And in the light of the afternoon, they could see
that most of those had a living burden which pushed, jostled, and
shot out long necks to peck at companions crowding too close.
Lathsmers!
“They let them run loose—no guards?” wondered
Dane, remembering the antline—and perhaps
Trewsworld had native predators, too.
Meshler made a sound that might pass for a laugh.
“They have their own defenses. Now even a man comes in
such fields without a stunner. Though if you go in in a crawler and
take it slow, they don’t seem to notice. There aren’t
many things big or tough enough to take on a covey of
lathsmers.”
The brach on Dane’s lap screeched, not any intelligible
word, as they flew on, out over a battlefield where a bloody melee
was still in progress.
The roosting rails of the lathsmers at this point were fewer
than in the first field, and they were clear of the birds. There
were some battered bodies ripped and limp on the ground. But two of
the rightful inhabitants of the roost were still on their feet,
shooting out heads, naked of feathers, murderous beaks
spear-pointed at their enemies.
Those were—Dane could not at first believe what his eyes
reported. The embryos that had hatched had been then about the size
of the female brach. These things were a little larger than the
lathsmers. Their quick attacks, feints, use of talons, lashing
tails, battering wings on which they could raise high enough to
threaten the lathsmers from above, could have all belonged to adults fully matured and seasoned by many
such forays.
“They—they’ve grown!” His amazement made
him state the obvious. He still could not believe that a single day
or two days could have produced such alteration.
“Those your dragons? And you expect me to believe them
just decanted?” Meshler was incredulous, as well he might be.
But they were the same things Rip, Ali, and Dane had installed in
the cage—in miniature then.
“They are.”
Meshler brought the flitter around, for they had swept well over
the site of the savage struggle. They swooped down. Dane believed
the ranger was trying to frighten the dragons away from the
remaining lathsmers. He had his own stunner ready. They would have
to come within closer range before he could use it. Meshler fumbled
with one hand in the front of his tunic. Now he held out to Dane an
egg-shaped ball.
“Push in the top pin,” he ordered. “Drop it as
close to them as you can when we go over again.”
Once more they had skimmed away from the battle. Dane opened the
window to his right, moving the brach down between his knees for
safekeeping, and leaned out ready to drop the ovoid.
Meshler was taking them even closer to the ground on his third
pass. Dane only hoped he could judge distance. His thumb sent the
plunger even with the surface of the ball, and he let it go. The
ranger must have gunned the flitter, for their forward sweep was at
such a sudden excess of speed as to pin Dane against the seat, but
as they went, the speed decreased, and when the craft turned once
more, they had fallen to a landing rate.
Landing here among the stumps on rough terrain where brush had
been grubbed out without regard for smoothing was going to take
maneuvering. They headed once more for the broken roost. But now
around those splintered poles curled greenish vapor, which whirled
before it broke into thin wisps and rose up and up to disappear
well above the height at which they now flew.
Of the creatures that had, only moments earlier, been engaged in
ruthless war, there was nothing to be seen, unless they had joined
the bodies on the ground. Meshler set down in the only possible open space, still some distance from
the raided roost.
Dane left the brach in the flitter, running with Meshler and Tau
toward the scene of the struggle. If the dragons had come
originally to hunt for food, perhaps the resistance of the
lathsmers had sealed the fate of the whole covey. Or else it was
not mere wanton killing on the dragons’ part but defense
against the fighting prowess of creatures they had
underestimated.
The dragons and the last two of the lathsmers were lying as they
had fallen, but they were not dead. The discharge of the vapor had
had much the same effect as that of a stunner beam. Meshler stood
over the mutants, studying them.
“You say these are the ancestors of the lathsmers?”
He sounded unconvinced, and had Dane not seen them crawl from the
embryo containers, he would have been as hard to satisfy.
“Unless they were shipped wrongly,” Tau commented.
“But I think you can forget that. These were snoop-rayed at
the port of Xecho—routine—but the field experts
don’t miss anything.”
Meshler stooped, lifted the edge of a wing, which was ribbed
with rubbery skin spreading between the ribs, then allowed it to
fall back against the scaled body, where snorting breaths expanded
and contracted wrinkled, repulsive skin.
“If your trick box can do this—”
“Not our box,” Dane corrected. “And
remember the antline—that box is probably not the first of
its kind.”
“Report!” Meshler spoke as if to himself.
“Now—” He brought a tangler from his belt, a
weapon meant to render any prisoner completely immobile. He used it
with expert care, leaving each of the dragons well encased, limbs,
tail, wings, and cruelly toothed jaws.
They dragged them back to the flitter, loading them into the
cargo section. Meshler shook his head over the remains of the
lathsmers. The two who had fought to the last, he thought would
survive. But the rest were dead. To report this to the unfortunate
owner must be their next move.
“He’ll claim damages,” Meshler commented with
satisfaction. “And if he wants to swear land-hurt against you
all—”
Dane did not know what land-hurt might be, but from the
ranger’s tone it was more trouble for the Queen.
“Not our doing,” Tau answered.
“No? Your cargo was not officially discharged at the port—this part of it wasn’t—so you are still
responsible for it. And if a cargo damages—”
A nice legal point, Dane thought. They were responsible
certainly for damage to a cargo, but could they be held also for
damage by a cargo? He thought feverishly of all the
instruction tapes he had studied, both during his years of
schooling and after he had joined the Queen. Had such a
case of this kind ever come up before? He could not recall it. Van
Ryke would know, but Van Ryke was parsecs away—in another
galactic sector—and the Spirit of Outer Space only knew when
he was going to planet to join them.
“Take the shortest way.” Again Meshler appeared to
be talking to himself. But a few minutes later, instead of turning
east as his course had been earlier, the nose of the small craft
veered west.
Meshler gave an exclamation and thumped a fist against one of
the dials on the board. Its needle quivered a fraction but did not
turn. Then he went to work, snapping levers, pushing buttons. There
was no answering alteration in their course.
“What’s the matter?” Dane was enough of a
flitter pilot himself to know that the craft was now acting as if
it were locked on automatics, on a set course, and that the ranger
could not break to hand control.
Tau leaned forward, his head nearly even with Dane’s.
“Look at that indicator! We’re on a control
beam!”
One of the dials did read that they were riding a powerful and
pulling beam.
“I can’t break it!” Meshler’s hands
dropped from the board. “It won’t answer the
manuals.”
“But if no one set a course—and they
didn’t—” Dane stared at the dial. Automatics
could be set, even locked securely. But none of them had done that,
and though they had been engrossed in getting the dragons on board,
no one could have approached the flitter without being seen.
“Contact beam,” Meshler said thoughtfully,
“but that is impossible! There is nothing in this direction.
Oh, a few wandering hunters, maybe. And the Trosti experimental
station. But that’s well north of here. And even they do not
have the equipment to—”
“Somebody has,” Tau said. “And it would seem
your wilderness holds more than you supposed, Ranger Meshler. How
closely do you patrol it, anyway?”
Meshler’s head came up. There was a flush on his
cheeks.
“We face now half a continent of wilderness. Most of it
was aerial mapped. But as for exploring on land, we have too few
men, very meager funds. And our jobs are to patrol and protect the
holdings. There’s never been any trouble on Trewsworld
before—”
“If you are going to say before the Queen
arrived,” Dane retorted bitterly, “don’t. We
didn’t produce a retrogressed antline, nor murder those two
men in the crawler. And we certainly didn’t entangle our own
ship on purpose. If we are caught in a contact beam, it has to be
broadcast from an installation. So there’s more in the
wilderness than you know.”
But Meshler did not seem to be listening. Instead, the ranger
activated the com, holding the mike in his hand and rattling off a
series of letters that must have been in code. Three times he
repeated that, waiting each time for a reply. Then, as nothing
came, he hung the mike back on its hook with a small shrug of his
shoulders.
“Com out, too?” Tau asked.
“It would seem so,” Meshler answered. And still the
flitter bored into a coming dusk of twilight, heading west into
what the ranger admitted was the unknown.