Shann had no answer from the transport, only
the continuing hum of a contact still open between the dome and the
control cabin miles above Warlock. The Terran breathed slowly,
deeply, felt the claws of the Throg bite his flesh as his chest
expanded. Then, as if a knife slashed, the hum of that contact was
gone. He had time to know a small flash of triumph. He had done it;
he had aroused suspicion in the transport.
When the Throg officer clicked to the alien manning the landing
beam, Shann’s exultation grew. The beetle-head must have
accepted that cut in communication as normal; he was still
expecting the Terran ship to drop neatly into his claws.
But Shann’s respite was to be very short, only timed by a
few breaths. The Throg at the riding beam was watching the
indicators. Now he reported to his superior, who swung back to face
the prisoner. Although Shann could read no expression on the
beetle’s face, he did not need any clue to the other’s
probable emotions. Knowing that his captive had somehow tricked
him, the alien would now proceed relentlessly to put into effect
the measures he had threatened.
How long before the patrol cruiser would planet? That crew was
used to alarms, and their speed was three or four times greater
than that of the bulkier transports. If the Throgs didn’t
scatter now, before they could be caught in one
attack . . .
The wire rope which held Shann clamped to the chair was
loosened, and he set his teeth against the pain of restored
circulation. This was nothing compared to what he faced; he knew
that. They jerked him to his feet, faced him toward the outer door,
and propelled him through it with a speed and roughness indicative
of their feelings.
The hour was close to dusk and Shann glanced wistfully at
promising shadows, though he had given up hope of rescue by now. If
he could just get free of his guards, he could at least give the
beetle-heads a good run.
He saw that the camp was deserted. There was no sign about the
domes that any Throgs sheltered there. In fact, Shann saw no aliens
at all except those who had come from the com dome with him. Of
course! The rest must be in ambush, waiting for the transport to
planet. What about the Throg ship or ships? Those must have been
hidden also. And the only hiding place for them would be aloft.
There was a chance that the Throgs had so flung away their chance
for any quick retreat.
Yes, the aliens could scatter over the countryside and so escape
the first blast from the cruiser. But they would simply maroon
themselves to be hunted down by patrol landing parties who would
comb the territory. The beetles could so prolong their lives for a
few hours, maybe a few days, but they were really ended on that
moment when the transport cut communication. Shann was sure that
the officer, at least, understood that.
The Terran was dragged away from the domes toward the river down
which he and Thorvald had once escaped. Moving through the dusk in
parallel lines, he caught sight of other Throg squads, well armed,
marching in order to suggest that they were not yet alarmed.
However, he had been right about the ships—there were no
flyers grounded on the improvised field.
Shann made himself as much of a burden as he could. At the best,
he could so delay the guards entrusted with his safekeeping; at the
worst, he could earn for himself a quick ending by blaster which
would be better than the one they had for him. He went limp,
falling forward into the trampled grass. There was an exasperated
click from the Throg who had been herding him, and the Terran tried
not to flinch from a sharp kick delivered by a clawed foot.
Feigning unconsciousness, the Terran listened to the
unintelligible clicks exchanged by Throgs standing over him. His
future depended now on how deep lay the alien officer’s
anger. If the beetle-head wanted to carry out his earlier threats
he would have to order Shann’s transportation by the fleeing
force. Otherwise his life might well end here and now.
Claws hooked once more on Shann. He was boosted up on the horny
carapace of a guard, the bonds on his arms taken off and his numbed
hands brought forward, to be held by his captor so that he lay
helpless, a cloak over the other’s hunched shoulders.
The ghost flares of bushes and plants blooming in the gathering
twilight gave a limited light to the scene. There was no way of
counting the number of Throgs on the move. But Shann was sure that
all the enemy ships must have been emptied except for skeleton
crews, and perhaps others had been ferried in from their hidden
base somewhere in Circe’s system.
He could only see a little from his position on the
Throg’s back, but ahead a ripple of beetle bodies slipped
over the bank of the river cut. The aliens were working their way
into cover, fitting into the dapple shadows with a skill which
argued a long practice in such elusive maneuvers. Did they plan to
try to fight off a cruiser attack? That was pure madness. Or, Shann
wondered, did they intend to have the Terrans met by one of their
own major ships somewhere well above the surface of Warlock?
His bearer turned away from the stream cut, carrying Shann out
into that field which had first served the Terrans as a landing
strip, then offered the same service to the Throgs. They passed two
more parties of aliens on the move, manhandling bulky objects the
Terran could not identify. Then he was dumped unceremoniously to
the hard earth, only to lie there a few seconds before he was
flopped over on a framework which grated unpleasantly against his
raw shoulders, his wrists and ankles being made fast so that his
body was spread-eagled. There was a click of orders; the frame was
raised and dropped with a jarring movement into a base, and he was
held erect, once more facing the Throg with the translator. This
was it! Shann began to regret every small chance he had had to end
more cleanly. If he had attacked one of the guards, even with his
hands bound, he might have flustered the Throg into retaliatory
blaster fire.
Fear made a thicker fog about him than the green mist of the
illusion. Only this was no illusion. Shann stared at the Throg
officer with sick eyes, knowing that no one ever quite believes
that at last evil will strike at him, that he had clung to a hope
which had no existence.
“Lantee!”
The call burst in his head with a painful force. His dazed
attention was outwardly on the alien with the translator, but that
inner demand had given him a shock.
“Here! Thorvald? Where?
The other struck in again with an urgent demand singing through
Shann’s brain.
“Give us a fix point—away from camp but not too far.
Quick!”
A fix point—what did the Survey officer mean? A fix
point . . . For some reason Shann thought of
the ledge on which he had lain to watch the first Throg attack. And
the picture of it was etched on his mind as clearly as memory could
paint it.
“Thorvald—” Again his voice and his mind call
were echoes of each other. But this time he had no answer. Had that
demand meant Thorvald and the Wyverns were moving in, putting to
use the strange distance-erasing power the witches of Warlock could
use by desire? But why had they not come sooner? And what could
they hope to accomplish against the now scattered but certainly
unbroken enemy forces? The Wyverns had not been able to turn their
power against one injured Throg—by their own
accounting—how could they possibly cope with well-armed and
alert aliens in the field?
“You die—slow—” The Throg officer
clicked, and the emotionless, toneless translation was all the more
daunting for that lack of color. “Your people
come—see—”
So that was the reason they had brought him to the landing
field. He was to furnish a grisly warning to the crew of the
cruiser. However, there the Throgs were making a bad mistake if
they believed that his death by any ingenious method could scare
off Terran retaliation.
“I die—you follow—” Shann tried to make
that promise emphatic.
Did the Throg officer expect the Terran to beg for his life or a
quick death? Again he made his threat—straight into the web,
hearing it split into clicks.
“Perhaps,” the Throg officer returned. “But
you die the first.”
“Get to it!” Shann’s voice scaled up. He was
close to the ragged edge, and the last push toward the breaking
point had not been the Throg speech, but that message from
Thorvald. If the Survey officer was going to make any move in the
mottled dusk, it would have to be soon.
Mottled dusk . . . the Throgs had moved a
little away from him. Shann looked beyond them to the perimeter of
the cleared field, not really because he expected to see any
rescuers break from cover there. And when he did see a change,
Shann thought his own sight was at fault.
Those splotches of waxy light which marked certain trees,
bushes, and scrubby ground-hugging plants were spreading, running
together in pools. And from those center cores of concentrated
glow, tendrils of mist lazily curled out, as a many-armed creature
of the sea might allow its appendages to float in the water which
supported it. Tendrils crossed, met, and thickened. There was a
growing river of eerie light which spread, again resembling a sea
wave licking out onto the field. And where it touched, unlike the
wave, it did not retreat, but lapped on. Was he actually seeing
that? Shann could not be sure.
Only the gray light continued to build, faster now, its speed of
advance matching its increase in bulk. Shann somehow connected it
with the veil of illusion. If it was real, there was a purpose
behind it.
There was an aroused clicking from the Throgs. A blaster bolt
cracked, its spiteful, sickly yellow slicing into the nearest
tongue of gray. But that luminous fog engulfed the blast and was
not dispelled. Shann forced his head around against the support
which held him. The mist crept across the field from all quarters,
walling them in.
Running at the ungainly lope which was their best effort at
speed were half a dozen Throgs emerging from the river section.
Their attitude suggested panic-stricken flight, and when one
tripped on some unseen obstruction and went down—to fall
beneath a descending tongue of phosphorescence—he uttered a
strange high-pitched squeal, thin and faint, but still a note of
complete, mindless terror.
The Throgs surrounding Shann were firing at the fog, first with
precision, then raggedly, as their bolts did nothing to cut that
opaque curtain drawing in about them. From inside that mist came
other sounds—noises, calls, and cries all alien to him, and
perhaps also to the Throgs. There were shapes barely to be
discerned through the swirls; perhaps some were Throgs in flight.
But certainly others were non-Throg in outline. And the Terran was
sure that at least three of those shapes, all different, had been
in pursuit of one fleeing Throg, heading him off from that small
open area still holding about Shann.
For the Throgs were being herded in from all sides—the
handful who had come from the river, the others who had brought
Shann there. And the action of the mist was pushing them into a
tight knot. Would they eventually turn on him, wanting to make sure
of their prisoner before they made a last stand against whatever
lurked in the fog? To Shann’s continued relief the aliens
seemed to have forgotten him. Even when one cowered back against
the very edge of the frame on which the Terran was bound, the
beetle-head did not look at this helpless prey.
They were firing wildly, with desperation in every heavy thrust
of bolt. Then one Throg threw down his blaster, raised his arms
over his head, and voicing the same high wail uttered by his
comrade-in-arms earlier, he ran straight into the mist where a
shape materialized, closed in behind him, cutting him off from his
fellows.
That break demoralized the others. The Throg commander burned
down two of his company with his blaster, but three more broke past
him to the fog. One of the remaining party reversed his blaster,
swung the stock against the officer’s carapace, beating him
to his knees, before the attacker raced on into the billows of the
mist. Another threw himself on the ground and lay there, pounding
his claws against the baked earth. While a remaining two continued
with stolid precision to fire at the lurking shapes which could
only be half seen; and a third helped the officer to his feet.
The Throg commander reeled back against the frame, his musky
body scent filling Shann’s nostrils. But he, too, paid no
attention to the Terran, though his horny arms scraped across
Shann’s. Holding both of his claws to his head, he staggered
on, to be engulfed by a new arm of the fog.
Then, as if the swallowing of the officer had given the mist a
fresh appetite, the wan light waved in a last vast billow over the
clear area about the frame. Shann felt its substance cold, slimy,
on his skin. This was a deadly breath of un-life.
He was weakened, sapped of strength, so that he hung in his
bonds, his head lolling forward on his breast. Warmth pressed
against him, a warm wet touch on his cold skin, a sensation of
friendly concern in his mind. Shann gasped, found that he was no
longer filling his lungs with that chill staleness which was the
breath of the fog. He opened his eyes, struggling to raise his
head. The gray light had retreated, but though a Throg blaster lay
close to his feet, another only a yard beyond, there was no sign of
the aliens.
Instead, standing on their hind feet to press against him in a
demand for his attention, were the wolverines. And seeing them,
Shann dared to believe that the impossible could be true; somehow
he was safe.
He spoke. And Taggi and Togi answered with eager whines. The
mist was withdrawing more slowly than it had come. Here and there
things lay very still on the ground.
“Lantee!”
This time the call came not into his mind but out of the air.
Shann made an effort at reply which was close to a croak.
“Over here!”
A new shape in the fog was moving with purpose toward him.
Thorvald strode into the open, sighted Shann, and began to run.
“What did they—?” he began.
Shann wanted to laugh, but the sound which issued from his dry
throat was very little like mirth. He struggled helplessly until he
managed to get out some words which made sense.
“ . . . hadn’t started in on me
yet. You were just in time.”
Thorvald loosened the wires which held the younger man to the
frame and stood ready to catch him as he slumped forward. And the
officer’s hold wiped away the last clammy residue of the
mist. Though he did not seem able to keep on his feet,
Shann’s mind was clear.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“The power.” Thorvald was examining him hastily but
with attention for every cut and bruise. “The beetle-heads
didn’t really get to work on you—”
“Told you that,” Shann said impatiently. “But
what brought that fog and got the Throgs?”
Thorvald smiled grimly. The ghostly light was fading as the fog
retreated, but Shann could see well enough to note that around the
other’s neck hung one of the Wyvern disks.
“It was a variation of the veil of illusion. You faced
your memories under the influence of that; so did I. But it would
seem that the Throgs had ones worse than either of us could
produce. You can’t play the role of thug all over the galaxy
and not store up in the subconscious a fine line of private fears
and remembered enemies. We provided the means for releasing those,
and they simply raised their own devils to order. Neatest justice
ever rendered. It seems that the ‘power’ has a big
kick—in a different way—when a Terran will manages to
spark it.”
“And you did?”
“I made a small beginning. Also I had the full backing of
the Elders, and a general staff of Wyverns in support. In a way I
helped to provide a channel for their concentration. Alone they can
work ‘magic’; with us they can spread out into new
fields. Tonight we hunted Throgs as a united team—most
successfully.”
“But they wouldn’t go after the one in the
skull.”
“No. Direct contact with a Throg mind appears to
short-circuit them. I did the contacting; they fed me what I
needed. We have the answer to the Throgs now—one
answer.” Thorvald looked back over the field where those
bodies lay so still. “We can kill Throgs. Maybe someday we
can learn another trick—how to live with them.” He
returned abruptly to the present. “You did contact the
transport.”
Shann explained what had happened in the com dome. “I
think when the ship broke contact that way they
understood.”
“We’ll take it that they did, and be on the
move.” Thorvald helped Shann to his feet. “If a cruiser
berths here shortly, I don’t propose to be under its tail
flames when it sets down.”
The cruiser came. And a mop-up squad patrolled outward from the
reclaimed camp, picked up two living Throgs, both wandering
witlessly. But Shann only heard of that later. He slept, so deep
and dreamlessly that when he roused he was momentarily dazed.
A Survey uniform—with a cadet’s badges—lay
across the wall seat facing his bunk in the barracks he had
left . . . how many days or weeks before? The
garments fitted well enough, but he removed the insignia to which
he was not entitled. When he ventured out he saw half a dozen
troopers of the patrol, together with Thorvald, watching the
cruiser lift again into the morning sky.
Taggi and Togi, trailing leashes, galloped out of nowhere to
hurl themselves at him in uproarious welcome. And Thorvald must
have heard their eager whines even through the blast of the ship,
for he turned and waved Shann to join him.
“Where is the cruiser going?”
“To punch a Throg base out of this system,” Thorvald
answered. “They located it—on Witch.”
“But we’re staying on here?”
Thorvald glanced at him oddly. “There won’t be any
settlement now. But we have to establish a conditional embassy
post. And the patrol has left a guard.”
Embassy post. Shann digested that. Yes, of course, Thorvald,
because of his close contact with the Wyverns, would be left here
for the present to act as liaison officer-in-charge.
“We don’t propose,” the other was continuing,
“to allow to lapse any contact with the one intelligent alien
race we have discovered who can furnish us with full-time
partnership to our mutual benefit. And there mustn’t be any
bungling here!”
Shann nodded. That made sense. As soon as possible Warlock would
witness the arrival of another team, one slated this time to the
cultivation of an alien friendship and alliance, rather than
preparation for Terran colonists. Would they keep him on? He
supposed not; the wolverines’ usefulness was no longer
apparent.
“Don’t you know your regulations?” There was a
snap in Thorvald’s demand which startled Shann. He glanced
up, discovered the other surveying him critically.
“You’re not in uniform—”
“No, sir,” he admitted. “I couldn’t find
my own kit.”
“Where are your badges?”
Shann’s hand went up to the marks left when he had so
carefully ripped off the insignia.
“My badges? I have no rank,” he replied,
bewildered.
“Every team carries at least one cadet on
strength.”
Shann flushed. There had been one cadet on this team; why did
Thorvald want to remember that?
“Also,” the other’s voice sounded remote,
“there can be appointments made in the field—for cause.
Those appointments are left to the discretion of the
officer-in-charge, and they are never questioned. I repeat, you are
not in uniform, Lantee. You will make the necessary alteration and
report to me at headquarters dome. As sole representatives of Terra
here we have a matter of protocol to be discussed with our witches,
and they have a right to expect punctuality from a pair of
warlocks, so get going!”
Shann still stood, staring incredulously at the officer. Then
Thorvald’s official severity vanished in a smile which was
warm and real.
“Get going,” he ordered once more, “before I
have to log you for inattention to orders.”
Shann turned, nearly stumbling over Taggi, and then ran back to
the barracks in quest of some very important bits of braid he hoped
he could find in a hurry.
Shann had no answer from the transport, only
the continuing hum of a contact still open between the dome and the
control cabin miles above Warlock. The Terran breathed slowly,
deeply, felt the claws of the Throg bite his flesh as his chest
expanded. Then, as if a knife slashed, the hum of that contact was
gone. He had time to know a small flash of triumph. He had done it;
he had aroused suspicion in the transport.
When the Throg officer clicked to the alien manning the landing
beam, Shann’s exultation grew. The beetle-head must have
accepted that cut in communication as normal; he was still
expecting the Terran ship to drop neatly into his claws.
But Shann’s respite was to be very short, only timed by a
few breaths. The Throg at the riding beam was watching the
indicators. Now he reported to his superior, who swung back to face
the prisoner. Although Shann could read no expression on the
beetle’s face, he did not need any clue to the other’s
probable emotions. Knowing that his captive had somehow tricked
him, the alien would now proceed relentlessly to put into effect
the measures he had threatened.
How long before the patrol cruiser would planet? That crew was
used to alarms, and their speed was three or four times greater
than that of the bulkier transports. If the Throgs didn’t
scatter now, before they could be caught in one
attack . . .
The wire rope which held Shann clamped to the chair was
loosened, and he set his teeth against the pain of restored
circulation. This was nothing compared to what he faced; he knew
that. They jerked him to his feet, faced him toward the outer door,
and propelled him through it with a speed and roughness indicative
of their feelings.
The hour was close to dusk and Shann glanced wistfully at
promising shadows, though he had given up hope of rescue by now. If
he could just get free of his guards, he could at least give the
beetle-heads a good run.
He saw that the camp was deserted. There was no sign about the
domes that any Throgs sheltered there. In fact, Shann saw no aliens
at all except those who had come from the com dome with him. Of
course! The rest must be in ambush, waiting for the transport to
planet. What about the Throg ship or ships? Those must have been
hidden also. And the only hiding place for them would be aloft.
There was a chance that the Throgs had so flung away their chance
for any quick retreat.
Yes, the aliens could scatter over the countryside and so escape
the first blast from the cruiser. But they would simply maroon
themselves to be hunted down by patrol landing parties who would
comb the territory. The beetles could so prolong their lives for a
few hours, maybe a few days, but they were really ended on that
moment when the transport cut communication. Shann was sure that
the officer, at least, understood that.
The Terran was dragged away from the domes toward the river down
which he and Thorvald had once escaped. Moving through the dusk in
parallel lines, he caught sight of other Throg squads, well armed,
marching in order to suggest that they were not yet alarmed.
However, he had been right about the ships—there were no
flyers grounded on the improvised field.
Shann made himself as much of a burden as he could. At the best,
he could so delay the guards entrusted with his safekeeping; at the
worst, he could earn for himself a quick ending by blaster which
would be better than the one they had for him. He went limp,
falling forward into the trampled grass. There was an exasperated
click from the Throg who had been herding him, and the Terran tried
not to flinch from a sharp kick delivered by a clawed foot.
Feigning unconsciousness, the Terran listened to the
unintelligible clicks exchanged by Throgs standing over him. His
future depended now on how deep lay the alien officer’s
anger. If the beetle-head wanted to carry out his earlier threats
he would have to order Shann’s transportation by the fleeing
force. Otherwise his life might well end here and now.
Claws hooked once more on Shann. He was boosted up on the horny
carapace of a guard, the bonds on his arms taken off and his numbed
hands brought forward, to be held by his captor so that he lay
helpless, a cloak over the other’s hunched shoulders.
The ghost flares of bushes and plants blooming in the gathering
twilight gave a limited light to the scene. There was no way of
counting the number of Throgs on the move. But Shann was sure that
all the enemy ships must have been emptied except for skeleton
crews, and perhaps others had been ferried in from their hidden
base somewhere in Circe’s system.
He could only see a little from his position on the
Throg’s back, but ahead a ripple of beetle bodies slipped
over the bank of the river cut. The aliens were working their way
into cover, fitting into the dapple shadows with a skill which
argued a long practice in such elusive maneuvers. Did they plan to
try to fight off a cruiser attack? That was pure madness. Or, Shann
wondered, did they intend to have the Terrans met by one of their
own major ships somewhere well above the surface of Warlock?
His bearer turned away from the stream cut, carrying Shann out
into that field which had first served the Terrans as a landing
strip, then offered the same service to the Throgs. They passed two
more parties of aliens on the move, manhandling bulky objects the
Terran could not identify. Then he was dumped unceremoniously to
the hard earth, only to lie there a few seconds before he was
flopped over on a framework which grated unpleasantly against his
raw shoulders, his wrists and ankles being made fast so that his
body was spread-eagled. There was a click of orders; the frame was
raised and dropped with a jarring movement into a base, and he was
held erect, once more facing the Throg with the translator. This
was it! Shann began to regret every small chance he had had to end
more cleanly. If he had attacked one of the guards, even with his
hands bound, he might have flustered the Throg into retaliatory
blaster fire.
Fear made a thicker fog about him than the green mist of the
illusion. Only this was no illusion. Shann stared at the Throg
officer with sick eyes, knowing that no one ever quite believes
that at last evil will strike at him, that he had clung to a hope
which had no existence.
“Lantee!”
The call burst in his head with a painful force. His dazed
attention was outwardly on the alien with the translator, but that
inner demand had given him a shock.
“Here! Thorvald? Where?
The other struck in again with an urgent demand singing through
Shann’s brain.
“Give us a fix point—away from camp but not too far.
Quick!”
A fix point—what did the Survey officer mean? A fix
point . . . For some reason Shann thought of
the ledge on which he had lain to watch the first Throg attack. And
the picture of it was etched on his mind as clearly as memory could
paint it.
“Thorvald—” Again his voice and his mind call
were echoes of each other. But this time he had no answer. Had that
demand meant Thorvald and the Wyverns were moving in, putting to
use the strange distance-erasing power the witches of Warlock could
use by desire? But why had they not come sooner? And what could
they hope to accomplish against the now scattered but certainly
unbroken enemy forces? The Wyverns had not been able to turn their
power against one injured Throg—by their own
accounting—how could they possibly cope with well-armed and
alert aliens in the field?
“You die—slow—” The Throg officer
clicked, and the emotionless, toneless translation was all the more
daunting for that lack of color. “Your people
come—see—”
So that was the reason they had brought him to the landing
field. He was to furnish a grisly warning to the crew of the
cruiser. However, there the Throgs were making a bad mistake if
they believed that his death by any ingenious method could scare
off Terran retaliation.
“I die—you follow—” Shann tried to make
that promise emphatic.
Did the Throg officer expect the Terran to beg for his life or a
quick death? Again he made his threat—straight into the web,
hearing it split into clicks.
“Perhaps,” the Throg officer returned. “But
you die the first.”
“Get to it!” Shann’s voice scaled up. He was
close to the ragged edge, and the last push toward the breaking
point had not been the Throg speech, but that message from
Thorvald. If the Survey officer was going to make any move in the
mottled dusk, it would have to be soon.
Mottled dusk . . . the Throgs had moved a
little away from him. Shann looked beyond them to the perimeter of
the cleared field, not really because he expected to see any
rescuers break from cover there. And when he did see a change,
Shann thought his own sight was at fault.
Those splotches of waxy light which marked certain trees,
bushes, and scrubby ground-hugging plants were spreading, running
together in pools. And from those center cores of concentrated
glow, tendrils of mist lazily curled out, as a many-armed creature
of the sea might allow its appendages to float in the water which
supported it. Tendrils crossed, met, and thickened. There was a
growing river of eerie light which spread, again resembling a sea
wave licking out onto the field. And where it touched, unlike the
wave, it did not retreat, but lapped on. Was he actually seeing
that? Shann could not be sure.
Only the gray light continued to build, faster now, its speed of
advance matching its increase in bulk. Shann somehow connected it
with the veil of illusion. If it was real, there was a purpose
behind it.
There was an aroused clicking from the Throgs. A blaster bolt
cracked, its spiteful, sickly yellow slicing into the nearest
tongue of gray. But that luminous fog engulfed the blast and was
not dispelled. Shann forced his head around against the support
which held him. The mist crept across the field from all quarters,
walling them in.
Running at the ungainly lope which was their best effort at
speed were half a dozen Throgs emerging from the river section.
Their attitude suggested panic-stricken flight, and when one
tripped on some unseen obstruction and went down—to fall
beneath a descending tongue of phosphorescence—he uttered a
strange high-pitched squeal, thin and faint, but still a note of
complete, mindless terror.
The Throgs surrounding Shann were firing at the fog, first with
precision, then raggedly, as their bolts did nothing to cut that
opaque curtain drawing in about them. From inside that mist came
other sounds—noises, calls, and cries all alien to him, and
perhaps also to the Throgs. There were shapes barely to be
discerned through the swirls; perhaps some were Throgs in flight.
But certainly others were non-Throg in outline. And the Terran was
sure that at least three of those shapes, all different, had been
in pursuit of one fleeing Throg, heading him off from that small
open area still holding about Shann.
For the Throgs were being herded in from all sides—the
handful who had come from the river, the others who had brought
Shann there. And the action of the mist was pushing them into a
tight knot. Would they eventually turn on him, wanting to make sure
of their prisoner before they made a last stand against whatever
lurked in the fog? To Shann’s continued relief the aliens
seemed to have forgotten him. Even when one cowered back against
the very edge of the frame on which the Terran was bound, the
beetle-head did not look at this helpless prey.
They were firing wildly, with desperation in every heavy thrust
of bolt. Then one Throg threw down his blaster, raised his arms
over his head, and voicing the same high wail uttered by his
comrade-in-arms earlier, he ran straight into the mist where a
shape materialized, closed in behind him, cutting him off from his
fellows.
That break demoralized the others. The Throg commander burned
down two of his company with his blaster, but three more broke past
him to the fog. One of the remaining party reversed his blaster,
swung the stock against the officer’s carapace, beating him
to his knees, before the attacker raced on into the billows of the
mist. Another threw himself on the ground and lay there, pounding
his claws against the baked earth. While a remaining two continued
with stolid precision to fire at the lurking shapes which could
only be half seen; and a third helped the officer to his feet.
The Throg commander reeled back against the frame, his musky
body scent filling Shann’s nostrils. But he, too, paid no
attention to the Terran, though his horny arms scraped across
Shann’s. Holding both of his claws to his head, he staggered
on, to be engulfed by a new arm of the fog.
Then, as if the swallowing of the officer had given the mist a
fresh appetite, the wan light waved in a last vast billow over the
clear area about the frame. Shann felt its substance cold, slimy,
on his skin. This was a deadly breath of un-life.
He was weakened, sapped of strength, so that he hung in his
bonds, his head lolling forward on his breast. Warmth pressed
against him, a warm wet touch on his cold skin, a sensation of
friendly concern in his mind. Shann gasped, found that he was no
longer filling his lungs with that chill staleness which was the
breath of the fog. He opened his eyes, struggling to raise his
head. The gray light had retreated, but though a Throg blaster lay
close to his feet, another only a yard beyond, there was no sign of
the aliens.
Instead, standing on their hind feet to press against him in a
demand for his attention, were the wolverines. And seeing them,
Shann dared to believe that the impossible could be true; somehow
he was safe.
He spoke. And Taggi and Togi answered with eager whines. The
mist was withdrawing more slowly than it had come. Here and there
things lay very still on the ground.
“Lantee!”
This time the call came not into his mind but out of the air.
Shann made an effort at reply which was close to a croak.
“Over here!”
A new shape in the fog was moving with purpose toward him.
Thorvald strode into the open, sighted Shann, and began to run.
“What did they—?” he began.
Shann wanted to laugh, but the sound which issued from his dry
throat was very little like mirth. He struggled helplessly until he
managed to get out some words which made sense.
“ . . . hadn’t started in on me
yet. You were just in time.”
Thorvald loosened the wires which held the younger man to the
frame and stood ready to catch him as he slumped forward. And the
officer’s hold wiped away the last clammy residue of the
mist. Though he did not seem able to keep on his feet,
Shann’s mind was clear.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“The power.” Thorvald was examining him hastily but
with attention for every cut and bruise. “The beetle-heads
didn’t really get to work on you—”
“Told you that,” Shann said impatiently. “But
what brought that fog and got the Throgs?”
Thorvald smiled grimly. The ghostly light was fading as the fog
retreated, but Shann could see well enough to note that around the
other’s neck hung one of the Wyvern disks.
“It was a variation of the veil of illusion. You faced
your memories under the influence of that; so did I. But it would
seem that the Throgs had ones worse than either of us could
produce. You can’t play the role of thug all over the galaxy
and not store up in the subconscious a fine line of private fears
and remembered enemies. We provided the means for releasing those,
and they simply raised their own devils to order. Neatest justice
ever rendered. It seems that the ‘power’ has a big
kick—in a different way—when a Terran will manages to
spark it.”
“And you did?”
“I made a small beginning. Also I had the full backing of
the Elders, and a general staff of Wyverns in support. In a way I
helped to provide a channel for their concentration. Alone they can
work ‘magic’; with us they can spread out into new
fields. Tonight we hunted Throgs as a united team—most
successfully.”
“But they wouldn’t go after the one in the
skull.”
“No. Direct contact with a Throg mind appears to
short-circuit them. I did the contacting; they fed me what I
needed. We have the answer to the Throgs now—one
answer.” Thorvald looked back over the field where those
bodies lay so still. “We can kill Throgs. Maybe someday we
can learn another trick—how to live with them.” He
returned abruptly to the present. “You did contact the
transport.”
Shann explained what had happened in the com dome. “I
think when the ship broke contact that way they
understood.”
“We’ll take it that they did, and be on the
move.” Thorvald helped Shann to his feet. “If a cruiser
berths here shortly, I don’t propose to be under its tail
flames when it sets down.”
The cruiser came. And a mop-up squad patrolled outward from the
reclaimed camp, picked up two living Throgs, both wandering
witlessly. But Shann only heard of that later. He slept, so deep
and dreamlessly that when he roused he was momentarily dazed.
A Survey uniform—with a cadet’s badges—lay
across the wall seat facing his bunk in the barracks he had
left . . . how many days or weeks before? The
garments fitted well enough, but he removed the insignia to which
he was not entitled. When he ventured out he saw half a dozen
troopers of the patrol, together with Thorvald, watching the
cruiser lift again into the morning sky.
Taggi and Togi, trailing leashes, galloped out of nowhere to
hurl themselves at him in uproarious welcome. And Thorvald must
have heard their eager whines even through the blast of the ship,
for he turned and waved Shann to join him.
“Where is the cruiser going?”
“To punch a Throg base out of this system,” Thorvald
answered. “They located it—on Witch.”
“But we’re staying on here?”
Thorvald glanced at him oddly. “There won’t be any
settlement now. But we have to establish a conditional embassy
post. And the patrol has left a guard.”
Embassy post. Shann digested that. Yes, of course, Thorvald,
because of his close contact with the Wyverns, would be left here
for the present to act as liaison officer-in-charge.
“We don’t propose,” the other was continuing,
“to allow to lapse any contact with the one intelligent alien
race we have discovered who can furnish us with full-time
partnership to our mutual benefit. And there mustn’t be any
bungling here!”
Shann nodded. That made sense. As soon as possible Warlock would
witness the arrival of another team, one slated this time to the
cultivation of an alien friendship and alliance, rather than
preparation for Terran colonists. Would they keep him on? He
supposed not; the wolverines’ usefulness was no longer
apparent.
“Don’t you know your regulations?” There was a
snap in Thorvald’s demand which startled Shann. He glanced
up, discovered the other surveying him critically.
“You’re not in uniform—”
“No, sir,” he admitted. “I couldn’t find
my own kit.”
“Where are your badges?”
Shann’s hand went up to the marks left when he had so
carefully ripped off the insignia.
“My badges? I have no rank,” he replied,
bewildered.
“Every team carries at least one cadet on
strength.”
Shann flushed. There had been one cadet on this team; why did
Thorvald want to remember that?
“Also,” the other’s voice sounded remote,
“there can be appointments made in the field—for cause.
Those appointments are left to the discretion of the
officer-in-charge, and they are never questioned. I repeat, you are
not in uniform, Lantee. You will make the necessary alteration and
report to me at headquarters dome. As sole representatives of Terra
here we have a matter of protocol to be discussed with our witches,
and they have a right to expect punctuality from a pair of
warlocks, so get going!”
Shann still stood, staring incredulously at the officer. Then
Thorvald’s official severity vanished in a smile which was
warm and real.
“Get going,” he ordered once more, “before I
have to log you for inattention to orders.”
Shann turned, nearly stumbling over Taggi, and then ran back to
the barracks in quest of some very important bits of braid he hoped
he could find in a hurry.