What Charis saw was indistinct and fuzzy, not
as clean-cut as a picture she recalled from her own memory, but
perhaps enough for concentration. Only, with that fogged picture
came other things; that corridor with the doors was beginning to
take form behind the wood and lake. Charis struck Lantee’s
hand away and stared at him, breathing hard, trying to read an
answering awareness in his eyes.
“We’ll have to remember the dangers of that.”
Lantee spoke first.
“Not again! Never again!” Charis heard her
voice grow shrill.
But already he was nodding in reply. “No, not again. But
did you see enough of the other?”
“I hope so.” She took the stick from him and chose a
flat rock surface on which to sketch the Power design. It was when
she was putting in the ovals Tsstu had remembered for her that
Charis paused.
“Tsstu! I cannot leave her behind. And
Taggi—”
She closed her eyes and sent out that silent call. “Tsstu,
come! Come now!”
Touch! There came an overlapping of thought waves as fuzzy as
the picture Lantee had beamed to her. And—refusal! Decided
refusal—an abrupt breaking of contact. Why?
“There is no use,” she heard Lantee say as she
opened her eyes again.
“You reached Taggi.” It was not a question.
“I reached him in a different way than I ever have before.
He would not listen. He was occupied—”
“Occupied?” Charis wondered at his word choice.
“Hunting?”
“I don’t think so. He was exploring, trying
something new which interested him so greatly he would not
come.”
“But they are here, back with us, not in
Otherwhere?” Her relief was threatened by that recurring
fear.
“I don’t know where they are. But Taggi has no fear;
he is only curious, very curious. And Tsstu?”
“She broke contact. But—yes—I think she had no
fear either.”
“We shall have to leave now!” Lantee continued.
If they could, Charis amended silently. She took his hand once
more. “Think of your lake,” she ordered and
concentrated on the faint pattern on the rock.
Cool breeze—the murmur of it through leaves. The direct
baking of the sun had been modified by a weaving of branches, and
just before her was the shimmer of lake surface.
“We made it!” The tight grasp on her hand was gone.
Lantee surveyed the site with a wary measuring, his nostrils
slightly dilated as if, like Taggi, he could pick up and classify
some alien scent.
There was a path along the lake shore, defined well enough to be
clearly visible. Otherwise the place was as deserted as if no
off-worlder had ever been there before.
“This way!” Lantee motioned her south, away from the
thread of path. His voice was close to a whisper, as if he
suspected they were scouting enemy-held territory.
“There’s a hill in this direction and from it we can
get a good look at the base.”
“But why—?” Charis began and was favored with
an impatient frown from her companion.
“If there’s any move being made, either by the Jacks
or the witches, the first strike will be at the base. With Thorvald
and me out of the way, the witches may be able to put Hantin, or
any other off-worlder, right under control. And the Jacks could
overrun the whole place easily, make a surprise attack and write
off the base just as they wrote off the trading post.”
She followed him with no more questions. On Demeter Charis had
gone exploring with the ranger; she thought she knew a measure of
woodcraft. But Lantee was as much at home in this business as Taggi
could be. He slipped soundlessly from one piece of cover to
another. However, she noted with some surprise, he did not display
any outward signs of impatience when her clumsiness slowed them.
And she was even a little resentful of what she came to believe was
his forbearance.
Hot and very thirsty, Charis wriggled up a slope Lantee had led
them to. She had a swelling bite delivered by the rightful
inhabitant of an earthen run she had inadvertently crushed, and her
throat ached with desert dryness before they lay side by side
behind a screen of brush at the top of that rise.
A cluster of four bubble domes lay below and, farther away, a
landing field. There was a light copter standing to one side of
that, and on the rocket-blasted middle section stood a small
spacer—a Patrol scout, Charis believed.
It was very peaceful there below. No one moved about the
buildings, but pale flowers native to Warlock grew in the open
space. And some brighter spots in those beds suggested that perhaps
some off-world plants had been imported as an experiment.
“It looks all right—” she began.
“It looks all wrong!” His whisper carried something
of the hiss of Wyvern anger.
There were no blast holes in the fabric of the domes as there
had been at the raided post, nothing in sight which suggested
trouble. But Lantee’s concern was plain to read, and she
returned to a second and more searching survey of the scene.
It must be midafternoon and there was a quality of drowsy peace
down there. The inhabitants could all be dozing out the hours at
their ease. Charis made up her mind not to ask for enlightenment
but wait for her companion to volunteer the cause for his
suspicion.
He began to talk softly, perhaps more as a listing of his own
causes for suspicion aloud rather than as a sharing of information
with Charis.
“Com mast down. Hantin’s not out in the garden
working on that new crossing bed of his. And Togi—Togi and
the cubs—”
“Togi?” Charis dared to ask.
“Taggi’s mate. She has two cubs and they spend every
afternoon that’s sunny down among those rocks. They’re
very fond of earth-wasp grubs and there’s several colonies of
them to be found there. Togi’s been teaching the cubs how to
dig them out.”
But how could he be sure that just because a wolverine and her
cubs were not at a certain place there was trouble below? Then
Charis added that to the two other facts he had noted—the com
mast down and that he had not seen one of the base personnel
outside. But both of those were such little things—
“Put those three together”—Lantee was either
able to read her thoughts in part or was following her own line or
reasoning with surprising accuracy—“and you have a
wrong answer. On a base you come to follow habit. We have the com
mast up always. That’s orders and you don’t change
regulations unless there’s an emergency. Hantin is
experimenting with the crossing of some of the native plants with
off-world varieties. He’s hybrid-mad and he spends all his
free time in the garden. And Togi is earth-wasp minded; only caging
would keep her away from those rocks. And since we’ve yet to
find any cage she can’t break out of—” He looked
glum.
“So—what do we do now?”
“We wait until dark. If the base is deserted and the com
not wrecked—both of which are slim chances—there may be
an opportunity to get a call off planet. But there’s no use
in trying to get down there now. Any approach would have to be made
across the open.”
He was right in that. The usual clearing about buildings ordered
by custom in a frontier world was not as open here as it had been
about Jagan’s post. But there was no brush or trees or other
cover growth left within a good distance of any of the four domes
or the landing field. To approach those meant advancing in the
open.
Lantee rolled over on his back and lay staring up into the bush
they were using as a screen with an intentness which suggested that
he hoped to read the answer for their problem somewhere within the
maze of its drooping branches.
“Togi—” Charis broke the silence
“—is she like Taggi? Could you call her?” What
aid the wolverine might be Charis did not know, but to try and
reach her was action of some sort, and just now she found inaction
more frustrating than she could bear.
Exasperation sharpened Lantee’s reply. “What do you
think I’m trying to do? But since she has had cubs she is
less receptive to orders. We have let her go her own way while they
are small. Whether she will ever obey spoken commands again, I am
not sure.”
He closed his eyes, a frown line sharp between his well-marked
brows. Charis propped her chin on her hand. As far as she could
determine, the base continued to drowse in the sun. Was it really
deserted? Through Wyvern Power sending its inhabitants into that
strange darkness? Or left so by a Jack raid?
Unlike the rugged setting Jagan had chosen for his post, this
more open country was lighter, gave no feeling of somberness
darkening into possible menace. Or was she becoming so accustomed
to the general Warlockian scenery that it no longer looked the same
to her as it had when Jagan had brought her out of the spacer? How
long ago? weeks? months? Charis had never been able to reckon how
much time she had spent with the Wyverns.
Yes, here Warlock was fair under the amber sky, the golden sun.
The amethyst hues of the foliage were sheer splendor. Purple and
gold—the ancient colors of royalty in the days when Terra had
hailed kings and queens, emperors and empresses. And now Terran
blood had spread from star to star, mutated, adapted, even
allegiances had changed from world to world as the tides of
migration had continued generation after generation. Ander Nordholm
had been born on Scandia, but she herself had never seen that
planet. Her mother had been from Bran, and she herself could claim
Minos for her native soil. Three widely separated and different
worlds. And she could not remember Minos at all. Lantee—where
had Shann Lantee been born?
Charis turned her head to study him, trying to select some race
or planet to fit his name and his general physical appearance. But
to her eyes he was not distinctive enough a type to recognize.
Survey drew from almost every settled planet of the Confederation.
He could even be a native Terran. That he was Survey meant that he
had certain basic traits of character, certain very useful skills.
And that he was also wearing the gold key of an embassy above his
cadet bar meant even more—that he had extra-special
attributes into the bargain.
“It’s no use.” He raised his hand to shade his
now open eyes. “If she is still down there, I can’t
touch her—not mentally anyway.”
“What did you think she might do to help us now?”
Charis asked, curious.
“Maybe nothing.” But that seemed an evasive answer
to the girl.
“Are you a Beast Master?” she asked.
“No, Survey doesn’t use animals that way—as
fighters or sabotage teams. Taggi and Togi are both fighters when
they have to be, but they act more as scouts. In lots of ways their
senses are more acute than ours; they can learn more in a shorter
time about a new stretch of country than any human. But Taggi and
Togi were sent here originally as an experiment. We learned after
the Throg attack just how much they could help—”
“Listen!” Charis’s hand clamped onto his
shoulder. She straightened out, flat to the ground, her head to one
side. No, she had not been mistaken. The sound was growing
louder.
“Atmosphere flyer!” Lantee’s identification
confirmed her own guess. “Back!” He rolled farther
under the drooping branches of the bush and tugged at Charis as she
wormed in after him.
The flyer was approaching from the north, not coming in over
their present perch. As the plane set down on the landing strip,
Charis saw that it was larger than the copter already
there—probably a six-passenger ship motored for
transcontinental service, not for the shorter flights of the
copters.
“That’s none of ours!” Lantee whispered.
It came to a halt and two men dropped from it to stride
purposefully toward the domes. They went so confidently that the
watchers knew they must expect welcome or at least believe that no
difficulty awaited them. They were too far from the spy post for
their features to be distinguished, but while they wore uniforms of
a similar cut to those at the post, Charis had never seen these
before. The black and silver of Patrol, the green-brown of Survey,
the gray and red of the medical service, the blue of
Administration, the plain green of the Rangers, the maroon of
Education—she could identify those at a glance. But these
were a light yellow.
“Who?” she wondered. When she heard a small grunt
from Lantee, she added, “Do you know?”
“Something—somewhere—” Then he shook his
head. “I’ve seen something like that color, but I
can’t remember now.”
“Would Jacks wear uniforms? The one I saw with the
blaster—he was dressed just like any other Free
Trader.”
“No.” Lantee’s frown grew deeper. “It
means something—if I only could remember!”
“No government service? Perhaps some planetary
organization operating off-world,” Charis suggested.
“I don’t know how that could be. Look!”
A third man had come out of one of the domes. Like the two from
the flyer he wore yellow, but sunlight struck glinting sparks from
his collar and belt; that could only mark insignia of some type. A
uniformed invasion of a government base— A wild idea suddenly
struck Charis.
“Shann—could—could a war have broken
out?”
For a moment he did not answer her and, when he did, it was
almost as if he were trying to deny that idea to himself as much as
to her.
“The only war we’ve waged in centuries has been
against the Throgs—and those aren’t Throgs down there!
I was here just five days ago, and the messages we were receiving
from off-world were all only routine. We had no warning of any
trouble.”
“Five days ago?” she challenged him.
“How can we be sure of how much time passed while the Wyverns
controlled us? It may have been weeks or longer since you were
here.”
“I know—I know. But I don’t think war is the
answer. I just don’t believe it. But a Company action—
If they thought they could get away with a grab— If the gain
was big enough—”
Charis considered that. Yes, the Companies—they were
regulated, curbed, investigated, as well as the Confederation and
the Patrol could manage. But they had their own police, their
extra-legal methods when they dared flaunt control. Only what would
bring any one of the Companies to send a private army to Warlock?
What treasure could be scooped up here before a routine Patrol
visit would reveal such lawless activity?
“What could they find here to make it worth their
while?” she asked. “Rare metals? What?”
“One thing—” Lantee continued to watch the men
below. The two from the flyer were discussing something with the
man from the dome. One of them broke away and headed back for the
aircraft. “One thing might just be worth it if they could
seize it.”
“What?” Charis’s guesses roved wildly. Surely
Jagan would have known and mentioned any outstanding native product
during his instruction on trading.
“The Power itself! Think what that secret would mean to
men who could use it on other worlds!”
He was right. The Power was a treasure great enough to tempt
even one of the companies into piracy of a kind. If they mastered
its use they could defy even the Patrol. And Lantee’s idea
fitted very neatly into place, especially now that she remembered
Jagan’s mention of the same quest.
“The nullifier.” She thought aloud.
“That’s their answer to the use of the Power against
them. But how did they develop something of the sort
without knowing more about the Power? Maybe they believe they can
use it to control the Wyverns and make them yield their
secrets.”
“The nullifier, whatever it is, can be an adaptation of
something already well known. As to the rest—yes—they
could believe they have the witches finished.”
“But the Jacks? Why?”
Lantee scowled. “Not the first time a Company has shoved
some of its hard-fisted boys into plain clothes and tried a Jack
cover-screen for a quick steal. If they’re caught, then
they’re just Jacks and nothing else. If they succeed, the
Company comes in behind their screen and they all fade out as soon
as the grab is over. If they believe now that they’ve either
wiped out all opposition or have it under wraps, then they’re
in the open with another force to consolidate their position and
protect any experts and techs they send in for a real study of the
Power. It all fits. Don’t you see how it fits?”
“But—if this is a Company at work—”
Charis’s voice trailed off as the full force of what might be
arrayed against them struck home.
“You’re beginning to see? Jacks on their own are one
thing; a Company pulling a grab is something else.”
Lantee’s tone was bleak. “They will have resources to
draw on to back their every move. Right now I wouldn’t wager
star against comet that they’re not in complete control
here.”
“Maybe,” Charis chose to use his gambling symbols,
“they may believe that they have every comet on the board
blocked, but there are a few wild stars left.”
There was a faint suggestion of a smile about his lips.
“Two wild stars, perhaps?”
“Four. Do not underestimate Tsstu and Taggi.” And
she meant that, strange as it sounded.
“Four—you, me, a wolverine, and a
curl-cat—against the might of a Company. You fancy high odds,
don’t you, Gentle Fem?”
“I fancy any odds we can get while the game is still in
play. The counters have not been swept from the board
yet.”
“No, nor the game called. And we might just run those odds
to a more even balance. I do not think that our friends below have
yet met the witches of Warlock. Even we do not know their full
resources.”
“I hope they have some good ones left,” was her
comment.
Only a short time ago the Wyverns had come out in the open as
enemies. Now Charis wished with all her heart for their success. In
the lines of battle, if what she and Lantee had come to believe was
true, they would be on the side of the witches.
“What can we do?” She was again afire for
action.
“We wait and still we wait. When it is dark, I want to see
a little more of what is going on down there. Make sure, if we can,
just what we are up against.”
He was entirely right, but waiting now was so very hard.
What Charis saw was indistinct and fuzzy, not
as clean-cut as a picture she recalled from her own memory, but
perhaps enough for concentration. Only, with that fogged picture
came other things; that corridor with the doors was beginning to
take form behind the wood and lake. Charis struck Lantee’s
hand away and stared at him, breathing hard, trying to read an
answering awareness in his eyes.
“We’ll have to remember the dangers of that.”
Lantee spoke first.
“Not again! Never again!” Charis heard her
voice grow shrill.
But already he was nodding in reply. “No, not again. But
did you see enough of the other?”
“I hope so.” She took the stick from him and chose a
flat rock surface on which to sketch the Power design. It was when
she was putting in the ovals Tsstu had remembered for her that
Charis paused.
“Tsstu! I cannot leave her behind. And
Taggi—”
She closed her eyes and sent out that silent call. “Tsstu,
come! Come now!”
Touch! There came an overlapping of thought waves as fuzzy as
the picture Lantee had beamed to her. And—refusal! Decided
refusal—an abrupt breaking of contact. Why?
“There is no use,” she heard Lantee say as she
opened her eyes again.
“You reached Taggi.” It was not a question.
“I reached him in a different way than I ever have before.
He would not listen. He was occupied—”
“Occupied?” Charis wondered at his word choice.
“Hunting?”
“I don’t think so. He was exploring, trying
something new which interested him so greatly he would not
come.”
“But they are here, back with us, not in
Otherwhere?” Her relief was threatened by that recurring
fear.
“I don’t know where they are. But Taggi has no fear;
he is only curious, very curious. And Tsstu?”
“She broke contact. But—yes—I think she had no
fear either.”
“We shall have to leave now!” Lantee continued.
If they could, Charis amended silently. She took his hand once
more. “Think of your lake,” she ordered and
concentrated on the faint pattern on the rock.
Cool breeze—the murmur of it through leaves. The direct
baking of the sun had been modified by a weaving of branches, and
just before her was the shimmer of lake surface.
“We made it!” The tight grasp on her hand was gone.
Lantee surveyed the site with a wary measuring, his nostrils
slightly dilated as if, like Taggi, he could pick up and classify
some alien scent.
There was a path along the lake shore, defined well enough to be
clearly visible. Otherwise the place was as deserted as if no
off-worlder had ever been there before.
“This way!” Lantee motioned her south, away from the
thread of path. His voice was close to a whisper, as if he
suspected they were scouting enemy-held territory.
“There’s a hill in this direction and from it we can
get a good look at the base.”
“But why—?” Charis began and was favored with
an impatient frown from her companion.
“If there’s any move being made, either by the Jacks
or the witches, the first strike will be at the base. With Thorvald
and me out of the way, the witches may be able to put Hantin, or
any other off-worlder, right under control. And the Jacks could
overrun the whole place easily, make a surprise attack and write
off the base just as they wrote off the trading post.”
She followed him with no more questions. On Demeter Charis had
gone exploring with the ranger; she thought she knew a measure of
woodcraft. But Lantee was as much at home in this business as Taggi
could be. He slipped soundlessly from one piece of cover to
another. However, she noted with some surprise, he did not display
any outward signs of impatience when her clumsiness slowed them.
And she was even a little resentful of what she came to believe was
his forbearance.
Hot and very thirsty, Charis wriggled up a slope Lantee had led
them to. She had a swelling bite delivered by the rightful
inhabitant of an earthen run she had inadvertently crushed, and her
throat ached with desert dryness before they lay side by side
behind a screen of brush at the top of that rise.
A cluster of four bubble domes lay below and, farther away, a
landing field. There was a light copter standing to one side of
that, and on the rocket-blasted middle section stood a small
spacer—a Patrol scout, Charis believed.
It was very peaceful there below. No one moved about the
buildings, but pale flowers native to Warlock grew in the open
space. And some brighter spots in those beds suggested that perhaps
some off-world plants had been imported as an experiment.
“It looks all right—” she began.
“It looks all wrong!” His whisper carried something
of the hiss of Wyvern anger.
There were no blast holes in the fabric of the domes as there
had been at the raided post, nothing in sight which suggested
trouble. But Lantee’s concern was plain to read, and she
returned to a second and more searching survey of the scene.
It must be midafternoon and there was a quality of drowsy peace
down there. The inhabitants could all be dozing out the hours at
their ease. Charis made up her mind not to ask for enlightenment
but wait for her companion to volunteer the cause for his
suspicion.
He began to talk softly, perhaps more as a listing of his own
causes for suspicion aloud rather than as a sharing of information
with Charis.
“Com mast down. Hantin’s not out in the garden
working on that new crossing bed of his. And Togi—Togi and
the cubs—”
“Togi?” Charis dared to ask.
“Taggi’s mate. She has two cubs and they spend every
afternoon that’s sunny down among those rocks. They’re
very fond of earth-wasp grubs and there’s several colonies of
them to be found there. Togi’s been teaching the cubs how to
dig them out.”
But how could he be sure that just because a wolverine and her
cubs were not at a certain place there was trouble below? Then
Charis added that to the two other facts he had noted—the com
mast down and that he had not seen one of the base personnel
outside. But both of those were such little things—
“Put those three together”—Lantee was either
able to read her thoughts in part or was following her own line or
reasoning with surprising accuracy—“and you have a
wrong answer. On a base you come to follow habit. We have the com
mast up always. That’s orders and you don’t change
regulations unless there’s an emergency. Hantin is
experimenting with the crossing of some of the native plants with
off-world varieties. He’s hybrid-mad and he spends all his
free time in the garden. And Togi is earth-wasp minded; only caging
would keep her away from those rocks. And since we’ve yet to
find any cage she can’t break out of—” He looked
glum.
“So—what do we do now?”
“We wait until dark. If the base is deserted and the com
not wrecked—both of which are slim chances—there may be
an opportunity to get a call off planet. But there’s no use
in trying to get down there now. Any approach would have to be made
across the open.”
He was right in that. The usual clearing about buildings ordered
by custom in a frontier world was not as open here as it had been
about Jagan’s post. But there was no brush or trees or other
cover growth left within a good distance of any of the four domes
or the landing field. To approach those meant advancing in the
open.
Lantee rolled over on his back and lay staring up into the bush
they were using as a screen with an intentness which suggested that
he hoped to read the answer for their problem somewhere within the
maze of its drooping branches.
“Togi—” Charis broke the silence
“—is she like Taggi? Could you call her?” What
aid the wolverine might be Charis did not know, but to try and
reach her was action of some sort, and just now she found inaction
more frustrating than she could bear.
Exasperation sharpened Lantee’s reply. “What do you
think I’m trying to do? But since she has had cubs she is
less receptive to orders. We have let her go her own way while they
are small. Whether she will ever obey spoken commands again, I am
not sure.”
He closed his eyes, a frown line sharp between his well-marked
brows. Charis propped her chin on her hand. As far as she could
determine, the base continued to drowse in the sun. Was it really
deserted? Through Wyvern Power sending its inhabitants into that
strange darkness? Or left so by a Jack raid?
Unlike the rugged setting Jagan had chosen for his post, this
more open country was lighter, gave no feeling of somberness
darkening into possible menace. Or was she becoming so accustomed
to the general Warlockian scenery that it no longer looked the same
to her as it had when Jagan had brought her out of the spacer? How
long ago? weeks? months? Charis had never been able to reckon how
much time she had spent with the Wyverns.
Yes, here Warlock was fair under the amber sky, the golden sun.
The amethyst hues of the foliage were sheer splendor. Purple and
gold—the ancient colors of royalty in the days when Terra had
hailed kings and queens, emperors and empresses. And now Terran
blood had spread from star to star, mutated, adapted, even
allegiances had changed from world to world as the tides of
migration had continued generation after generation. Ander Nordholm
had been born on Scandia, but she herself had never seen that
planet. Her mother had been from Bran, and she herself could claim
Minos for her native soil. Three widely separated and different
worlds. And she could not remember Minos at all. Lantee—where
had Shann Lantee been born?
Charis turned her head to study him, trying to select some race
or planet to fit his name and his general physical appearance. But
to her eyes he was not distinctive enough a type to recognize.
Survey drew from almost every settled planet of the Confederation.
He could even be a native Terran. That he was Survey meant that he
had certain basic traits of character, certain very useful skills.
And that he was also wearing the gold key of an embassy above his
cadet bar meant even more—that he had extra-special
attributes into the bargain.
“It’s no use.” He raised his hand to shade his
now open eyes. “If she is still down there, I can’t
touch her—not mentally anyway.”
“What did you think she might do to help us now?”
Charis asked, curious.
“Maybe nothing.” But that seemed an evasive answer
to the girl.
“Are you a Beast Master?” she asked.
“No, Survey doesn’t use animals that way—as
fighters or sabotage teams. Taggi and Togi are both fighters when
they have to be, but they act more as scouts. In lots of ways their
senses are more acute than ours; they can learn more in a shorter
time about a new stretch of country than any human. But Taggi and
Togi were sent here originally as an experiment. We learned after
the Throg attack just how much they could help—”
“Listen!” Charis’s hand clamped onto his
shoulder. She straightened out, flat to the ground, her head to one
side. No, she had not been mistaken. The sound was growing
louder.
“Atmosphere flyer!” Lantee’s identification
confirmed her own guess. “Back!” He rolled farther
under the drooping branches of the bush and tugged at Charis as she
wormed in after him.
The flyer was approaching from the north, not coming in over
their present perch. As the plane set down on the landing strip,
Charis saw that it was larger than the copter already
there—probably a six-passenger ship motored for
transcontinental service, not for the shorter flights of the
copters.
“That’s none of ours!” Lantee whispered.
It came to a halt and two men dropped from it to stride
purposefully toward the domes. They went so confidently that the
watchers knew they must expect welcome or at least believe that no
difficulty awaited them. They were too far from the spy post for
their features to be distinguished, but while they wore uniforms of
a similar cut to those at the post, Charis had never seen these
before. The black and silver of Patrol, the green-brown of Survey,
the gray and red of the medical service, the blue of
Administration, the plain green of the Rangers, the maroon of
Education—she could identify those at a glance. But these
were a light yellow.
“Who?” she wondered. When she heard a small grunt
from Lantee, she added, “Do you know?”
“Something—somewhere—” Then he shook his
head. “I’ve seen something like that color, but I
can’t remember now.”
“Would Jacks wear uniforms? The one I saw with the
blaster—he was dressed just like any other Free
Trader.”
“No.” Lantee’s frown grew deeper. “It
means something—if I only could remember!”
“No government service? Perhaps some planetary
organization operating off-world,” Charis suggested.
“I don’t know how that could be. Look!”
A third man had come out of one of the domes. Like the two from
the flyer he wore yellow, but sunlight struck glinting sparks from
his collar and belt; that could only mark insignia of some type. A
uniformed invasion of a government base— A wild idea suddenly
struck Charis.
“Shann—could—could a war have broken
out?”
For a moment he did not answer her and, when he did, it was
almost as if he were trying to deny that idea to himself as much as
to her.
“The only war we’ve waged in centuries has been
against the Throgs—and those aren’t Throgs down there!
I was here just five days ago, and the messages we were receiving
from off-world were all only routine. We had no warning of any
trouble.”
“Five days ago?” she challenged him.
“How can we be sure of how much time passed while the Wyverns
controlled us? It may have been weeks or longer since you were
here.”
“I know—I know. But I don’t think war is the
answer. I just don’t believe it. But a Company action—
If they thought they could get away with a grab— If the gain
was big enough—”
Charis considered that. Yes, the Companies—they were
regulated, curbed, investigated, as well as the Confederation and
the Patrol could manage. But they had their own police, their
extra-legal methods when they dared flaunt control. Only what would
bring any one of the Companies to send a private army to Warlock?
What treasure could be scooped up here before a routine Patrol
visit would reveal such lawless activity?
“What could they find here to make it worth their
while?” she asked. “Rare metals? What?”
“One thing—” Lantee continued to watch the men
below. The two from the flyer were discussing something with the
man from the dome. One of them broke away and headed back for the
aircraft. “One thing might just be worth it if they could
seize it.”
“What?” Charis’s guesses roved wildly. Surely
Jagan would have known and mentioned any outstanding native product
during his instruction on trading.
“The Power itself! Think what that secret would mean to
men who could use it on other worlds!”
He was right. The Power was a treasure great enough to tempt
even one of the companies into piracy of a kind. If they mastered
its use they could defy even the Patrol. And Lantee’s idea
fitted very neatly into place, especially now that she remembered
Jagan’s mention of the same quest.
“The nullifier.” She thought aloud.
“That’s their answer to the use of the Power against
them. But how did they develop something of the sort
without knowing more about the Power? Maybe they believe they can
use it to control the Wyverns and make them yield their
secrets.”
“The nullifier, whatever it is, can be an adaptation of
something already well known. As to the rest—yes—they
could believe they have the witches finished.”
“But the Jacks? Why?”
Lantee scowled. “Not the first time a Company has shoved
some of its hard-fisted boys into plain clothes and tried a Jack
cover-screen for a quick steal. If they’re caught, then
they’re just Jacks and nothing else. If they succeed, the
Company comes in behind their screen and they all fade out as soon
as the grab is over. If they believe now that they’ve either
wiped out all opposition or have it under wraps, then they’re
in the open with another force to consolidate their position and
protect any experts and techs they send in for a real study of the
Power. It all fits. Don’t you see how it fits?”
“But—if this is a Company at work—”
Charis’s voice trailed off as the full force of what might be
arrayed against them struck home.
“You’re beginning to see? Jacks on their own are one
thing; a Company pulling a grab is something else.”
Lantee’s tone was bleak. “They will have resources to
draw on to back their every move. Right now I wouldn’t wager
star against comet that they’re not in complete control
here.”
“Maybe,” Charis chose to use his gambling symbols,
“they may believe that they have every comet on the board
blocked, but there are a few wild stars left.”
There was a faint suggestion of a smile about his lips.
“Two wild stars, perhaps?”
“Four. Do not underestimate Tsstu and Taggi.” And
she meant that, strange as it sounded.
“Four—you, me, a wolverine, and a
curl-cat—against the might of a Company. You fancy high odds,
don’t you, Gentle Fem?”
“I fancy any odds we can get while the game is still in
play. The counters have not been swept from the board
yet.”
“No, nor the game called. And we might just run those odds
to a more even balance. I do not think that our friends below have
yet met the witches of Warlock. Even we do not know their full
resources.”
“I hope they have some good ones left,” was her
comment.
Only a short time ago the Wyverns had come out in the open as
enemies. Now Charis wished with all her heart for their success. In
the lines of battle, if what she and Lantee had come to believe was
true, they would be on the side of the witches.
“What can we do?” She was again afire for
action.
“We wait and still we wait. When it is dark, I want to see
a little more of what is going on down there. Make sure, if we can,
just what we are up against.”
He was entirely right, but waiting now was so very hard.