Our precipitous retreat was in itself so
unnatural as to startle me when, back at the door rent, I paused to
think. That the sight of a mere trail could so unnerve one was a
disturbing thing. Eet caught my thought and answered:
“Perhaps that leaver of trails uses fear for a weapon. Or
else it is so utterly alien to us that we are repelled. There are
things on many worlds which cannot be contacted by another species,
no matter how willing one is. However, I do not want to walk ways
in which that prowls.”
I edged forward on my belly, pushing before me, though my nose
revolted, a small screen of debris. The air outside was bright with
sunlight. I stared out longingly. For my kind were meant for the
open day and not dark burrows and night’s dusk. We were, a
quick glance from side to side told me, close to the ground, and
that was covered with patches of shaggy, yellowish grass. Between
those were expanses of glassy surface which might mark ancient
rocket blasts, as if this had been a port site.
For one or two heart-lifting moments I could believe that we
were free, that no sentries lingered. Then I heard a shrilling,
such as had been voiced the night before. But this was infinitely
louder, since there was no storm. It hurt my ears with the pitch of
its note. And it came from almost directly below me, so that I
jerked back from the rent.
Eet’s report reached me. “They are beneath, along
the side. They wait for hunger, or perhaps what lurks in the depths
of this wreck to drive us out to them.”
“Perhaps they will lose patience.” My hope was a
forlorn one but I knew that the powers of concentration varied to a
great degree, and intelligence had something to do with it.
Intelligent purpose could teach patience which was unknown to those
of lesser brain capacity.
“I think they have played this game, or heard of it
played, before, with success.” Eet refused to feed my hope.
“There are too many factors of which we are not aware. For
example—”
“For example—what?” I demanded when he
hesitated.
“The stone led you here, did it not? But is it alive
now?”
I freed the zero stone and held it out into the daylight. The
gem was dead and murky. I turned it this way and that, hoping to
awaken some response. Certainly it did not beckon us any deeper
into the wreck. But as I inclined it outward, in the general
direction of the rush of water along the other side of the ship,
its condition suddenly altered. There was no bright flash, not even
a glow to outshine the corridor plants, but there had been a small
spark. Only now the width of the ship lay between us and the
direction in which it pointed.
“There is one way.” Eet set his hand-paws on my knee
and stood with his nose almost touching the stone, as if it gave
forth some scent he could trace. “I can get out of this hole,
cross the ship above with that. I could perhaps trace it to its
source.”
I thought that he spoke the truth. Being small and wary, using
the growths on the hull for cover, he could well do it. Though of
what benefit such knowledge would be to us—
“All knowledge is of benefit,” he countered.
I laughed without humor. “I sit waiting to be gathered up
and put in some native’s cooking pot and you speak of gaining
knowledge! What good will it do a dead man?”
My thoughts probably did me no credit. It was true that a trap
holding me was not one for Eet. He could leave at any moment he
chose, with a good chance for freedom. In fact I did not know why
he had remained as long as he had. But the zero stone—there was
that in me which could not lightly surrender it, even for a space.
I did not covet it, as one might covet some gem of beauty. It was
rather that I was, in a manner I could not describe, tied to it,
and had been ever since my father had first shown it to us. The
more so since I had taken it from the hiding place he had devised
for it.
To give it to Eet would be a breaking of ties I could not quite
face. I turned the ring around and around, slipping its large
circlet on and off my fingers, my thoughts disjointed, but mainly
occupied with the fact that more than all else I did not want to
remain here alone.
Eet said nothing more. I did not even sense that faint mind
touch he maintained most of the time. It was as if he had
deliberately withdrawn now to allow me some decision which I alone
could make, and which was of great importance.
“There is also the matter of food—” Eet finally
broke that utter silence.
I still turned the ring around and stared almost unseeingly at
the stone. “Do you think this will gain that?” I half
sneered.
“No more than you do,” he replied. “But
neither do I propose to sit here and starve.”
Which I thought was the truth, since he seemed well able to
provide for himself. And there was something in that realization
which held a sour taste for me.
“Take it!” I pulled from the rotting vegetable stuff
a long string of fiber, made it into a necklet supporting the ring,
and slipped it over Eet’s head. He sat up on his haunches
when I dropped it around his neck, folding his hand-paws over it
for an instant, his eyes closing. I had the feeling he was seeking—though how and where, and for what, I did not know.
“You have chosen well.” He fell to four feet and
crept to the doorway. “Better than you know—”
With no more than that he was gone, climbing to the top of the
rent where plants still stirred in a ragged curtain, pushing
through them.
“They are still here,” he reported. “Not only
under the ship, but along the wall. I think they do not like the
sunlight, for they keep to the shadow. Ah—on this side—there is
the river! And—another wall—it once fell to make a dam. But now
it is broken in two places. Across the water—there lies what the
stone seeks!”
He had gone successfully up over the top of the ship. Could I
make the same climb? I touched my bruised leg, winced from the pain
that followed. I tried to flex it, but it was too stiff. Eet might
run easily along that path, but I would have to move slowly. I
would have no hope of eluding the watchers, or even of climbing
well enough to transverse that slippery surface.
“What lies across the river?”
“Cliffs with holes in them, more tumbled walls,” Eet
told me. “Now—”
He ceased to communicate. Instead I had from mind to mind as one
might pick up a scent, a sharp emanation of violence.
“Eet!” I tried to get to my feet, bringing down upon
my head and shoulders more of the plant life, so that I choked and
coughed, and I beat the air, trying to brush aside the foul stuff
and get a clean breath again.
“Eet!” Again I sent out that mind call in alarm.
There was no answer.
I scrambled to the rent. Had some thrown club knocked him
down?
“Eet!” The silence seemed greater than a silence
which was only for the ears. For I could hear well enough wind,
water, and other sounds of life outside.
And—something else!
No one who has ever heard the sound of a ship cutting
atmosphere, coming in on deter rockets for a landing, can mistake
it. The rumbling—the roar. About me the wreck quivered and
vibrated in answer to it. A ship under control was about to set
down, and not too far away. I slipped back from the rent. The roar
was too loud; it sounded as if the ancient ship might be caught in
the wash of rocket fire. As the corridor shook about me, I slid
down it, striving to break my descent with my hands, around me the
foul mess from the rent cascading to blind and choke me. There was
a blast and even through the walls I could feel a wave of heat.
Whatever had been exposed to that must have been instantly crisped.
I wondered about the sniffers. Now would be my chance to
escape.
But—who had landed? Some First-in Scout of Survey on a
preliminary check of a newly discovered world? Or had there been
landings here before for some mysterious reason? At any rate there
was a ship down, and from the sound, a small one of a design made
for such touchdowns, nothing larger than a Free Trader.
I clawed the debris away and crawled on hands and knees back to
the rent. There was a stifling smell of burning. Eet—if he had
still been alive on the outer shell when that ship—
“Eet!” My mental call this time must have held the
force of a scream. No answer.
A thick steam rose outside, enough to veil most of the
landscape. The heat made me cower back for the second time. No one
would be going out there until it had had a chance to cool a
little. Perhaps some of the rockets’ fire had struck into the
river, boiling its flow. I shifted impatiently, eager to be out, to
see the ship. A very faint chance had come true, as I had never
really thought it would. We would not be marooned here for the rest
of our lives—We? It seemed I was alone now. If Eet had not died in
that burst of violence, then certainly he had at the landing of the
ship.
The time which passed while the ground cooled and the steam mist
cleared was as long to me as those dragging hours when I had been
pent in the sanctuary of Tanth. Every impulse pushed me to the
rent, to go to claim aid from my own kind. For by one of the most
ancient laws of the star lanes any wayfarer marooned as I had been
could claim passage on the first ship finding him and be taken off
without question.
At last, though the heat was still that of the Arzorian dry
lands in midsummer, I pulled myself through the rent and dropped to
the charred ground, favoring my bruised leg as best I could. There
was a huddled form some distance away, one of the sniffers who had
been caught in the backwash of rocket fire. I limped in the
opposite direction.
The sound and the heat had made me believe the newcomers had
finned down very close to the wreck, but that was not so. However,
the rocket wash had cleared that ancient ship of the growth on it.
It was not, I saw now, as large as the space derelict, but more the
general bulk of a Free Trader. Perhaps it had been left upright on
its fins, just as the recently arrived ship was standing a goodly
distance away, and the passing of time or some disaster had thrown
it over.
I came slowly around to the erose, pitted fins, to look across a
firebared space at the new ship. It was about the size of the
Vestris. But no Free Trader’s insignia was etched on its
side. Nor did it have the blaze of Survey, nor of the Patrol. Yet
why would any private vessel land on such a planet as this? There
are wealthy Veeps, with a taste for hunting, who crack laws by
searching out uncharted worlds where they may indulge their
bloodthirsty tastes without falling afoul of the Patrol. If such a
hunter had landed here before, that would explain the hostility of
the sniffers. But—I drew back into the fin shadow—it would also
mean trouble for me. Witnesses to illegal actions are accident
prone, and there would be none to ask questions about me.
Only—a Veep’s star yacht would have a set of code
numbers. There was only one type of ship which would deliberately
remain anonymous. I had never seen one, but there were tales in
plenty heard in ports. And Vondar’s connections had reason to
gossip about such matters. The Thieves’ Guild maintained
ships. Some, under the cover of false papers, made legitimate
trading voyages, with only now and then a reason to touch the other
side of the law. I suspected the Vestris might have been such a
ship. But there were other swift cruisers, often fitted with
equipment which was experimental, stolen, or bought up before it
was generally known.
These were raiders. They did not prey as pirates in space,
because that was a very chancy business, to be tried only if a
cargo was of such value that one dared a costly gamble. Instead,
they looted on planets. Waystar was their legendary base, a
satellite or small planet, fortified, hidden, save from those who
satisfied its rulers they had no connection with the Patrol or any
other law. There had been so many stories, wild tales of Waystar
and the shark fleet which operated out of it, that one did not
believe in them much. Yet Eet had insisted that I had been
unwittingly bound for that place before he had taken steps to
separate me from the Vestris.
A raiding ship would carry no markings, or else ones which could
be changed at will. But a Guild raider here? It was entirely past
the bounds of credibility that it was seeking me. My back trail was
now so tangled they could not believe me alive, let alone that
chance would land me here.
Therefore they had some other mission. And the last thing I must
do—until I was sure of that ship—was to contact its crew or
passengers. Though it was closed now, I could not be sure that I
had not already been sighted on some visa screen. I began to edge
back, keeping under the curving side of the wreck, retreating as
eagerly as I had earlier advanced.
There was a sharp clang and the hatch opened, the landing ramp
protruding like a tongue out over the smoking ground, hunting
anchorage on the untouched land. It angled away from the wreck, so
those using it could not clearly see it or me—I hoped.
I retreated further; I longed to dart back, away now from the
wreckage, which could only draw curious explorers. There was a
brush screen still standing, but I could not be sure that some of
the sniffers were not lurking there.
The men who came out on the ramp had no protective suiting,
proving that they were aware of the nature of this world, ready to
be about their purpose here. They wore side arms, and even from
this distance, I saw the short barrels of the lasers, not the long
ones of the more ordinary stunners. So they were prepared to
kill.
Though they wore the conventional planetside dress of any
crewmen, coveralls and boots, those had no insignia on breast or
collar. Nor was there any choice of color to suggest a uniform. The
first two were human or humanoid, but behind them came a shorter
figure with four upper limbs which hung at his sides in a way to
suggest an unusual flaccidity. His head, which was round, lacked
hair and appeared to rest directly on his shoulders, with no
support of neck. Where a human skull would show ears, he wore tall
feathery appendages which moved constantly back and forth, as
Eet’s head had moved when he tested for signs of life around
him. And of the three I saw, I feared him the most. For as Eet had
said, who knows what extra talents an X-Tee might possess. And any
among a human crew would be there for no other reason than that he
had attributes they found highly useful.
To re-enter the wreck was to be trapped. I must make up my mind
to leave the dubious protection of its overhang and try to reach
the bush or the river. And it seemed to me that the river offered
the lesser menace.
For as long as I could I watched the three from the ship. They
reached the end of the ramp, fanned out. The two humans on either
side flanked the X-Tee in the middle. His feathery appendages were
no longer whirling about; instead they now pointed their tips
straight before him, and I could see more of his face. His features
were not as far removed from the human norm as were the
sniffers’. He had a short nose, two eyes, and if they were
set far to the sides of his head and lacked brows, and if his mouth
was wider than seemed symmetrical, he was still not too unlike his
crewmates.
Suddenly he halted and in lightning draws two of his upper arms
caught at the double set of weapons he wore. The brilliant splash
of laser fire pencil-beamed from their tips, blackening the brush.
His attack was followed by a scream and a thrashing, which marked
the passing of either a sniffer or something of similar bulk. The
two humans went into a half crouch, their weapons out and ready.
But they had not fired, and it would seem they depended upon the
X-Tee for leadership in attack.
I crawled back. Now the ship was between me and those killers.
When I came to the river, I saw that blocks had been uprooted from
the ruined wall and tumbled by the force of the water. At one time
some structure on the other side of the stream had fallen, its
masonry joining to the walls on this side to provide a dam. Perhaps
that had caused, until the water had broken through again, the
flooding of the country.
Now there was a crazy jumble of rocks and stones washed and
ringed by the water, forming a broken bridge across that ribbon of
river. On the other side was the cliff, some distance away, and as
Eet had reported, that was holed with dark openings. Between the
water and its face were the remains of buildings.
On this side of the ship the clinging vegetation had not been
burned away so thoroughly. Perhaps the river spray gave more
moisture, for in some places it grew into long trailing vines.
“Eet?” I tried that call, the life here leading me
to hope that he might have survived after all. Or had he fallen to
a club? I looked along the rocks, down to the water-washed stones,
half expecting to see there a small body lying twisted and
broken.
“Eet—?”
The answer I hoped against hope to hear did not come. But what
did was an awareness of another kind, a strange groping which could
not touch minds as Eet did, but which noted my call. Not that it
could trace it back to its source. Only it was alerted.
The X-Tee—could he have “heard” me somehow? My
folly struck home as I teetered on the edge of a block, looking
down for a possible bridge over the river. To attempt the drop with
my dragging leg was more than I dared. I could be caught out there,
helpless, vulnerable to any laser beam.
And so I betrayed myself. For as I hesitated I heard from
behind:
“Hold it—right there!”
Basic, spoken with a human intonation. I turned slowly, holding
on to a block for support, to face one of the humans from the ship.
He was like any other crewman, save that in his hand was a laser
pointing directly at me.
I knew then that I had thrown away one small advantage. Had I
come out to greet the ship’s people in wild joy, as they
would expect from one marooned, made up a plausible story, they
might not have been suspicious. Of course, it would have been
dangerous for me if they wanted to cover up their presence on this
world. But I would have gained time. Now my own actions made me
suspect. I still had a small trick I could play—I could
accentuate my lameness, allow my captors to believe that I was far
more handicapped than I really was.
So I waited for the other to approach, making a display of
holding to my support as if to loose it for a moment would allow me
to collapse. And I hoped my general disreputable appearance would
add to my claim of injury. Perhaps I could even build upon those
patches of new skin so apparent on my body, using a story of being
set adrift in an LB when plague was feared. It would not be the
first time such an incident had happened.
My captor did not come too close, though he could see both of my
hands in plain sight on the stone and that I had no weapons. And
his laser never wavered from its sighting on my chest.
“Who are you?” he demanded in Basic.
In those few moments I had determined on the role which might
save me. I cowered away from him and shrieked, in the wildest and
least sane voice I could counterfeit.
“No—no! Do not kill me! I am well, I tell you! The fever
is gone—I am well—”
He halted and I thought I saw his eyes narrow as he studied my
face intently. I trusted those pink patches were very visible.
“Where did you come from?” Was there a subtle
alteration in his tone? Could I make him believe that I was a
deportee from a plague ship, and that I expected to be burned down
on sight for no other reason than that I had been cast adrift?
“A ship—Do not kill me! I tell you I am clean now—the
fever is gone! Let me go—I will not come near you—your ship—just let me go!”
“Stand where you are!” His order was sharp. Now he
cupped his free hand before his mouth and spoke into a com mike.
The words he used were not Basic and I could not understand, save
that he must be reporting to a superior. This was a dangerous game
I played; a hair’s difference could mean life or death.
“You—” He motioned with the laser. “Walk
ahead—”
“No—I will go—I will not infect—”
“Walk!” A beam, cut to a finger’s breadth in
diameter, clipped the stone not far from my left hand. Its heat was
searing. I cried out as he expected me to do.
I saw him grin. “Touched you? Want another—closer this
time? I said—walk! The Captain’s interested in you.”
Walk I did, making a clumsy business of pulling myself along as
if my bruised leg were hardly more than a dead weight.
“Got hurt?” my captor asked, viewing my very slow
progress with impatience.
“There are natives—with clubs—they hunted me—’ I
mumbled.
“So? They have a liking for meat, and you would be that,
as far as they are concerned. Not good—meeting with them.”
He might have been remembering some earlier experience of his
own.
I lurched along as slowly as I could, magnifying my limp. Once
more I rounded the end of the wreck and now both the other human
and the X-Tee came toward us. The X-Tee had holstered his lasers,
but both those feather fronds inclined in my direction.
Whether my communication with Eet had sharpened any esper talent
I might have had, though I was sure I was not talented at all, I
could not tell. But I was aware of an impact from the alien which
was not physical, but mental. Only, if he was trying to batter his
way into my mind, he was not successful. There was no smooth
meeting as I had known with Eet. And I hoped I could completely bar
his probe. It was necessary that I remain what I seemed to be—
“So you flushed him,” the other human observed.
“What was he trying to do—scramble?”
“Not with that leg. And he may have more wrong with him—take a good look at that face.”
So bidden, he did, with a searching stare. And his expression
suggested be was not in favor of what be saw. I wondered just how
bad my sloughing skin and the shiny new patching looked. It was no
longer so noticeable on my hands or so I thought. But then I was
used to seeing it and any fading from those violent purple
splotches was an improvement as far as I was concerned.
“Perhaps you had better keep him well away,” was the
newcomer’s verdict. “Tell the Captain about
him.”
“Captain’s waiting—up there. March,
you!”
There was someone standing on the ramp. A jerk of the laser sent
me on. I stumbled along, hoping I was indeed a miserable object for
anyone’s eyes to rest upon.
Our precipitous retreat was in itself so
unnatural as to startle me when, back at the door rent, I paused to
think. That the sight of a mere trail could so unnerve one was a
disturbing thing. Eet caught my thought and answered:
“Perhaps that leaver of trails uses fear for a weapon. Or
else it is so utterly alien to us that we are repelled. There are
things on many worlds which cannot be contacted by another species,
no matter how willing one is. However, I do not want to walk ways
in which that prowls.”
I edged forward on my belly, pushing before me, though my nose
revolted, a small screen of debris. The air outside was bright with
sunlight. I stared out longingly. For my kind were meant for the
open day and not dark burrows and night’s dusk. We were, a
quick glance from side to side told me, close to the ground, and
that was covered with patches of shaggy, yellowish grass. Between
those were expanses of glassy surface which might mark ancient
rocket blasts, as if this had been a port site.
For one or two heart-lifting moments I could believe that we
were free, that no sentries lingered. Then I heard a shrilling,
such as had been voiced the night before. But this was infinitely
louder, since there was no storm. It hurt my ears with the pitch of
its note. And it came from almost directly below me, so that I
jerked back from the rent.
Eet’s report reached me. “They are beneath, along
the side. They wait for hunger, or perhaps what lurks in the depths
of this wreck to drive us out to them.”
“Perhaps they will lose patience.” My hope was a
forlorn one but I knew that the powers of concentration varied to a
great degree, and intelligence had something to do with it.
Intelligent purpose could teach patience which was unknown to those
of lesser brain capacity.
“I think they have played this game, or heard of it
played, before, with success.” Eet refused to feed my hope.
“There are too many factors of which we are not aware. For
example—”
“For example—what?” I demanded when he
hesitated.
“The stone led you here, did it not? But is it alive
now?”
I freed the zero stone and held it out into the daylight. The
gem was dead and murky. I turned it this way and that, hoping to
awaken some response. Certainly it did not beckon us any deeper
into the wreck. But as I inclined it outward, in the general
direction of the rush of water along the other side of the ship,
its condition suddenly altered. There was no bright flash, not even
a glow to outshine the corridor plants, but there had been a small
spark. Only now the width of the ship lay between us and the
direction in which it pointed.
“There is one way.” Eet set his hand-paws on my knee
and stood with his nose almost touching the stone, as if it gave
forth some scent he could trace. “I can get out of this hole,
cross the ship above with that. I could perhaps trace it to its
source.”
I thought that he spoke the truth. Being small and wary, using
the growths on the hull for cover, he could well do it. Though of
what benefit such knowledge would be to us—
“All knowledge is of benefit,” he countered.
I laughed without humor. “I sit waiting to be gathered up
and put in some native’s cooking pot and you speak of gaining
knowledge! What good will it do a dead man?”
My thoughts probably did me no credit. It was true that a trap
holding me was not one for Eet. He could leave at any moment he
chose, with a good chance for freedom. In fact I did not know why
he had remained as long as he had. But the zero stone—there was
that in me which could not lightly surrender it, even for a space.
I did not covet it, as one might covet some gem of beauty. It was
rather that I was, in a manner I could not describe, tied to it,
and had been ever since my father had first shown it to us. The
more so since I had taken it from the hiding place he had devised
for it.
To give it to Eet would be a breaking of ties I could not quite
face. I turned the ring around and around, slipping its large
circlet on and off my fingers, my thoughts disjointed, but mainly
occupied with the fact that more than all else I did not want to
remain here alone.
Eet said nothing more. I did not even sense that faint mind
touch he maintained most of the time. It was as if he had
deliberately withdrawn now to allow me some decision which I alone
could make, and which was of great importance.
“There is also the matter of food—” Eet finally
broke that utter silence.
I still turned the ring around and stared almost unseeingly at
the stone. “Do you think this will gain that?” I half
sneered.
“No more than you do,” he replied. “But
neither do I propose to sit here and starve.”
Which I thought was the truth, since he seemed well able to
provide for himself. And there was something in that realization
which held a sour taste for me.
“Take it!” I pulled from the rotting vegetable stuff
a long string of fiber, made it into a necklet supporting the ring,
and slipped it over Eet’s head. He sat up on his haunches
when I dropped it around his neck, folding his hand-paws over it
for an instant, his eyes closing. I had the feeling he was seeking—though how and where, and for what, I did not know.
“You have chosen well.” He fell to four feet and
crept to the doorway. “Better than you know—”
With no more than that he was gone, climbing to the top of the
rent where plants still stirred in a ragged curtain, pushing
through them.
“They are still here,” he reported. “Not only
under the ship, but along the wall. I think they do not like the
sunlight, for they keep to the shadow. Ah—on this side—there is
the river! And—another wall—it once fell to make a dam. But now
it is broken in two places. Across the water—there lies what the
stone seeks!”
He had gone successfully up over the top of the ship. Could I
make the same climb? I touched my bruised leg, winced from the pain
that followed. I tried to flex it, but it was too stiff. Eet might
run easily along that path, but I would have to move slowly. I
would have no hope of eluding the watchers, or even of climbing
well enough to transverse that slippery surface.
“What lies across the river?”
“Cliffs with holes in them, more tumbled walls,” Eet
told me. “Now—”
He ceased to communicate. Instead I had from mind to mind as one
might pick up a scent, a sharp emanation of violence.
“Eet!” I tried to get to my feet, bringing down upon
my head and shoulders more of the plant life, so that I choked and
coughed, and I beat the air, trying to brush aside the foul stuff
and get a clean breath again.
“Eet!” Again I sent out that mind call in alarm.
There was no answer.
I scrambled to the rent. Had some thrown club knocked him
down?
“Eet!” The silence seemed greater than a silence
which was only for the ears. For I could hear well enough wind,
water, and other sounds of life outside.
And—something else!
No one who has ever heard the sound of a ship cutting
atmosphere, coming in on deter rockets for a landing, can mistake
it. The rumbling—the roar. About me the wreck quivered and
vibrated in answer to it. A ship under control was about to set
down, and not too far away. I slipped back from the rent. The roar
was too loud; it sounded as if the ancient ship might be caught in
the wash of rocket fire. As the corridor shook about me, I slid
down it, striving to break my descent with my hands, around me the
foul mess from the rent cascading to blind and choke me. There was
a blast and even through the walls I could feel a wave of heat.
Whatever had been exposed to that must have been instantly crisped.
I wondered about the sniffers. Now would be my chance to
escape.
But—who had landed? Some First-in Scout of Survey on a
preliminary check of a newly discovered world? Or had there been
landings here before for some mysterious reason? At any rate there
was a ship down, and from the sound, a small one of a design made
for such touchdowns, nothing larger than a Free Trader.
I clawed the debris away and crawled on hands and knees back to
the rent. There was a stifling smell of burning. Eet—if he had
still been alive on the outer shell when that ship—
“Eet!” My mental call this time must have held the
force of a scream. No answer.
A thick steam rose outside, enough to veil most of the
landscape. The heat made me cower back for the second time. No one
would be going out there until it had had a chance to cool a
little. Perhaps some of the rockets’ fire had struck into the
river, boiling its flow. I shifted impatiently, eager to be out, to
see the ship. A very faint chance had come true, as I had never
really thought it would. We would not be marooned here for the rest
of our lives—We? It seemed I was alone now. If Eet had not died in
that burst of violence, then certainly he had at the landing of the
ship.
The time which passed while the ground cooled and the steam mist
cleared was as long to me as those dragging hours when I had been
pent in the sanctuary of Tanth. Every impulse pushed me to the
rent, to go to claim aid from my own kind. For by one of the most
ancient laws of the star lanes any wayfarer marooned as I had been
could claim passage on the first ship finding him and be taken off
without question.
At last, though the heat was still that of the Arzorian dry
lands in midsummer, I pulled myself through the rent and dropped to
the charred ground, favoring my bruised leg as best I could. There
was a huddled form some distance away, one of the sniffers who had
been caught in the backwash of rocket fire. I limped in the
opposite direction.
The sound and the heat had made me believe the newcomers had
finned down very close to the wreck, but that was not so. However,
the rocket wash had cleared that ancient ship of the growth on it.
It was not, I saw now, as large as the space derelict, but more the
general bulk of a Free Trader. Perhaps it had been left upright on
its fins, just as the recently arrived ship was standing a goodly
distance away, and the passing of time or some disaster had thrown
it over.
I came slowly around to the erose, pitted fins, to look across a
firebared space at the new ship. It was about the size of the
Vestris. But no Free Trader’s insignia was etched on its
side. Nor did it have the blaze of Survey, nor of the Patrol. Yet
why would any private vessel land on such a planet as this? There
are wealthy Veeps, with a taste for hunting, who crack laws by
searching out uncharted worlds where they may indulge their
bloodthirsty tastes without falling afoul of the Patrol. If such a
hunter had landed here before, that would explain the hostility of
the sniffers. But—I drew back into the fin shadow—it would also
mean trouble for me. Witnesses to illegal actions are accident
prone, and there would be none to ask questions about me.
Only—a Veep’s star yacht would have a set of code
numbers. There was only one type of ship which would deliberately
remain anonymous. I had never seen one, but there were tales in
plenty heard in ports. And Vondar’s connections had reason to
gossip about such matters. The Thieves’ Guild maintained
ships. Some, under the cover of false papers, made legitimate
trading voyages, with only now and then a reason to touch the other
side of the law. I suspected the Vestris might have been such a
ship. But there were other swift cruisers, often fitted with
equipment which was experimental, stolen, or bought up before it
was generally known.
These were raiders. They did not prey as pirates in space,
because that was a very chancy business, to be tried only if a
cargo was of such value that one dared a costly gamble. Instead,
they looted on planets. Waystar was their legendary base, a
satellite or small planet, fortified, hidden, save from those who
satisfied its rulers they had no connection with the Patrol or any
other law. There had been so many stories, wild tales of Waystar
and the shark fleet which operated out of it, that one did not
believe in them much. Yet Eet had insisted that I had been
unwittingly bound for that place before he had taken steps to
separate me from the Vestris.
A raiding ship would carry no markings, or else ones which could
be changed at will. But a Guild raider here? It was entirely past
the bounds of credibility that it was seeking me. My back trail was
now so tangled they could not believe me alive, let alone that
chance would land me here.
Therefore they had some other mission. And the last thing I must
do—until I was sure of that ship—was to contact its crew or
passengers. Though it was closed now, I could not be sure that I
had not already been sighted on some visa screen. I began to edge
back, keeping under the curving side of the wreck, retreating as
eagerly as I had earlier advanced.
There was a sharp clang and the hatch opened, the landing ramp
protruding like a tongue out over the smoking ground, hunting
anchorage on the untouched land. It angled away from the wreck, so
those using it could not clearly see it or me—I hoped.
I retreated further; I longed to dart back, away now from the
wreckage, which could only draw curious explorers. There was a
brush screen still standing, but I could not be sure that some of
the sniffers were not lurking there.
The men who came out on the ramp had no protective suiting,
proving that they were aware of the nature of this world, ready to
be about their purpose here. They wore side arms, and even from
this distance, I saw the short barrels of the lasers, not the long
ones of the more ordinary stunners. So they were prepared to
kill.
Though they wore the conventional planetside dress of any
crewmen, coveralls and boots, those had no insignia on breast or
collar. Nor was there any choice of color to suggest a uniform. The
first two were human or humanoid, but behind them came a shorter
figure with four upper limbs which hung at his sides in a way to
suggest an unusual flaccidity. His head, which was round, lacked
hair and appeared to rest directly on his shoulders, with no
support of neck. Where a human skull would show ears, he wore tall
feathery appendages which moved constantly back and forth, as
Eet’s head had moved when he tested for signs of life around
him. And of the three I saw, I feared him the most. For as Eet had
said, who knows what extra talents an X-Tee might possess. And any
among a human crew would be there for no other reason than that he
had attributes they found highly useful.
To re-enter the wreck was to be trapped. I must make up my mind
to leave the dubious protection of its overhang and try to reach
the bush or the river. And it seemed to me that the river offered
the lesser menace.
For as long as I could I watched the three from the ship. They
reached the end of the ramp, fanned out. The two humans on either
side flanked the X-Tee in the middle. His feathery appendages were
no longer whirling about; instead they now pointed their tips
straight before him, and I could see more of his face. His features
were not as far removed from the human norm as were the
sniffers’. He had a short nose, two eyes, and if they were
set far to the sides of his head and lacked brows, and if his mouth
was wider than seemed symmetrical, he was still not too unlike his
crewmates.
Suddenly he halted and in lightning draws two of his upper arms
caught at the double set of weapons he wore. The brilliant splash
of laser fire pencil-beamed from their tips, blackening the brush.
His attack was followed by a scream and a thrashing, which marked
the passing of either a sniffer or something of similar bulk. The
two humans went into a half crouch, their weapons out and ready.
But they had not fired, and it would seem they depended upon the
X-Tee for leadership in attack.
I crawled back. Now the ship was between me and those killers.
When I came to the river, I saw that blocks had been uprooted from
the ruined wall and tumbled by the force of the water. At one time
some structure on the other side of the stream had fallen, its
masonry joining to the walls on this side to provide a dam. Perhaps
that had caused, until the water had broken through again, the
flooding of the country.
Now there was a crazy jumble of rocks and stones washed and
ringed by the water, forming a broken bridge across that ribbon of
river. On the other side was the cliff, some distance away, and as
Eet had reported, that was holed with dark openings. Between the
water and its face were the remains of buildings.
On this side of the ship the clinging vegetation had not been
burned away so thoroughly. Perhaps the river spray gave more
moisture, for in some places it grew into long trailing vines.
“Eet?” I tried that call, the life here leading me
to hope that he might have survived after all. Or had he fallen to
a club? I looked along the rocks, down to the water-washed stones,
half expecting to see there a small body lying twisted and
broken.
“Eet—?”
The answer I hoped against hope to hear did not come. But what
did was an awareness of another kind, a strange groping which could
not touch minds as Eet did, but which noted my call. Not that it
could trace it back to its source. Only it was alerted.
The X-Tee—could he have “heard” me somehow? My
folly struck home as I teetered on the edge of a block, looking
down for a possible bridge over the river. To attempt the drop with
my dragging leg was more than I dared. I could be caught out there,
helpless, vulnerable to any laser beam.
And so I betrayed myself. For as I hesitated I heard from
behind:
“Hold it—right there!”
Basic, spoken with a human intonation. I turned slowly, holding
on to a block for support, to face one of the humans from the ship.
He was like any other crewman, save that in his hand was a laser
pointing directly at me.
I knew then that I had thrown away one small advantage. Had I
come out to greet the ship’s people in wild joy, as they
would expect from one marooned, made up a plausible story, they
might not have been suspicious. Of course, it would have been
dangerous for me if they wanted to cover up their presence on this
world. But I would have gained time. Now my own actions made me
suspect. I still had a small trick I could play—I could
accentuate my lameness, allow my captors to believe that I was far
more handicapped than I really was.
So I waited for the other to approach, making a display of
holding to my support as if to loose it for a moment would allow me
to collapse. And I hoped my general disreputable appearance would
add to my claim of injury. Perhaps I could even build upon those
patches of new skin so apparent on my body, using a story of being
set adrift in an LB when plague was feared. It would not be the
first time such an incident had happened.
My captor did not come too close, though he could see both of my
hands in plain sight on the stone and that I had no weapons. And
his laser never wavered from its sighting on my chest.
“Who are you?” he demanded in Basic.
In those few moments I had determined on the role which might
save me. I cowered away from him and shrieked, in the wildest and
least sane voice I could counterfeit.
“No—no! Do not kill me! I am well, I tell you! The fever
is gone—I am well—”
He halted and I thought I saw his eyes narrow as he studied my
face intently. I trusted those pink patches were very visible.
“Where did you come from?” Was there a subtle
alteration in his tone? Could I make him believe that I was a
deportee from a plague ship, and that I expected to be burned down
on sight for no other reason than that I had been cast adrift?
“A ship—Do not kill me! I tell you I am clean now—the
fever is gone! Let me go—I will not come near you—your ship—just let me go!”
“Stand where you are!” His order was sharp. Now he
cupped his free hand before his mouth and spoke into a com mike.
The words he used were not Basic and I could not understand, save
that he must be reporting to a superior. This was a dangerous game
I played; a hair’s difference could mean life or death.
“You—” He motioned with the laser. “Walk
ahead—”
“No—I will go—I will not infect—”
“Walk!” A beam, cut to a finger’s breadth in
diameter, clipped the stone not far from my left hand. Its heat was
searing. I cried out as he expected me to do.
I saw him grin. “Touched you? Want another—closer this
time? I said—walk! The Captain’s interested in you.”
Walk I did, making a clumsy business of pulling myself along as
if my bruised leg were hardly more than a dead weight.
“Got hurt?” my captor asked, viewing my very slow
progress with impatience.
“There are natives—with clubs—they hunted me—’ I
mumbled.
“So? They have a liking for meat, and you would be that,
as far as they are concerned. Not good—meeting with them.”
He might have been remembering some earlier experience of his
own.
I lurched along as slowly as I could, magnifying my limp. Once
more I rounded the end of the wreck and now both the other human
and the X-Tee came toward us. The X-Tee had holstered his lasers,
but both those feather fronds inclined in my direction.
Whether my communication with Eet had sharpened any esper talent
I might have had, though I was sure I was not talented at all, I
could not tell. But I was aware of an impact from the alien which
was not physical, but mental. Only, if he was trying to batter his
way into my mind, he was not successful. There was no smooth
meeting as I had known with Eet. And I hoped I could completely bar
his probe. It was necessary that I remain what I seemed to be—
“So you flushed him,” the other human observed.
“What was he trying to do—scramble?”
“Not with that leg. And he may have more wrong with him—take a good look at that face.”
So bidden, he did, with a searching stare. And his expression
suggested be was not in favor of what be saw. I wondered just how
bad my sloughing skin and the shiny new patching looked. It was no
longer so noticeable on my hands or so I thought. But then I was
used to seeing it and any fading from those violent purple
splotches was an improvement as far as I was concerned.
“Perhaps you had better keep him well away,” was the
newcomer’s verdict. “Tell the Captain about
him.”
“Captain’s waiting—up there. March,
you!”
There was someone standing on the ramp. A jerk of the laser sent
me on. I stumbled along, hoping I was indeed a miserable object for
anyone’s eyes to rest upon.