Shann made his way at an angle to avoid the smoking pit cradling the
wreckage of the Terran ship. There were no signs of life about the Throg
plate as he approached. A quarter of its bulk was telescoped back into
the rest, and surely none of the aliens could have survived such a
smash, tough as they were reputed to be with those horny carapaces
serving them in place of more vulnerable human skin.
He sniffed. There was a nauseous odor heavy on the morning air, one
which would make a lasting impression on any human nose. The port door
in the black ship stood open, perhaps having burst in the impact against
the cliff. Shann had almost reached it when a crackle of chain lightning
beat across the ground before him, turning the edge of the buckled
entrance panel red.
Shann dropped to the ground, drawing his stunner, knowing at the same
moment that such a weapon was about as much use in meeting a blaster as
a straw wand would be to ward off a blazing coal. A chill numbness held
him as he waited for a second blast to charr the flesh between his
shoulders. So there had been a Throg survivor, after all.
But as moments passed and the Throg did not move in to make an easy
kill, Shann collected his wits. Only one shot! Was the beetle injured,
unable to make sure of even an almost defenseless prey? The Throgs
seldom took prisoners. When they did....
The Terran's lips tightened. He worked his hand under his prone body,
feeling for the hilt of his knife. With that he could speedily remove
himself from the status of Throg prisoner, and he would do it gladly if
there was no hope of escape. Had there been only one charge left in that
blaster? Shann could make half a dozen guesses as to why the other had
made no move, but that shot had come from behind him, and he dared not
turn his head or otherwise make an effort to see what the other might be
doing.
Was it only his imagination, or had that stench grown stronger during
the last few seconds? Could the Throg be creeping up on him? Shann
strained his ears, trying to catch some sound he could interpret. The
few clak-claks that had survived the blast about the ship were shrieking
overhead, and Shann made one attempt at counterattack.
He whistled the wolverines' call. The pair had not been too willing to
follow him down into this valley, and they had avoided the crater at a
very wide circle. But if they would obey him now, he just might have a
chance.
There! That _had_ been a sound, and the smell _was_ stronger. The Throg
must be coming to him. Again Shann whistled, holding in his mind his
hatred for the beetle-head, the need for finishing off that alien. If
the animals could pick either thoughts or emotions out of their human
companion, this was the time for him to get those unspoken half-orders
across.
Shann slammed his hand hard against the ground, sent his body rolling,
his stunner up and ready.
And now he could see that grotesque thing, swaying weakly back and forth
on its thin legs, yet holding a blaster, bringing that weapon up to
center it on him. The Throg was hunched over and perhaps to Taggi
presented the outline of some four-footed creature to be hunted. For the
wolverine male sprang for the horn-shelled shoulders.
Under that impact that Throg sagged forward. But Taggi, outraged at the
nature of creature he had attacked, squalled and retreated. Shann had
had his precious seconds of distraction. He fired, the core of the stun
beam striking full into the flat dish of the alien's "face."
That bolt, which would have shocked a mammal into insensibility, only
slowed the Throg. Shann rolled again, gaining a temporary cover behind
the wrecked ship. He squirmed under metal hot enough to scorch his
jacket and saw the reflection of a second blaster shot which had been
fired seconds late.
Now the Throg had him tied down. But to get at the Terran the alien
would have to show himself, and Shann had one chance in fifty, which was
better than that of three minutes ago--when the odds had been set at one
in a hundred. He knew that he could not press the wolverines in again.
Taggi's distaste was too manifest; Shann had been lucky that the animal
had made one abortive attack.
Perhaps the Terran's escape and Taggi's action had made the alien
reckless. Shann had no clue to the thinking processes of the non-human,
but now the Throg staggered around the end of the plate, his digits,
which were closer to claws than fingers, fumbling with his weapon. The
Terran snapped another shot from his stunner, hoping to slow the enemy
down. But he was trapped. If he turned to climb the cliff at his back,
the beetle-head could easily pick him off.
A rock hurtled from the heights above, striking with deadly accuracy on
the domed, hairless head of the Throg. His armored body crashed forward,
struck against the ship, and rebounded to the ground. Shann darted
forward to seize the blaster, kicking loose the claws which still
grasped it, before he flattened back to the cliff, the strange weapon
over his arm, his heart beating wildly.
That rock had not bounded down the mountainside by chance; it had been
hurled with intent and aimed carefully at its target. And no Throg would
kill one of his fellows. Or would he? Suppose orders had been issued to
take a Terran prisoner and the Throg by the ship had disobeyed? Then,
why a rock and not a blaster bolt?
Shann edged along until the upslanted, broken side of the Throg flyer
provided him with protection from any overhead attack. Under that
shelter he waited for the next move from his unknown rescuer.
The clak-claks wheeled closer to earth. One lit boldly on the carapace
of the inert Throg, shuffling ungainly along that horny ridge. Cradling
the blaster, the Terran continued to wait. His patience was rewarded
when that investigating clak-clak took off uttering an enraged snap or
two. He heard what might be the scrape of boots across rock, but that
might also have come from horny skin meeting stone.
Then the other must have lost his footing not too far above. Accompanied
by a miniature landslide of stones and earth, a figure slid down several
yards away. Shann waited in a half-crouch, his looted blaster covering
the man now getting to his feet. There was no mistaking the familiar
uniform, or even the man. How Ragnar Thorvald had reached that
particular spot on Warlock or why, Shann could not know. But that he was
there, there was no denying.
Shann hurried forward. It had been when he caught his first sight of
Thorvald that he realized just how deep his unacknowledged loneliness
had bit. There were two Terrans on Warlock now, and he did not need to
know why. But Thorvald was staring back at him with the blankness of
non-recognition.
"Who are you?" The demand held something close to suspicion.
That note in the other's voice wiped away a measure of Shann's
confidence, threatened something which had flowered in him since he had
struck into the wilderness on his own. Three words had reduced him again
to Lantee, unskilled laborer.
"Lantee. I'm from the camp...."
Thorvald's eagerness was plain in his next question: "How many of you
got away? Where are the rest?" He gazed past Shann up the plateau slope
as if he expected to see the personnel of the camp sprout out of the
cloak of grass along the verge.
"Just me and the wolverines," Shann answered in a colorless voice. He
cradled the blaster on his hip, turned a little away from the officer.
"You ... and the wolverines?" Thorvald was plainly startled. "But ...
where? How?"
"The Throgs hit very early yesterday morning. They caught the rest in
camp. The wolverines had escaped from their cage, and I was out hunting
them...." He told his story baldly.
"You're sure about the rest?" Thorvald had a thin steel of rage edging
his voice. Almost, Shann thought, as if he could turn that blade of rage
against one Shann Lantee for being yet alive when more important men had
not survived.
"I saw the attack from an upper ridge," the younger man said, having
been put on the defensive. Yet he had a right to be alive, hadn't he? Or
did Thorvald believe that he should have gone running down to meet the
beetle-heads with his useless stunner? "They used energy beams ...
didn't land until it was all over."
"I knew there was something wrong when the camp didn't answer our
enter-atmosphere signal," Thorvald said absently. "Then one of those
platters jumped us on braking orbit, and my pilot was killed. When we
set down on the automatics here I had just time to rig a surprise for
any trackers before I took to the hills----"
"The blast got one of them," Shann pointed out.
"Yes, they'd nicked the booster rocket; she wouldn't climb again. But
they'll be back here to pick over the remains."
Shann looked at the dead Throg. "Thanks for taking a hand." His tone was
as chill as the other's this time. "I'm heading south...."
And, he added silently, I intend to keep on that way. The Throg attack
had dissolved the pattern of the Survey team. He didn't owe Thorvald any
allegiance. And he had been successfully on his own here since the camp
had been overrun.
"South," Thorvald repeated. "Well, that's as good a direction as any
right now."
But they were not united. Shann found the wolverines and patiently
coaxed and wheedled them into coming with him over a circuitous route
which kept them away from both ships. Thorvald went up the cliff, swung
down again, a supply bag slung over one shoulder. He stood watching as
Shann brought the animals in.
Then Thorvald's arm swept out, his fingers closing possessively about
the barrel of the blaster. Shann's own hold on the weapon tightened, and
the force of the other's pull dragged him partly around.
"Let's have that----"
"Why?" Shann supposed that because it had been the other's well-aimed
rock which had put the Throg out of commission permanently, the officer
was going to claim their only spoils of war as personal booty, and a hot
resentment flowered in the younger man.
"We don't take that away from here." Thorvald made the weapon his with a
quick twist.
To Shann's utter astonishment, the Survey officer walked back to kneel
beside the dead Throg. He worked the grip of the blaster under the
alien's lax claws and inspected the result with the care of one
arranging a special and highly important display. Shann's protest became
vocal. "We'll need that!"
"It'll do us far more good right where it is...." Thorvald paused and
then added, with impatience roughening his voice as if he disliked the
need for making any explanations, "There is no reason for us to
advertise our being alive. If the Throgs found a blaster missing, they'd
start thinking and looking around. I want to have a breathing spell
before I have to play quarry in one of their hunts."
Put that way, his action did make sense. But Shann regretted the loss of
an arm so superior to their own weapons. Now they could not loot the
plateship either. In silence he turned and started to trudge southward,
without waiting for Thorvald to catch up with him.
Once away from the blasted area, the wolverines ranged ahead at their
clumsy gallop, which covered ground at a surprising rate of speed. Shann
knew that their curiosity made them scouts surpassing any human and that
the men who followed would have ample warning of any danger to come.
Without reference to his silent trail companion, he sent the animals
toward another strip of woodland which would give them cover against the
coming of any Throg flyer.
As the hours advanced he began to cast about for a proper night camp.
The woods ought to give them a usable site.
"This is a water wood," Thorvald said, breaking the silence for the
first time since they had left the wrecks.
Shann knew that the other had knowledge, not only of the general
countryside, but of exploring techniques which he himself did not
possess, but to be reminded of that fact was an irritant rather than a
reassurance. Without answering, the younger man bored on to locate the
water promised.
The wolverines found the small lake first and were splashing along its
shore when the Terrans caught up. Thorvald went to work, but to Shann's
surprise he did not unstrap the force-blade ax at his belt. Bending over
a sapling, he pounded away with a stone at the green wood a few inches
above the root line until he was able to break through the slender
trunk. Shann drew his own knife and bent to tackle another treelet when
Thorvald stopped him with an order: "Use a stone on that, the way I
did."
Shann could see no reason for such a laborious process. If Thorvald did
not want to use his ax, that was no reason that Shann could not put his
heavy belt knife to work. He hesitated, ready to set the blade to the
outer bark of the tree.
"Look--" again that impatient edge in the officer's tone, the need for
explanation seeming to come very hard to the other--"sooner or later the
Throgs might just trace us here and find this camp. If so, they are
_not_ going to discover any traces to label us Terran----"
"But who else could we be?" protested Shann. "There is no native race on
Warlock."
Thorvald tossed his improvised stone ax from hand to hand.
"But do the Throgs know that?"
The implications, the possibilities, in that idea struck home to Shann.
Now he began to understand what Thorvald might be planning.
"Now there is going to be a native race." Shann made a statement instead
of a question and saw that the other was watching him with a new
intentness, as if he had at last been recognized as a person instead of
rank and file and very low rank at that--Survey personnel.
"There is going to be a native race," Thorvald affirmed.
Shann resheathed his knife and went to search the pond beach for a
suitable stone to use in its place. Even so, he made harder work of the
clumsy chopping than Thorvald had. He worried at one sapling after
another until his hands were skinned and his breath came in painful
gusts from under aching ribs. Thorvald had gone on to another task,
ripping the end of a long tough vine from just under the powdery surface
of the thick leaf masses fallen in other years.
With this the officer lashed together the tops of the poles, having
planted their splintered butts in the ground, so that he achieved a
crudely conical erection. Leafy branches were woven back and forth
through this framework, with an entrance, through which one might crawl
on hands and knees, left facing the lakeside. The shelter they completed
was compact and efficient but totally unlike anything Shann had ever
seen before, certainly far removed from the domes of the camp. He said
so, nursing his raw hands.
"An old form," Thorvald replied, "native to a primitive race on Terra.
Certainly the beetle-heads haven't come across its like before."
"Are we going to stay here? Otherwise it is pretty heavy work for one
night's lodging."
Thorvald tested the shelter with a sharp shake. The matted leaves
whispered, but the framework held.
"Stage dressing. No, we won't linger here. But it's evidence to support
our play. Even a Throg isn't dense enough to believe that natives would
make a cross-country trip without leaving evidence of their passing."
Shann sat down with a sigh he made no effort to suppress. He had a
vision of Thorvald traveling southward, methodically erecting these huts
here and there to confound Throgs who might not ever chance upon them.
But already the Survey officer was busy with a new problem.
"We need weapons----"
"We have our stunners, a force ax, and our knives," Shann pointed out.
He did not add, as he would have liked that they could have had a
blaster.
"Native weapons," Thorvald countered with his usual snap. He went back
to the beach and crawled about there, choosing and rejecting stones
picked out of the gravel.
Shann scooped out a small pit just before their hut and set about the
making of a pocket-sized fire. He was hungry and looked longingly now
and again to the supply bag Thorvald had brought with him. Dared he
rummage in that for rations? Surely the other would be carrying
concentrates.
"Who taught you how to make a fire that way?" Thorvald was back from the
pond, a selection of round stones about the size of his fist resting
between his chest and his forearm.
"It's regulation, isn't it?" Shann countered defensively.
"It's regulation," Thorvald agreed. He set down his stones in a row and
then tossed the supply bag over to his companion. "Too late to hunt
tonight. But well have to go easy on those rations until we can get
more."
"Where?" Did Thorvald know of some supply cache they could raid?
"From the Throgs," the other answered matter of factly.
"But they don't eat our kind of food...."
"All the more reason for them to leave the camp supplies untouched."
"The camp?"
For the first time Thorvald's lips curved in a shadow smile which was
neither joyous nor warming. "A native raid on an invaders' camp. What
could be more natural? And we'd better make it soon."
"But how can we?" To Shann what the other proposed was sheer madness.
"There was once an ancient service corps on Terra," Thorvald answered,
"which had a motto something like this: 'The improbable we do at once;
the impossible takes a little longer.' What did you think we were going
to do? Sulk around out here in the bush and let the Throgs claim Warlock
for one of their pirate bases without opposition?"
Since that was the only future Shann had visualized, he was ready enough
to admit the truth, only some shade of tone in the officer's voice kept
him from saying so aloud.