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