6
"Brodie?" Rynch squatted on his heels.
Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowed
the smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph.
"Were you looking for me?" he added.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"We found an L-B--we wondered if there were survivors."
Slowly Rynch shook his head. "No--you knew I was here. Because you
brought me!" He fashioned his suspicions into one quick thrust.
This time there was not the slightest hint of self-betrayal from the
other.
"You see," Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from the
captive, "I remember!"
Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man's eyes. He asked
quietly:
"What do you remember, Brodie?"
"Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on the
L-B, did not build that camp."
He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay
behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced,
he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.
"You have no cup this time."
"So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. That
need not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to on
Nahuatl--unless you _liked_ the Starfall." His voice was icy with
contempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." He
paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing
the desired answer out of his inferior.
Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl--a planet?
a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everything
clearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did....
"You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makes
Rynch Brodie so important?"
"Close to a billion credits!" The man from the spacer leaned well back
in the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his body
from sinking deeper. "A billion credits," he repeated softly.
Rynch laughed. "You'll have to think of a better one than that,
fly-boy."
"The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to all
this staging? You've been conditioned, Brodie, illegally
brain-channeled!"
To Rynch the words meant nothing. If they ever had, that was gone,
lost in the maze of other things which had been blotted out of his
mind by the Brodie past. But he would not give the other the advantage
of knowing his uncertainty.
"You need a Brodie for a billion credits. But you don't have a Brodie
now!"
To his surprise the prisoner in the earth trap laughed. "I'll have a
Brodie when he's needed. Think about a good share of a billion
credits, boy, keep thinking of that hard."
"I will."
"Thoughts alone won't work it, you know." For the first time there was
a hint of some emotion in the man's voice.
"You mean I need you? I don't think so. I've stopped being a plaque
for someone to play across the board." That expression brought another
momentary flash of hazy memory--a smoky, crowded room where men slid
counters back and forth across tables--not one of Brodie's edited
recalls, but his own.
Rynch stood up, started for the rise of the slope, but before he
topped that he glanced back. The damaged com box still smoked where
its wearer had flung it. Now the man was already straining forward
with both arms, trying to reach a rock just a finger space beyond.
Lucky for him the burrow was an old one, uninhabited. In time he
should be able to work his way out. Meanwhile there was the whole of a
wide countryside in which Rynch could discover a hideout--no one would
find him now against his will.
He tried, as he strode along, to piece together more of his memories
and the scanty information he had had from the Nahuatl man. So he had
been "brain-channeled," given a set of false memories to fit a Rynch
Brodie whose presence on this world meant a billion credits for
someone. He could not believe that this was the spaceman's game alone,
for hadn't he spoken of "we"?
A billion credits! The sum was fantastic, the whole story
unbelievable.
There was a hot stab of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stamped
hard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back in
time to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work on
some unidentifiable carrion. Staring down at the welter of scaled,
segmented bodies and busy claws, he gasped.
Three dead water-cats were near the man trapped in the pit. Bait to
draw these voracious eaters straight to the prisoner. Rynch's empty
stomach heaved. He swung around, ran across the grassy verge of the
upper bank, hoping he was not too late.
As he half fell, half slid down to the water, he saw that the man had
managed to hook the webbing of the smouldering box to him, was casting
it out and dragging it back patiently, aiming at the nearest rock of
size, fruitlessly attempting to hitch its straps over the round of
stone.
Rynch dashed on, caught at that loop of webbing, and dug his heels
into the loose gravel as he began a steady pull. With his aid the
other crawled out, lay panting. Rynch grabbed the man's shoulder,
jerked him away from the body of the female water-cat. He was sure he
had seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs.
The man straightened, glanced toward Rynch who was backing off, the
needler up and ready between them.
"My turn to ask why?"
Then his gaze followed Rynch's. The smallest cub twitched from side to
side. Not with any faint trace of life, but under the attack of the
scavengers. More scuttled towards the second cub.
"Thanks!" The stranger was on his feet. "My name is Ras Hume. I don't
think I told you that when we last met."
"This doesn't make any difference. I'm not your man, not Brodie!"
Hume shrugged. "You think about it, Brodie, think about it with care.
Come back to camp with me and--"
"No!" Rynch interrupted. "You go your way, I go mine from here on."
Again the other laughed. "Not so simple as all that, boy. We've
started something which can't just be turned off as easily as you snap
down a switch." He took a step or two in Rynch's direction.
The younger man brought up the needler. "Stay right where you are!
Your game, Hume? All right, you play it--but not with me."
"And what are you going to do, take to the woods?"
"What I do is my business, Hume."
"No, my business, too, very much so. I'm giving you a warning, boy, in
return for your help here." He nodded at the pit. "There's something
in that woods--something which didn't show up when the Guild had their
survey exploration here."
"The watchers." Rynch retreated step by step, keeping the needler
ready. "I saw them."
"You've seen them!" Hume was eager. "What do they look like?"
In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himself
answering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recall
minutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one who
had waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in about
the L-B clearing.
"No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood.
"The verifier reported no intelligence."
"These watchers--you don't know them?"
"No. Nor do I like what you've seen of them, Brodie. So I'm willing to
call a truce. The Guild believed Jumala an open planet, our records
accredited it so. If that is not true we may be in for bad trouble. As
an Out-Hunter I am responsible for the safety of three civs back there
in the safari camp."
Hume made sense, much as Rynch disliked admitting it. And the Hunter
must have read something of his agreement in his face for now he
nodded and added briskly:
"Best place now is the safari camp. We'll head back at once."
Only time had run out. A noise sounded with a metallic ring. Rynch
whirled, needler cocked. A glittering ball about the size of his fist
rolled away from contact with a boulder, came to rest in the deep
depression of one of Hume's boot tracks. Then another flash through
the air, a clatter as a second ball spun across a patch of gravel.
The balls seemed to appear out of the air. Displaying rainbow glints
they rolled in a semicircle about the two men. Rynch stooped, then
Hume's fingers latched about his wrist, dragging his hand away from
the globe. It was only then that he realized that sharp action had
detached his attention from that ball he had wanted to take up.
"Don't touch!" Hume barked. "And don't look at that too closely! Come
along!" He pulled Rynch forward through the yet unclosed arc of the
globe circle.
Hume detoured around the feasting scavengers and brought Rynch with
him at a trot. They could hear behind them the plop and tinkle of more
globes. Glancing back Rynch saw one fall close to the bodies of the
water-cats.
"Wait a minute!" He pulled back against Hume's hold. Here was a chance
to see what effect that crystal had on the clawed carrion eater.
There was a change in the crystal: Yellow now, then red--red as the
few scraps of fur remaining on the rapidly disappearing body.
"Look!"
The pulsating carpet which had covered the dead feline ceased to move.
But towards that spot rolled two more of the globes, approaching the
scavengers. Now the clawed things were stirring, dropping away from
their prey. They spread out in a patch, moved purposefully forward.
Behind them, as guardians might head a flock, rolled three globes,
flushing scarlet, then more.
Hume's hand came up. From the cone tip of the ray tube spat a lance of
fire, to strike the middle crystal. The beam was reflected into the
block of scavengers. Scaled bodies, twisted, crisped, were ash. But
the crystal continued to roll at the same pace.
"Move!" Hume's other hand hit Rynch's shoulder, knocked him forward in
an impetuous shove which nearly took him off his feet. Both men began
to run.
"What--what are those things?" Rynch appealed between panting breaths.
"I don't know--and I don't like their looks. They're between us and
the safari camp if we keep to the river--"
"Between us and the river now." Rynch saw that glittering swoop
through the air, marked the landing of a ball near the water's edge.
"Might be trying to box us in. But that's not going to work.
See--ahead there where that log's caught between two rocks? Run out on
that when we reach there and take to the water. I don't think those
things can float and if they sink to the bottom that ought to fix them
as far as we are concerned."
Rynch ran, still holding the needler. He balanced along the drift log
Hume had pointed out and a jump sent him floundering in the brown
stream thigh deep. Hume joined him, his face grim.
"Downstream--"
Rynch looked. One shape--two--three--Clearly detailed where matching
vegetation gave them no covering camouflage, the watchers had come out
of the woods at last. A line of them were walking quietly and upright
towards the humans, their blue-green fuzz covering like a mist under
the direct rays of the sun. Quiet as they seemed at present, the
things out of the Jumalan forest were a picture of sheer brute
strength as they moved.
"Let's get out of here--fast!"
The men kept moving, and always after them padded that silent line of
green-blue, pushing them farther and farther away from the safari
camp, on towards the rising mountain peaks. Just as the globes had
shaken the scavengers loose from their meal and sent them marching on,
so were the humans being herded for some unknown purpose.
At least, once the march of the beasts began, they saw and heard no
more of the globes. And as they reached a curve in the river, Hume
stopped, swung around, stood studying the line of decorously pacing
animals.
"We can pick them off with the needler or the ray."
The Hunter shook his head. "You don't kill," he recited the credo of
his Guild, "not until you are sure. There is a method behind this, and
method means intelligence."
Handling of X-tee creatures and peoples was a part of Guild training.
In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was Guild educated
and Rynch was willing to leave such decisions to him.
The other held out the ray tube. "Take this, cover me, but don't use
it until I say so. Understand?"
He waited only for Rynch's nod before he started, at a deliberate pace
which matched that of the beasts, back through the river shallows to
meet them. But that advancing line halted, stood waiting in silence.
Hume's hands went up, palm out, he spoke slowly in Basic-X-Tee clicks:
"Friend." This was all Rynch could make out of that sing-song of
syllables Rynch knew to be a contact pattern.
The dark eye pits continued to stare. A light breeze ruffled the fuzz
covering of wide shoulders, long muscular arms. Not a head moved, not
one of those heavy, rounded jaws opened to emit any answering sound.
Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a portending atmosphere
spread from the alien things as might a tangible wave.
For perhaps two breaths they stood so, man facing alien. Then Hume
turned, walked back, his face set. Rynch offered him the ray tube.
"Fight our way out?"
"Too late. Look!"
Moving lines of blue-green coming down to the river. Not five or six
now--a dozen--twenty. There was a small trickle of moisture down the
side of the Hunter's brown face.
"We're penned--except straight ahead."
"But we're going to fight!" Rynch protested.
"No. Move on!"
7
It was some time before Hume found what he wanted, an islet in
midstream lacking any growth and rising to a rough pinnacle. The sides
were seamed with crevices and caves which promised protection for
one's back in any desperate struggle. And they had discovered it none
too soon, for the late afternoon shadows were lengthening.
There had been no attack, just the trailing to herd the men to the
northeast. And Rynch had lost the first tight pinch of panic, though
he knew the folly of underestimating the unknown.
They climbed with unspoken consent, going clear to the top, where they
huddled together on a four-foot tableland. Hume unhooked his distance
lenses, but it was toward the rises of the mountains that he aimed
them, not along the back trail.
Rynch wriggled about, studied the river and its banks. The beasts
there were quiet, blue-green lumps, standing down on the river bank or
squatting in the grass.
"Nothing." Hume lowered the lenses, held them before his broad chest
as he still watched the peaks.
"What did you expect?" Rynch snapped. He was hungry, but not hungry
enough to abandon the islet.
Hume laughed shortly. "I don't know. Only I'm sure they are heading us
in that direction."
"Look here," Rynch rounded on him. "You know this planet, you've been
here before."
"I was one of the survey team that approved it for the Guild."
"Then you must have combed it pretty thoroughly. How is it that you
didn't know about them?" He gestured to their pursuers.
"That is what I would like to ask a few assorted experts right about
now," Hume returned. "The verifiers registered no intelligent native
life here."
"No native life." Rynch chewed that over, came up with the obvious
explanation. "All right--so then maybe our blue-backed friends are
imported. Suppose someone's running a private business of his own here
and wants to get rid of visitors?"
Hume looked thoughtful. "No." He did not enlarge upon his negative.
Sitting down he pulled a cylinder container from a belt loop and shook
out four tablets, handing two to Rynch, mouthing the others.
"Vita-blocks--good for twenty-four hours sustenance."
The iron rations depended upon by all exploring services did not have
the satisfying taste of real food. However Rynch swallowed them
dutifully before he descended with Hume to river level. The Hunter
splashed water from the stream into a depression in the rock and
dropped a pinch of clarifying powder into it.
"With the dark," he announced, "we might be able to get through their
lines."
"You believe that?"
Hume laughed. "No--but one doesn't overlook the factor of sheer luck.
Also, I don't care to finish up at the place they may have chosen for
us." He tilted his chin to study the sky. "We'll take watches and rest
in turn. No use trying anything until it is dark--unless they start to
move in. You take the first one?"
As Rynch nodded, Hume edged back into a crevice as a shelled creature
withdrawing to natural protection, going to sleep as easily as if he
could control that state by will. Rynch, watching him curiously for a
second or two before climbing up to a position from which he judged he
could see all sides of their refuge, determined not to be surprised.
The watchers were crouched down, waiting with that patience which had
impressed him from his first sight of the camp sentries back in the
forest. There was no movement, no sound. They were simply there--on
guard. And Rynch did not believe that the darkness of night would
bring any relaxation of that vigilance.
He leaned back, feeling the grit of the rocky surface against his bare
back and shoulders. Under his hand was the most efficient and
formidable weapon known to the frontier worlds, from this post he
could keep the enemy under surveillance and think.
Hume had had him planted here, in the first place, provided with the
memory of Rynch Brodie--the reward for him was to be a billion
credits. Too much staff work had gone into his conditioning for just a
small stake.
So Rynch Brodie was on Jumala, and Hume had come with witnesses to
find him. Another part of his mind stood aloof now, applauding the
clearness of his reasoning. Rynch Brodie was to be discovered a
castaway on Jumala. Only, matters had not worked out according to
Hume's plan. In the first place he was certain he had not been
intended to know that he was not Rynch Brodie. For a fleeting second
he wondered why that conditioning had not completely worked, then went
back to the problem of his relationship with Hume.
No, the Out-Hunter had expected a castaway who would be just what he
ordered. Then this affair of the watchers--creatures the Guild men had
not found here a few months ago--Rynch felt a small cold chill along
his spine. Hume's game was one thing, something he could understand,
but the silent beasts were another and somehow far more disturbing
threat.
Rynch edged forward, watching the mist on the water, his brain
striving to solve this other puzzle as neatly as he thought he had
discovered the reason for his scrambled memories and his being on
Jumala.
The mist was an added danger. Thick enough and those watchers could
move in under its curtain. A needler was efficient, yes, but it could
wipe out only an enemy at which it was aimed. Blind cross sweeping
with its darts would only exhaust the clip without results, save by
lucky chance.
On the other hand, suppose they could turn that same gray haze to
their own advantage--use it to blanket their withdrawal? He was about
to go to Hume with that suggestion when he sighted the new move in
their odd battle with the aliens.
A wink of light--two more--blinking, following the erratic course by
the pull of the stream. All bobbing along toward the rugged coastline
of the islet. Those had appeared out of nothingness as suddenly as the
globes when this chase had begun.
The globes and the winking lights on the water connected in his mind,
argued new danger. Rynch took careful aim, fired a dart at one which
had grounded on the pointed tip of the rocks where the river current
came together after its division about the island. For the first time
Rynch realized those things below were moving _against_ the
current--they had come upstream as if propelled.
He had fired and the light was still there, two more coming in behind
it, so that now there was an irregular cluster of them. And there was
activity on the water-washed rocks before them. Just as the scavengers
had moved ahead of the globes on land, so now aquatic creatures had
come out of the river, were flopping higher on the islet. And those
lights were changing color--from white to reddish-yellow.
Rynch scrabbled with one hand in a rock crevice, found a stone he had
noted earlier. He hurled that at the cluster of lights. There was a
puff of brilliant red, one was gone. Something flopping on the rocks
gave a mewling cry and somersaulted back into the water. Then a finger
of mist drew between Rynch and the lights which were now only faint,
glowing patches. He swung down from his perch, shook Hume awake.
The Out-Hunter made that instant return to full consciousness which
was another defense for the men who live long on the rim of wild
worlds.
"What--?"
Rynch pulled him forward. The mist had thickened, but there were more
of those ominous lights at water level, spreading down both sides of
the point, forming a wall. Dark forms moved out of the water ahead of
them, flopping on the rocks, pressing higher, towards the ledge where
the men stood.
"Those globes--I think they're moving in the river now." Rynch found
another stone, took careful aim, and smashed a second one. "The
needler has no effect on them," he reported. "Stones do--but I don't
know why."
They searched about them in the crevices for more ammunition, laying
up a line of fist-sized rocks, while the lights gathered in, spreading
farther and farther down the shores of the islet. Hume cried out
suddenly, and aimed his ray tube below. The lance of its blast cut the
dark as might a bolt of lightning.
With a shrill squeal, a blot shadow detached from the slope
immediately below them. A vile, musky scent, now mingled with the
stench of burning flesh, set them coughing.
"Water spider!" Hume identified. "If they are driving those out and up
at...."
He fumbled at his equipment belt and then tossed an object downward to
disintegrate in a shower of fiery sparks. Wherever those sparks
touched rock or ground they flared up in tall thin columns of fire,
lighting up the nightmare on the rocks and up the ledges.
Rynch fired the needler, Hume's ray tube flashed and flashed again.
Things squealed, or grunted, or died silently, while clawing to reach
the upper ledges. He could not be sure of the nature of some of those
things. One, armed and clawed as the scavengers, was nearly as large
as a water-cat. And a furry, man-legged creature, with a double-jawed
head, bore also a ring of phosphorescent eyes set in a complete circle
about its skull. They were alien life routed out of the water.
"The lights--smash the lights!" Hume ordered.
Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the
river. Put out the lights and the boiling broth of water dwellers
might conceivably return to their homes. He dropped the needler, took
up stones and set about the business of finishing off as many of the
lights as he could.
Hume fired into the crawling mass, pausing only once to send another
of those flame bombs crashing to illuminate the scene. The water
creatures bewildered, clumsy out of their element, were so far at his
mercy. But their numbers, in spite of the piling dead, were still a
dangerous threat.
Rynch tore gapping holes in that line of lights. But he could see,
through the mist, more floating sparks, gathering to take their
places, perhaps herding before them more water things to attack.
Except for those few gaps he had wrought, the islet was now completely
enveloped.
"Ahhhh--" Hume's voice arose in a roar of anger and defiance. He
stabbed his ray down at a spot just below their ledge. A huge
segmented, taloned leg kicked, caught on the edge of the stone at the
level of their feet, twisted aloft again and was gone.
"Up!" Hume ordered. "To the top!"
Rynch caught up two handsful of stones, holding them to his chest with
his left arm as he made a last cast to see one light puff out in
answer. Then they both scrambled on to that small platform at the top
of the islet. By the aid of the burning flame-torches the Hunter had
set, they could see that most of the rocky slopes below them now
squirmed with a horrible mass of water life.
Where Hume had fired his ray there was fierce activity, as the living
feasted on the slain and quarreled over the bounty. But from other
quarters the crawling advance pressed on.
"I have only one more flame flare," Hume stated.
One more flare--then they would be in the dark with the mist hiding
the forward-moving enemy.
"I wonder if they are watching out there?" Rynch scowled into the
dark.
"They--or what sent them. They know what they are doing."
"You mean they must have done this before?"
"I think so. That L-B back there--it made a good landing, and there
are supplies missing from its lockers."
"Which you removed--" Rynch countered.
"No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we
found any trace of them. Now I can guess why--"
"But you Guild men were here, and you didn't run into this!"
"I know." Hume sounded baffled. "Not a sign then."
Rynch threw the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against
a rock. Hume balanced an object on the palm of his hand.
"Last flare!"
"What's that? Over there?"
Rynch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the river bank,
making a pattern of flickers which bore no relation to the infernal
lights at the water's edge.
Hume's ray tube pointed skyward as he answered with a series of short
bursts.
"Take cover!" The call came weirdly out over the water, the tone
dehumanized. Hume cupped his mouth with one hand, shouted back:
"We're on top--no cover."
"Then flatten down--we're blasting!"
They flattened, lay almost in each other's arms, curled on that narrow
space. Even through his closed eyelids Rynch caught the flash of
vivid, man-made lightning crashing first on one side of the islet and
then on the other, and sweeping every crawling horror out of life,
into odorous ash. The backlash of that blast must have caught the
majority of the lights also. For when Rynch and Hume cautiously sat
up, they saw only a handful of widely scattered and dulling globes
below.
They choked, coughed, rubbed watering eyes as the fumes from the
scorched rocks wreathed up about their perch.
"Flitter with life line--above you!"
That voice had come out of what should have been empty air over their
heads. A gangling line trailed across their bodies, a line with a
safety belt locked to it, and a second was uncoiling in a slow loop as
they watched.
In unison they grabbed for those means of escape, buckled the belts
about them.
"Haul away!" Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up
clear of the blasted river island, as their unseen transport headed
for the eastern shore.
8
A subdued but steady light all around him issued from stark gray
walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he'd better be on
the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful
kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to
reduce most humans to helpless obedience.
Vye blinked again. But this wasn't his cubby hole at the Starfall, his
nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of
uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at
his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self
was a wide, scaled belt and a loin cloth. Clumsy sandals shod his
feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing
scratches and blotched with bruises.
Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he
tried to think back. Sluggishly, memory associated one picture with
another.
Last night--or yesterday--Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And
"here" was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a
man named Wass. It had been Wass' pilot in the flitter which snaked
them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them.
This was a concealed, fortified camp--Wass' hideout. And he was a
prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the
Veep and a man named Hume.
Hume, the Out-Hunter, had shown no surprise when Wass stood up in the
lamplight to greet the rescued. "I see you have been hunting." His
eyes had moved from Hume to Rynch and back again.
"Yes--but that does not matter!" the Hunter had returned impatiently.
"No? Then what does?"
"This is not a free world, I have to report that. Get my civs off
planet before something happens to them!"
"I thought all safari worlds were certified as free," Wass countered.
"This one isn't. I don't know how or why. But that fact has to be
reported and the civs lifted--"
"Not so fast." Wass' voice had been quiet, almost gentle. "Such a
report would interest the Patrol, would it not?"
"Of course--" Hume began and then stopped abruptly.
Wass smiled. "You see--complications already. I do not wish to explain
anything to the Patrol. Nor do you either, my young friend, not when
you stop to think about what might result from such explanations."
"There wouldn't have been any trouble if you'd kept away from Jumala."
Hume's control had returned; both voice and manner were under tight
rein. "Weren't Rovald's reports explicit enough to satisfy you?"
"I have risked a great deal on this project," Wass replied. "Also, it
is well from time to time for a Veep to check upon his field
operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever
in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or
would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our
project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the
moment we make no moves. No, Hume, your civs will have to take their
chances for a time."
"And if there is trouble?" Hume challenged him. "A report of an alien
attack will bring in the Patrol quickly enough."
"You forget Rovald," Wass corrected. "The chance that one of your civs
can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote, and Rovald will
see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brodie, I see."
"Yes."
"No!" What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had
realized the folly of his outburst the moment Wass had looked at him.
"This becomes more interesting," the Veep had remarked with that
deceptive gentleness. "You are Rynch Brodie, castaway from the Largo
Drift, are you not? I trust that Out-Hunter Hume has made plain to you
our concern with your welfare, Gentlehomo Brodie."
"I'm not Brodie." Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth he
was stubborn enough to continue swimming.
"I find this enlightening indeed. If you are not Brodie--then who are
you?"
That had been it. At that moment he couldn't have told Wass who he
was, explain that his patchwork of memories had gaping holes.
"And you, Out-Hunter," Wass' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume,
"perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery."
"None of his doing," he burst out, "I remembered--"
Some inexplicable emotion made Rynch defend Hume then.
Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. "Yes, Wass,
your techs are not as good as they pretend to be. He didn't follow the
pattern of action they set for him."
"A pity. But there are always errors when one deals with the human
factor. Peake!" One of the other three men moved towards them. "You
will escort this young man to the spacer, see him safely stowed for
the present. Yes, a pity. Now we must see just how much can be
salvaged."
Then Vye had been brought into the shop, supplied with a ration
container, and left to himself within this bare-walled cabin to
meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so
utterly stupid? Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky
channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just
as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was,
ruthless, powerful and thorough.
A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage
cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye
crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration
container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood
there, his head turned so his ear rested against the wall; obviously
he was listening.
"You brain-smoothed idiot!" The Hunter's voice was a thread of
whisper. "Why couldn't you have kept that swinging jaw of yours closed
last night? Now listen and listen good. This is a slim try, but it's
one we have to take."
"We?" Vye was startled into asking.
"Yes, we! By rights I ought to leave you right here to do the rest of
your big, brave speechmaking for Wass' benefit. If I didn't need you,
that's just what I would do! If it weren't for those civs--" His head
snapped back, cheek to panel, he was listening again. After a long
moment his whisper came once more. "I don't have time to repeat this.
In about five minutes Peake'll be here with rations. I'll leave this
door unlatched. There's another storage cabin across the corridor--see
if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock
him in. Got it?"
Vye nodded.
"Then--make for the exit port. Here." He snapped a packet loose from
his belt. "This is a flare pak, you saw how they worked on the island.
When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should
hit the camp force barrier. And the result ought to hold their
attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand?"
"Yes."
The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp force
barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up.
Hume gazed at him soberly, listened once more, and then went. Vye
counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor
was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited.
Peake was coming now, the metallic plates on his spaceboots clicking
in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and
crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock bar on the other
cabin.
There was an exclamation of surprise. Vye went into action. His hand,
backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumped between
Peake's shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment.
Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vye had
the panel shut, the bar locked into place.
He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rungs with
an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the air lock, getting his
bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom lamp, where
the men were gathered, to his right.
Vye stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his
thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare pak.
Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp but near enough to
dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then
he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship.
There was a flash--shouting--Vye curbed the impulse to look back,
darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment,
scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, leaving that
free for Hume's quick entrance. More shouting--now he saw the lines of
fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier.
A black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that
flaming wall, then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and
slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying
fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped
Vye's stomach up into the lower regions of his throat.
The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them--too
slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher.
Then the Hunter spoke:
"Half an hour at the most--"
"The safari camp?
"Yes."
They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a
projectile flight, into the dark of the night.
"What're those?" Vye suddenly leaned forward.
Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their
fixed orbits? Flecks of light, moving in an arc, headed towards the
speeding flitter.
Hume hit a button. Again they arose in a violent leap above those
wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked,
moving fast to close in on the flyer.
"A straight ram course," Hume muttered, more to himself than Vye.
Again the flyer drove forward in a rising thrust of speed. Then the
smooth purr of the propulsion unit faltered, broke into protesting
coughs. Hume worked over the controls, beads of sweat showing on his
forehead and cheek in the gleam of the cabin light.
"Deading--deading out!"
He brought the flitter around in a wide circle, the purr smoothed out
once more in a steady reassuring beat.
"Out run them!"
But Vye feared they were back again on the losing side of a struggle
with the unknown alien power. As they had been herded along the river,
so now they were being pushed across the sky, towards the mountains.
The enemy had followed them aloft!
Some core of stubborn will in Hume would not yet allow him to admit
that. Time and time again he climbed higher--always to meet climbing,
twisting, spurting lines of lights which reacted on the engine of the
flitter and threatened it with complete failure.
Where they were now in relation to Wass' camp or that of the safari,
Vye had no idea, and he guessed that Hume could not be too certain.
Hume switched on the flitter's com unit, tried a channel search until
he picked up a click of signal--the automatic reply of the safari
camp. His fingertip beat out in return the danger warning, then the
series of code sounds to give an edited version of what must be
guarded against.
"Wass has a man in your camp. His skin is in just as much danger as
the rest. He may not relay it to the Patrol, but he'll keep the force
barrier up and the civs inside--anything else would be malicious
neglect and a murder charge when the Guild check tape goes in. This
call is on the spacer tape now and will be a part of that--he can't
possibly alter such a report and he knows it. This is the best we can
do now--"
"We're close to the mountains, aren't we?"
"Do you know much about this part of the country?" Vye persisted.
Hume's knowledge might be their only hope.
"Flew over the range twice. Nothing to see."
"But there has to be something there."
"If there is, it didn't show up during our survey." Hume's voice was
dull with fatigue.
"You're a Guild man, you've dealt with alien life forms before--"
"The Guild doesn't deal with intelligent aliens. That's X-Tee Patrol
business. We don't land on any planet with unknown intelligent life
forms. Why should we court trouble--couldn't run a safari in under
those conditions. X-Tee certified Jumala as a wild world, our survey
confirmed that."
"Someone or something landed here after you left?"
"I don't believe so. This is too well organized an action. And since
we have a satellite guard in space, any ship landing would be taped
and recorded. No such record appeared on the Guild screens. One small
spacer--such as Wass'--could slip through by knowing procedure--just
as he did. But to land all those beasts and equipment they'd need a
regular transport. No--this must be native." Hume leaned forward
again, flipped a switch.
A small red light answered on the central board.
"Radar warn-off," he explained.
So they wouldn't end up smeared against some cliff face anyway. Which
was only small comfort amid terrifying possibilities.
Hume had taken the precaution just in time. The light blinked faster,
and the speed of the flyer was checked as the automatic control
triggered by the warn-off came into command. Hume's hands were still
on the board, but a system of relays put safety devices into action
with a speed past that which a human pilot could initiate.
They were descending and had to accept that, since the warn-off,
operating for the sake of the passengers, had ruled that move best.
The directive would glide the flitter to the best available landing.
It was only moments before the shock gear did touch surface. Then the
engine was silent.
"This is it," Hume observed.
"What do we do now?" Vye wanted to know.
"Wait--"
"Wait! For what?"
Hume consulted his planet-time watch in the light of the cabin.
"We have about an hour until dawn--if dawn arrives here at the same
time it does in the plains. I don't propose to go out blindly in the
dark."
Which made sense. Except that to sit here, quietly, in their cramped
quarters, not knowing what might be waiting outside, was an ordeal Vye
found increasingly harder to bear. Maybe Hume guessed his discomfort,
maybe he was following routine procedure. But he turned, thumbed open
one of the side panels in Vye's compartment, and dug out the emergency
supplies.
9
They sorted the crash rations into small packs. A blanket of the
water-resistant, feather-heavy Ozakian spider silk was cut into a
protective covering for Vye. That piece of tailoring occupied them
until the graying sky permitted them a full picture of the pocket in
which the flitter had landed. The dark foliage of the mountain growth
was broken here by a ledge of dark-blue stone on which the flyer
rested.
To the right was a sheer drop, and a land slip had cut away the ledge
itself a few feet behind the flitter. There was only a steadily
narrowing path ahead, slanting upward.
"Can we take off again?" Vye hoped to be reassured that such a feat
was possible.
"Look up!"
Vye backed against the cliff wall, stared up at the sky. Well above
them those globes still swam in unwearied circles, commanding the air
lanes.
Hume had cautiously approached the outer rim of the ledge, was using
his distance glasses to scan what might lie below.
"No sign yet."
Vye knew what he meant. The globes were overhead, but the blue beasts,
or any other fauna those balls might summon, had not yet appeared.
Shouldering their packs they started along the ledge. Hume had his ray
tube, but Vye was weaponless, unless somewhere along their route he
could pick up some defensive and offensive arm. Stones had burst the
lights of the islet, they might prove as effective against the blue
beasts. He kept watch for any of the proper size and weight.
The ledge narrowed, one shoulder scraped the cliff now as they
rounded a pinnacle to lose sight of the flitter. But the globes
continued to hover over them.
"We are still traveling in the direction they want," Vye speculated.
Hume had gone to hands and knees to negotiate an ascent so steep he
had to search for head and toe holds. When they were safely past that
point they took a breather, and Vye glanced aloft again. Now the sky
was empty.
"We may have arrived, or are about to do so," said Hume.
"Where?"
Hume shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. And both of us can be
wrong."
The steep ascent did not quite reach the top of the cliff around the
face of which the ledge curled. Instead their path now leveled off and
began to widen out so that they could walk with more confidence. Then
it threaded into a crevice between two towering rock walls and sloped
downward.
A path unnaturally smooth, Vye thought, as if shaped to funnel
wayfarers on. And they came out on the rim of a valley, a valley
centered with a wood-encircled lake. They stepped from the rock of the
passage onto a springy turf which gave elastically to their tread.
Vye's sandal struck a round stone. It started from its bed in the
black-green vegetation, turned over so that round pits stared
eyelessly up at him. He was faced by the fleshless grin of a human
skull.
Hume went down on one knee, examined the ground growth, gingerly
lifted the lace of vertebrae forming a spine. That ended in a crushed
break which he studied briefly before he laid the bones gently back
into the concealing cover of the mossy stuff.
"That was done by teeth!"
The cup of green valley had not changed, it was the same as it had
been when they had emerged from the crevice. But now every clump of
trees, every wind-rippled mound of brush promised cover.
Vye moistened his lips, diverted his eyes from the skull.
"Weathered," Hume said slowly, "must have been here for seasons, maybe
planet years."
"A survivor from the L-B?" Yet this spot lay days of travel from that
clearing back in the plains.
"How did he get here?"
"Probably the same way we would have, had we not holed up on that
river island."
Driven! Perhaps the lone human on Jumala herded up into this dead-end
valley by the globes or the blue beasts. "This process must have been
in action for some time."
"Why?"
"I can give you two reasons." Hume studied the nearest trees narrowly.
"First--for some purpose, whatever we are up against wants all
interlopers moved out of the lowlands into this section, either to
imprison them, or to keep them under surveillance. Second--" He
hesitated.
Vye's own imagination supplied a second reason, a revolting one he
tried to deny to himself even as he put it into words:
"That broken spine--food...." Vye wanted Hume to contradict him, but
the Hunter only glanced around, his expression already sufficient
answer.
"Let's get out of here!" Vye was fighting down panic with every ounce
of control he could summon, trying not to bolt for the crevice. But he
knew he could not force himself any farther into that sinister valley.
"If we can!" Hume's words lingered direly in his ears.
Stones had smashed the globes by the river. If they still waited out
there Vye was willing to try and break them with his bare hands,
should escape demand such action. Hume must have agreed with those
thoughts, he was already taking long strides back to the cliff
entrance.
But that door was closed. Hume's foot, raised for the last step toward
the crevice corridor, struck an invisible obstruction. He reeled back,
clutching at Vye's shoulder.
"Something's there!"
The younger man put out his hand questingly. What his fingers
flattened against was not a tight, solid surface, but rather an unseen
elastic curtain which gave a little under his prodding and then drew
taut again.
Together they explored by touch what they could not see. The crevice
through which they had entered was now closed with a curtain they
could not pierce or break. Hume tried his ray tube. They watched thin
flame run up and down that invisible barrier, but not destroy it.