"That is so. Once we stood at the same place in time--in our thoughts,
our desires. Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway,
each at his own speed--a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon.
Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a series
of step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble--"
"The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing of
this, that I climb with you on these stairs."
"So I believe. But there comes a time when it is best not to be a woman
stirring a pot of boiling stew but rather one who stands quietly at a
distance--"
"You mean?" Travis pressed.
"I say that alone among us you have crossed the stars before, therefore
new things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout. Also the
coyotes run in your footsteps, and you do not fear them."
It made good sense. Let him scout ahead of the party, taking the coyotes
with him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak small--until the
people on Buck's stairway were more closely united.
"I go in the morning," Travis agreed. He could slip away tonight, but
just now he could not force himself away from the fire, from the
companionship.
"You might take Tsoay with you," Buck continued.
Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one of
the youngest of their group, Buck's own cross-cousin and near-brother.
"It is well," Buck explained, "that we learn this land, and it has
always been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of the
older. Also, not only should trails be learned, but also men."
Travis caught the thought behind that. Perhaps by taking the younger men
as scouts, one after another, he could build up among them a following
of sorts. Among the Apaches, leadership was wholly a matter of
personality. Until the reservation days, chieftains had gained their
position by force of character alone, though they might come
successively from one family clan over several generations.
He did not want the chieftainship here. No, but neither did he want
growing whispers working about him to cut him off from his people. To
every Apache severance from the clan was a little death. He must have
those who would back him if Deklay, or those who thought like Deklay,
turned grumbling into open hostility.
"Tsoay is one quick to learn," Travis agreed. "We go at dawn--"
"Along the mountain range?" Buck inquired.
"If we seek a protected place for the rancheria, yes. The mountains have
always provided good strongholds for the People."
"And you think there is need for a fort?"
Travis shrugged. "I have been one day's journey out into this world. I
saw nothing but animals. But that is no promise that elsewhere there are
no enemies. The planet was on the tapes we brought back from that other
world, and so it was known to the others who once rode between star and
star as we rode between ranch and town. If they had this world set on a
journey tape, it was for a reason; that reason may still be in force."
"Yet it was long ago that these star people rode so...." Buck mused.
"Would the reason last so long?"
Travis remembered two other worlds, one of weird desert inhabited by
beast things--or had they once been human, human to the point of
possessing intelligence?--that had come out of sand burrows at night to
attack a spaceship. And the second world where the ruins of a giant city
had stood choked with jungle vegetation, where he had made a blowgun
from tubes of rustless metal as a weapon gift for small winged men--but
were they men? Both had been remnants of that ancient galactic empire.
"Some things could so remain," he answered soberly. "If we find them, we
must be careful. But first a good site for the rancheria."
"There is no return to home for us," Buck stated flatly.
"Why do you say that? There could be a rescue ship later--"
The other raised his eyes again to Travis. "When you slept under the
Redax how did you ride?"
"As a warrior--raiding ... living...."
"And I--I was one with _go'ndi_," Buck returned simply.
"But--"
"But the white man has assured us that such power--the power of a
chief--does not exist? Yes, the Pinda-lick-o-yi has told us so many
things. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. And
those who think in another fashion cannot be measured by his rules, so
they are foolish dreamers. Not all white men think so. There was Dr.
Ashe--he was beginning to understand a little.
"Perhaps I, too, am standing still, halfway up the stairway of the past.
But of this I am very sure: For us, there will be no return to our own
place. And the time will come when something new shall grow from the
seed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders of
that growth. So I urge you, take Tsoay, and the next time, Lupe. For the
young who may be swayed this way and that by words--as the wind shakes a
small tree--must be given firm roots."
In Travis education warred with instinct, just as the picture Redax had
planted in his mind had warred with his awaking to this alien landscape.
Yet now he believed he must be guided by what he felt. And he knew that
no man of his race would claim _go'ndi_, the power of spirit known only
to a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. It
might have been fostered by hallucination in the past, but the aura of
it carried into the here and now. And Travis had no doubts that Buck
believed implicitly in what he said, and that belief carried credulity
to others.
"This is wisdom, _Nantan_--"
Buck shook his head. "I am no _nantan_, no chief. But of some things I
am sure. You also be sure of what lies within you, younger brother!"
On the third day, ranging eastward along the base of the mountain range,
Travis found what he believed would be an acceptable camp site. There
was a canyon with a good spring of water cut round by well-marked game
trails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrub
wood could be used to build the wickiups. Water and food lay within
reach, and the ledge approach was easy to defend. Even Deklay and his
fellow malcontents were forced to concede the value of the site.
His duty to the clan accomplished, Travis returned to his own concern,
one which had haunted him for days. Topaz had been taped by men of the
vanished star empire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? As
yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence
level of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed by
the certainty that there _was_ something here, waiting.... And the
desire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache.
Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come to
follow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis was
content to scout with only the coyotes for company, and he did not find
the loneliness of the unknown planet as intimidating as most of the
others.
He was checking his small trail pack on the fourth day after they had
settled on the plateau when Buck and Jil-Lee hunkered down beside him.
"You go to hunt--?" Buck broke the silence first.
"Not for meat."
"What do you fear? That _ndendai_--enemy people--have marked this as
their land?" Jil-Lee questioned.
"That may be true, but now I hunt for what this world was at one time,
the reason why the ancient star men marked it as their own."
"And this knowledge may be of value to us?" Jil-Lee asked slowly. "Will
it bring food to our mouths, shelter for our bodies--mean life for us?"
"All that is possible. It is the unknowing which is bad."
"True. Unknowing is always bad," Buck agreed. "But the bow which is
fitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to another.
Remember that, younger brother. Also, do you go alone?"
"With Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu I am not alone."
"Take Tsoay with you also. The four-footed ones are indeed _ga-n_ for
the service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alone
from his kind."
There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did not
always share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. On
other scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the country and a
liking for experimentation which was not a universal attribute even
among those of his own age.
"I would go to find a path through the mountains; it may be a long
trail," Travis half protested.
"You believe what you seek may lie to the north?"
Travis shrugged. "I do not know. How can I? But it will be another way
of seeking."
"Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper for
the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours," Buck replied. "It
is in him also, this need to see new places."
"There is this," Jil-Lee got to his feet, "--do not go so far, brother,
that you may not easily find a way to return. This is a wide land, and
within it we are but a handful of men alone----"
"That, too, I know." Travis thought he could read more than one kind of
warning in Jil-Lee's words.
* * * * *
They were the second day away from the plateau camp, and climbing, when
they chanced upon the pass Travis had hoped might exist. Before them lay
an abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked in
a dusky amber Travis now knew was the thick grass found in the southern
valleys. Tsoay pointed with his chin.
"Wide land--good for horses, cattle, ranches...."
But all those lay far beyond the black space surrounding them. Travis
wondered if there was any native animal which could serve man in place
of the horse.
"Do we go down?" Tsoay asked.
From this point Travis could sight no break far out on the amber plain,
no sign of any building or any disturbance of its smooth emptiness. Yet
it drew him. "We go," he decided.
Close as it had looked from the pass, the plain was yet a day and a
night, spent in careful watching by turns, ahead of them. It was
midmorning of the second day that they left the foothill breaks, and the
grass of the open country was waist high about them. Travis could see it
rippling where the coyotes threaded ahead. Then he was conscious of a
persistent buzzing, a noise which irritated faintly until he was
compelled to trace it to its source.
The grass had been trampled flat for an irregular patch, with a trail
of broken stalks out of the heart of the plain. At one side was a
buzzing, seething mass of glitter-winged insects which Travis already
knew as carrion eaters. They arose reluctantly from their feast as he
approached.
He drew a short breath which was close to a grunt of astounded
recognition. What lay there was so impossible that he could not believe
the evidence of his eyes. Tsoay gave a sharp exclamation, went down on
one knee for a closer examination, then looked at Travis over his
shoulder, his eyes wide, more than a trace of excitement in his voice.
"Horse dung--and fresh!"
5
"There was one horse, unshod but ridden. It came here from the plains
and it had been ridden hard, going lame. There was a rest here, maybe
shortly after dawn." Travis sorted out what they had learned by a
careful examination of the ground.
Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta, Tsoay, watched and listened as if the coyotes
as well as the boy could understand every word.
"There is that also--" Tsoay indicated the one trace left by the unknown
rider, an impression blurred as if some attempt had been made to conceal
it.
"Small and light, the rider is both. Also in fear, I think--"
"We follow?" Tsoay asked.
"We follow," Travis assented. He looked to the coyotes, and as he had
learned to do, thought out his message. This trail was the one to be
followed. When the rider was sighted they were to report back if the
Apaches had not yet caught up.
There was no visible agreement; the coyotes simply vanished through the
wall of grass.
"Then there are others here," Tsoay said as he and Travis began their
return to the foothills. "Perhaps there was a second ship--"
"That horse," Travis said, shaking his head. "There was no provision in
the project for the shipping of horses."
"Perhaps they have always been here."
"Not so. To each world its own species of beasts. But we shall know the
truth when we look upon that horse--and its rider."
It was warmer this side of the mountains, and the heat of the plains
beat at them. Travis thought that the horse might well be seeking water
if allowed his head. Where did he come from? And why had his rider gone
in haste and fear?
This was rough, broken country and the tired, limping horse seemed to
have picked the easiest way through it, without any hindrance from the
man with him. Travis spotted a soft patch of ground with a deep-set
impression. This time there had been no attempt at erasure; the boot
track was plain. The rider had dismounted and was leading the horse--yet
he was moving swiftly.
They followed the tracks around the bend of a shallow cut and found
Nalik'ideyu waiting for them. Between her forefeet was a bundle still
covered with smears of soft earth, and behind her were drag marks from a
hole under the overhang of a bush. The coyote had plainly just
disinterred her find. Travis squatted down to examine it, using his eyes
before his hands.
It was a bag made of hide, probably the hide of one of the split horns
by its color and the scraps of long hair which had been left in a
simple decorative fringe along the bottom. The sides had been laced
together neatly by someone used to working in leather, the closing flap
lashed down tightly with braided thong loops.
As the Apache leaned closer to it he could smell a mixture of odors--the
hide itself, horse, wood smoke, and other scents--strange to him. He
undid the fastenings and pulled out the contents.
There was a shirt, with long full sleeves, of a gray wool undyed from
the sheep. Then a very bulky short jacket which, after fingering it
doubtfully, Travis decided was made of felt. It was elaborately
decorated with highly colorful embroidery, and there was no mistaking
the design--a heavy antlered Terran deer in mortal combat with what
might be a puma. It was bordered with a geometric pattern of beautiful,
oddly familiar work. Travis smoothed it flat over his knee and tried to
remember where he had seen its like before ... a book! An illustration
in a book! But which book, when? Not recently, and it was not a pattern
known to his own people.
Twisted into the interior of the jacket was a silklike scarf, clear,
light blue--the blue of Terra's cloudless skies on certain days, so
different from the yellow shield now hanging above them. A small case of
leather, with silhouetted designs cut from hide and affixed to it,
designs as intricate and complex as the embroidery on the jacket--art of
a high standard. In the case a knife and spoon, the bowl and blade of
dull metal, the handles of horn carved with horse heads, the tiny
wide-open eyes set with glittering stones.
Personal possessions dear to the owner, so that when they must be
abandoned for flight they were hidden with some hope of recovery. Travis
slowly repacked them, trying to fold the garments into their original
creases. He was still puzzled by those designs.
"Who?" Tsoay touched the edge of the jacket with one finger, his
admiration for it plain to read.
"I don't know. But it is of our own world."
"That is a deer, though the horns are wrong," Tsoay agreed. "And the
puma is very well done. The one who made this knows animals well."
Travis pushed the jacket back into the bag and laced it shut. But he did
not return it to the hiding place. Instead, he made it a part of his own
pack. If they did not succeed in running down the fugitive, he wanted an
opportunity for closer study, a chance to remember just where he had
seen that picture before.
The narrow valley where they had discovered the bag sloped upward, and
there were signs that their quarry found the ground harder to cover. The
second discard lay in open sight--again a leather bag which Nalik'ideyu
sniffed and then began to lick eagerly, thrusting her nose into its
flaccid interior.
Travis picked it up, finding it damp to the touch. It had an odd smell,
like that of sour milk. He ran a finger around inside, brought it out
wet; yet this was neither water bag nor canteen. And he was completely
mystified when he turned it inside out, for though the inner surface was
wet, the bag was empty. He offered it to the coyote, and she took it
promptly.
Holding it firmly to the earth with her forepaws, she licked the
surface, though Travis could see no deposit which might attract her. It
was clear that the bag had once held some sort of food.
"Here they rested," Tsoay said. "Not too far ahead now--"
But now they were in the kind of country where a man could hide in order
to check on his back trail. Travis studied the terrain and then made his
own plans. They would leave the plainly marked trace of the fugitive,
strike out upslope to the east and try to parallel the other's route. In
that maze of rock outcrops and wood copses there was tricky going.
Nalik'ideyu gave a last lick to the bag as Travis signaled her. She
regarded him, then turned her head to survey the country before them. At
last she trotted on, her buff coat melting into the vegetation. With
Naginlta she would scout the quarry and keep watch, leaving the men to
take the longer way around.
Travis pulled off his shirt, folding it into a packet and tucking it
beneath the folds of his sash-belt, just as his ancestors had always
done before a fight. Then he cached his pack and Tsoay's. As they began
the stiff climb they carried only their bows, the quivers slung on their
shoulders, and the long-bladed knives. But they flitted like shadows
and, like the coyotes, their red-brown bodies became indistinguishable
against the bronze of the land.
They should be, Travis judged, not more than an hour away from sundown.
And they had to locate the stranger before the dark closed in. His
respect for their quarry had grown. The unknown might have been driven
by fear, but he held to a good pace and headed intelligently for just
the kind of country which would serve him best. If Travis could only
remember where he had seen the like of that embroidery! It had a
meaning which might be important now....
Tsoay slipped behind a wind-gnarled tree and disappeared. Travis stooped
under a line of bush limbs. Both were working their way south, using the
peak ahead as an agreed landmark, pausing at intervals to examine the
landscape for any hint of a man and horse.
Travis squirmed snake fashion into an opening between two rock pillars
and lay there, the westering sun hot on his bare shoulders and back, his
chin propped on his forearm. In the band holding back his hair he had
inserted some concealing tufts of wiry mountain grass, the ends of which
drooped over his rugged features.
Only seconds earlier he had caught that fragmentary warning from one of
the coyotes. What they sought was very close, it was right down there.
Both animals were in ambush, awaiting orders. And what they found was
familiar, another confirmation that the fugitive was Terran, not native
to Topaz.
With searching eyes, Travis examined the site indicated by the coyotes.
His respect for the stranger was raised another notch. In time either he
or Tsoay might have sighted that hideaway without the aid of the animal
scouts; on the other hand, they might have failed. For the fugitive had
truly gone to earth, using some pocket or crevice in the mountain wall.
There was no sign of the horse, but a branch here and there had been
pulled out of place, the scars of their removal readable when one knew
where to look. Odd, Travis began to puzzle over what he saw. It was
almost as if whatever pursuit the stranger feared would come not at
ground level but from above; the precautions the stranger had taken were
to veil his retreat to the reaches of the mountain side.
Had he expected any trailer to make a flanking move from up that slope
where the Apaches now lay? Travis' teeth nipped the weathered skin of
his forearm. Could it be that at some time during the day's journeying
the fugitive had doubled back, having seen his trackers? But there had
been no traces of any such scouting, and the coyotes would surely have
warned them. Human eyes and ears could be tricked, but Travis trusted
the senses of Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu far above his own.
No, he did not believe that the rider expected the Apaches. But the man
did expect someone or something which would come upon him from the
heights. The heights.... Travis rolled his head slightly to look at the
upper reaches of the hills about him--with suspicion.
In their own journey across the mountains and through the pass they had
found nothing threatening. Dangerous animals might roam there. There had
been some paw marks, one such trail the coyotes had warned against. But
the type of precautions the stranger had taken were against intelligent,
thinking beings, not against animals more likely to track by scent than
by sight.
And if the stranger expected an attack from above, then Travis and Tsoay
must be alert. Travis analyzed each feature of the hillside, setting in
his mind a picture of every inch of ground they must cross. Just as he
had wanted daylight as an ally before, so now was he willing to wait for
the shadows of twilight.
He closed his eyes in a final check, able to recall the details of the
hiding place, knowing that he could reach it when the conditions
favored, without mistake. Then he edged back from his vantage point, and
raising his fingers to his lips, made a small angry chittering, three
times repeated. One of the species inhabiting these heights, as they had
noted earlier, was a creature about as big as the palm of a man's hand,
resembling nothing so much as a round ball of ruffled feathers, though
its covering might actually have been a silky, fluffy fur. Its short
legs could cover ground at an amazing speed, and it had the bold
impudence of a creature with few natural enemies. This was its usual
cry.
Tsoay's hand waved Travis on to where the younger man had taken position
behind the bleached trunk of a fallen tree.
"He hides," Tsoay whispered.
"Against trouble from above." Travis added his own observation.
"But not us, I think."
So Tsoay had come to that conclusion too? Travis tried to gauge the
nearness of twilight. There was a period after the passing of Topaz' sun
when the dusky light played odd tricks with shadows. That would be the
first time for their move. He said as much, and Tsoay nodded eagerly.
They sat with their backs to a boulder, the tree trunk serving as a
screen, and chewed methodically on ration tablets. There was energy and
sustenance in the tasteless squares which would support men, even though
their stomachs continued to demand the satisfaction of fresh meat.
Taking turns, they dozed a little. But the last banners of Topaz' sun
were still in the sky when Travis judged the shadows cover enough. He
had no way of knowing how the stranger was armed. Though he used a horse
for transportation, he might well carry a rifle and the most modern
Terran sidearms.
The Apaches' bows were little use for infighting, but they had their
knives. However, Travis wanted to take the fugitive unharmed if he
could. There was information he must have. So he did not even draw his
knife as he started downhill.
When he reached a pool of violet dusk at the bottom of the small ravine
Naginlta's eyes regarded him knowingly. Travis signaled with his hand
and thought out what would be the coyotes' part in this surprise attack.
The prick-eared silhouette vanished. Uphill the chitter of a fluff-fur
sounded twice--Tsoay was in position.
A howl ... wailing ... sobbing ... was heard, one of the keening songs
of the _mba'a_. Travis darted forward. He heard the nicker of a
frightened horse, a clicking which could have marked the pawing of hoof
on gravel, saw the brush hiding the stranger's hole tremble, a portion
of it fall away.
Travis sped on, his moccasins making no sound on the ground. One of the
coyotes gave tongue for the second time, the eerie wailing rising to a
yapping which echoed from the rocks about them. Travis poised for a
dive.
Another section of those artfully heaped branches had given way and a
horse reared, its upflung head plainly marked against the sky. A blurred
figure weaved back and forth before it, trying to control the mount. The
stranger had his hands full, certainly no weapon drawn--this was it!
Travis leaped. His hands found their mark, the shoulders of the
stranger. There was a shrill cry from the other as he tried to turn in
the Apache's hold, to face his attacker. But Travis bore them both on,
rolling almost under the feet of the horse, sliding downhill, the
unknown's writhing body pinned down by the Apache's weight and his
clasp, tight as an iron grip, about the other's chest and upper arms.
He felt his opponent go limp, but was suspicious enough not to release
that hold, for the heavy breathing of the stranger was not that of an
unconscious man. They lay so, the unknown still tight in Travis' hold
but no longer fighting. The Apache could hear Tsoay soothing the horse
with the purring words of a practiced horseman.
Still the stranger did not resume the struggle. They could not lie in
this position all night, Travis thought with a wry twist of amusement.
He shifted his hold, and got the lightning-quick response he had
expected. But it was not quite quick enough, for Travis had the other's
hands behind his back, cupping slender, almost delicate wrists together.
"Throw me a cord!" he called to Tsoay.
The younger man ran up with an extra bow cord, and in a moment they had
bonds on the struggling captive. Travis rolled their catch over,
reaching down for a fistful of hair to pull the head into a patch of
clearer light.
In his grasp that hair came loose, a braid unwinding. He grunted as he
looked down into the stranger's face. Dust marks were streaked now with
tear runnels, but the gray eyes which turned fiercely on him said that
their owner cried more in rage than fear.
His captive might be wearing long trousers tucked into curved, toed
boots, and a loose overblouse, but she was certainly not only a woman,
but a very young and attractive one. Also, at the present moment, an
exceedingly angry one. And behind that anger was fear, the fear of one
fighting hopelessly against insurmountable odds. But as she eyed Travis
now her expression changed.
He felt she had expected another captor altogether and was astounded at
the sight of him. Her tongue touched her lips, moistening them, and now
the fear in her was another kind--the wary fear of one facing a totally
new and perhaps dangerous thing.
"Who are you?" Travis spoke in English, for he had no doubts that she
was Terran.
Now she sucked in her breath with a gasp of pure astonishment.
"Who are _you_?" she parroted his question in a marked accent. English
was not her native tongue, he was sure.
Travis reached out, and again his hands closed on her shoulders. She
started to twist and then realized he was merely pulling her up to a
sitting position. Some of the fear had left her eyes, an intent interest
taking its place.
"You are not Sons of the Blue Wolf," she stated in her heavily accented
speech.
Travis smiled. "I am the Fox, not the Wolf," he returned. "And the
Coyote is my brother." He snapped his fingers at the shadows, and the
two animals came noiselessly into sight. Her gaze widened even more at
Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu, and she deduced the bond which must exist
between her captor and the beasts.
"This woman is also of our world." Tsoay spoke in Apache, looking over
their prisoner with frank interest. "Only she is not of the People."
Sons of the Blue Wolf? Travis thought again of the embroidery designs on
the jacket. Who had called themselves by that picturesque
title--where--and when in time?
"What do you fear, Daughter of the Blue Wolf?" he asked.
And with that question he seemed to touch some button activating terror.
She flung back her head so that she could see the darkening sky.
"The flyer!" Her voice was muted as if more than a whisper would carry
to the stars just coming into brilliance above them. "They will come ...
tracking. I did not reach the inner mountains in time."
There was a despairing note in that which cut through to Travis, who
found that he, too, was searching the sky, not knowing what he looked
for or what kind of menace it promised, only that it was real danger.
6
"The night comes," Tsoay spoke slowly in English. "Do these you fear
hunt in the dark?"
She shook her head to free her forehead from a coil of braid, pulled
loose in her struggle with Travis.
"They do not need eyes or such noses as those four-footed hunters of
yours. They have a machine to track--"
"Then what purpose is this brush pile of yours?" Travis raised his chin
at the disturbed hiding place.
"They do not constantly use the machine, and one can hope. But at night
they can ride on its beam. We are not far enough into the hills to lose
them. Bahatur went lame, and so I was slowed...."
"And what lies in these mountains that those you fear dare not invade
them?" Travis continued.
"I do not know, save if one can climb far enough inside, one is safe
from pursuit."
"I ask it again: Who are you?" The Apache leaned forward, his face in
the fast-fading light now only inches away from hers. She did not shrink
from his close scrutiny but met him eye to eye. This was a woman of
proud independence, truly a chief's daughter, Travis decided.
"I am of the People of the Blue Wolf. We were brought across the star
lanes to make this world safe for ... for ... the...." She hesitated,
and now there was a shade of puzzlement on her face. "There is a
reason--a dream. No, there is the dream and there is reality. I am
Kaydessa of the Golden Horde, but sometimes I remember other
things--like this speech of strange words I am mouthing now----"
"The Golden Horde!" Travis knew now. The embroidery, Sons of the Blue
Wolf, all fitted into a special pattern. But what a pattern! Scythian
art, the ornament that the warriors of Genghis Khan bore so proudly.
Tatars, Mongols--the barbarians who had swept from the fastness of the
steppes to change the course of history, not only in Asia but across the
plains of middle Europe. The men of the Emperor Khans who had ridden
behind the yak-tailed standards of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan,
Tamerlane--!
"The Golden Horde," Travis repeated once again. "That lies far back in
the history of another world, Wolf Daughter."
She stared at him, a queer, lost expression on her dust-grimed face.
"I know." Her voice was so muted he could hardly distinguish the words.
"My people live in two times, and many do not realize that."
Tsoay had crouched down beside them to listen. Now he put out his hand,
touching Travis' shoulder.
"Redax?"
"Or its like." For Travis was sure of one point. The project, which had
been training three teams for space colonization--one of Eskimos, one of
Pacific Islanders, and one of his own Apaches--had no reason or chance
to select Mongols from the wild past of the raiding Hordes. There was
only one nation on Terra which could have picked such colonists.
"You are Russian." He studied her carefully, intent on noting the effect
of his words.
But she did not lose that lost look. "Russian ... Russian ..." she
repeated, as if the very word was strange.
Travis was alarmed. Any Russian colony planted here could well possess
technicians with machines capable of tracking a fugitive, and if
mountain heights were protection against such a hunt, he intended to
gain them, even by night traveling. He said this to Tsoay, and the other
emphatically agreed.
"The horse is too lame to go on," the younger man reported.
Travis hesitated for a long second. Since the time they had stolen their
first mounts from the encroaching Spanish, horses had always been wealth
to his people. To leave an animal which could well serve the clan was
not right. But they dared not waste time with a lame beast.
"Leave it here, free," he ordered.
"And the woman?"
"She goes with us. We must learn all we can of these people and what
they do here. Listen, Wolf Daughter," again Travis leaned close to make
sure she was listening to him as he spoke with emphasis--"you will
travel with us into these high places, and there will be no trouble from
you." He drew his knife and held the blade warningly before her eyes.
"It was already in my mind to go to the mountains," she told him evenly.
"Untie my hands, brave warrior, you have surely nothing to fear from a
woman."
His hand made a swift sweep and plucked a knife as long and keen as his
from the folds of the sash beneath her loose outer garment.
"Not now, Wolf Daughter, since I have drawn your fangs."
He helped her to her feet and slashed the cord about her wrists with her
knife, which he then fastened to his own belt. Alerting the coyotes, he
dispatched them ahead; and the three started on, the Mongol girl between
the two Apaches. The abandoned horse nickered lonesomely and then began
to graze on tufts of grass, moving slowly to favor his foot.
The two moons rode the sky as the hours advanced, their beams fighting
the shadows. Travis felt reasonably safe from any attack at ground
level, depending upon the coyotes for warning. But he held them all to a
steady pace. And he did not question the girl again until all three of
them hunkered down at a small mountain spring, to dash icy water over
their faces and drink from cupped hands.
"Why do you flee your own people, Wolf Daughter?"
"My name is Kaydessa," she corrected him.
He chuckled with laughter at the prim tone of her voice. "And you see
here Tsoay of the People--the Apaches--while I am Fox." He was giving
her the English equivalent of his tribal name.
"Apaches." She tried to repeat the word with the same accent he had
used. "And what are Apaches?"
"Indians--Amerindians," he explained. "But you have not answered my
question, Kaydessa. Why do you run from your own people?"
"Not from my people," she said, shaking her head determinedly. "From
those others. It is like this--Oh, how can I make you understand
rightly?" She spread her wet hands out before her in the moonlight, the
damp patches on her sleeves clinging to her arms. "There are my people
of the Golden Horde, though once we were different and we can remember
bits of that previous life. Then there are also the men who live in the
sky ship and use the machine so that we think only the thoughts they
would have us think. Now why," she looked at Travis intently--"do I wish
to tell you all this? It is strange. You say you are
Indian--American--are we then enemies? There is a part memory which says
that we are ... were...."
"Let us rather say," he corrected her, "that the Apaches and the Horde
are not enemies here and now, no matter what was before." That was the
truth, Travis recognized. By all accounts his people had come out of
Asia in the very dim beginnings of migrating peoples. For all her
dark-red hair and gray eyes, this girl who had been arbitrarily returned
to a past just as they had been by Redax, could well be a distant
clan-cousin.
"You--" Kaydessa's fingers rested for a moment on his wrist--"you, too,
were sent here from across the stars. Is this not so?"
"It is so."
"And there are those here who govern you now?"
"No. We are free."
"How did you become free?" she demanded fiercely.
Travis hesitated. He did not want to tell of the wrecked ship, the fact
that his people possessed no real defenses against the
Russian-controlled colony.
"We went to the mountains," he replied evasively.
"Your governing machine failed?" Kaydessa laughed. "Ah, they are so
great, those men of the machines. But they are smaller and weaker when
their machines cannot obey them."
"It is so with your camp?" Travis probed gently. He was not quite sure
of her meaning, but he dared not ask more detailed questions without
dangerously revealing his own ignorance.
"In some manner their control machine--it can only work upon those
within a certain distance. They discovered that in the days of the first
landing, when hunters went out freely and many of them did not return.
After that when hunters were sent out to learn how lay this land, they
went along in the flyer with a machine so that there would be no more
escapes. But we knew!" Kaydessa's fingers curled into small fists. "Yes,
we knew that if we could get beyond the machines, there was freedom for
us. And we planned--many of us--planned. Then nine or ten sleeps ago
those others were very excited. They gathered in their ship, watching
their machines. And something happened. For a while all those machines
went dead.
"Jagatai, Kuchar, my brother Hulagur, Menlik...." She was counting the
names off on her fingers. "They raided the horse herd, rode out...."
"And you?"
"I, too, should have ridden. But there was Aljar, my sister--Kuchar's
wife. She was very near her time and to ride thus, fleeing and fast,
might kill her and the child. So I did not go. Her son was born that
night, but the others had the machine at work once more. We might long
to go here," she brought her fist up to her breast, and then raised it
to her head--"but there was that _here_ which kept us to the camp and
their will. We only knew that if we could reach the mountains, we might
find our people who had already gained their freedom."
"But you are here. How did you escape?" Tsoay wanted to know.
"They knew that I would have gone had it not been for Aljar. So they
said they would make her ride out with them unless I played guide to
lead them to my brother and the others. Then I knew I must take up the
sword of duty and hunt with them. But I prayed that the spirits of the
upper air look with favor upon me, and they granted aid...." Her eyes
held a look of wonder. "For when we were out on the plains and well away
from the settlement, a grass devil attacked the leader of the searching
party, and he dropped the mind control and so it was broken. Then I
rode. Blue Sky Above knows how I rode. And those others are not with
their horses as are the people of the Wolf."
"When did this happen?"
"Three suns ago."
Travis counted back in his mind. Her date for the failure of the machine
in the Russian camp seemed to coincide with the crash landing of the
American ship. Had one thing any connection with the other? It was very
possible. The planeting spacer might have fought some kind of weird duel
with the other colony before it plunged to earth on the other side of
the mountain range.
"Do you know where in these mountains your people hide?"
Kaydessa shook her head. "Only that I must head south, and when I reach
the highest peak make a signal fire on the north slope. But that I
cannot do now, for those in the flyer may see it. I know they are on my
trail, for twice I have seen it. Listen, Fox, I ask this of you--I,
Kaydessa, who am eldest daughter to the Khan--for you are like unto us,
a warrior and a brave man, that I believe. It may be that you cannot be
governed by their machine, for you have not rested under their spell,
nor are of our blood. Therefore, if they come close enough to send forth
the call, the call I must obey as if I were a slave dragged upon a horse
rope, then do you bind my hands and feet and hold me here, no matter how
much I struggle to follow that command. For that which is truly me does
not want to go. Will you swear this by the fires which expel demons?"
The utter sincerity of her tone convinced Travis that she was pleading
for aid against a danger she firmly believed in. Whether she was right
about his immunity to the Russian mental control was another matter, and
one he would rather not put to the test.
"We do not swear by your fires, Blue Wolf Maiden, but by the Path of the
Lightning." His fingers moved as if to curl about the sacred charred
wood his people had once carried as "medicine." "So do I promise!"
She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded in satisfaction.
They left the pool and pushed on toward the mountain slopes, working
their way back to the pass. A low growl out of the dark brought them to
an instant halt. Naginlta's warning was sharp; there was danger ahead,
acute danger.
The moonlight from the moons made a weird pattern of light and dark on
the stretch ahead. Anything from a slinking four-footed hunter to a war
party of intelligent beings might have been lying in wait there.
A flitting shadow out of shadows. Nalik'ideyu pressed against Travis'
legs, making a barrier of her warm body, attracting his attention to a
spot at the left perhaps a hundred yards on. There was a great splotch
of dark there, large enough to hide a really formidable opponent; that
wordless communication between animal and man told Travis that such an
opponent was just what was lurking there.
Whatever lay in ambush beside the upper track was growing impatient as
its destined prey ceased to advance, the coyotes reported.
"Your left--beyond that pointed rock--in the big shadow--"
"Do you see it?" Tsoay demanded.
"No. But the _mba'a_ do."
The men had their bows ready, arrows set to the cords. But in this light
such weapons were practically useless unless the enemy moved into the
path of the moon.
"What is it?" Kaydessa asked in a half whisper.
"Something waits for us ahead."
Before he could stop her, she set her fingers to her lips and gave a
piercing whistle.
There was answering movement in the shadow. Travis shot at that, his
arrow followed instantly by one from Tsoay. There was a cry, scaling up
in a throat-scalding scream which made Travis flinch. Not because of
the sound, but because of the hint which lay behind it--could it have
been a human cry?
The thing flopped out into a patch of moonlight. It was four-limbed, its
body silvery--and it was large. But the worst was that it had been
groveling on all fours when it fell, and now it was rising on its hind
feet, one forepaw striking madly at the two arrows dancing head-deep in
its upper shoulder. Man? No! But something sufficiently manlike to chill
the three downtrail.
A whirling four-footed hunter dashed in, snapped at the creature's legs,
and it squalled again, aiming a blow with a forepaw; but the attacking
coyote was already gone. Together Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu were
harassing the creature, just as they had fought the split horn, giving
the hunters time to shoot. Travis, although he again felt that touch of
horror and disgust he could not account for, shot again.
Between them the Apaches must have sent a dozen arrows into the raving
beast before it went to its knees and Naginlta sprang for its throat.
Even then the coyote yelped and flinched, a bleeding gash across its
head from the raking talons of the dying thing. When it no longer moved,
Travis approached to see more closely what they had brought down. That
smell....
Just as the embroidery on Kaydessa's jacket had awakened memories from
his Terran past, so did this stench remind him of something.
Where--when--had he smelled it before? Travis connected it with dark,
dark and danger. Then he gasped in a half exclamation.
Not on this world, no, but on two others: two worlds of that broken
stellar empire where he had been an involuntary explorer two planet
years ago! The beast things which had lived in the dark of the desert
world the Terrans' wandering galactic derelict had landed upon. Yes, the
beast things whose nature they had never been able to deduce. Were they
the degenerate dregs of a once intelligent species? Or were they
animals, akin to man, but still animals?
The ape-things had controlled the night of the desert world. And they
had been met again--also in the dark--in the ruins of the city which had
been the final goal of the ship's taped voyage. So they were a part of
the vanished civilization. And Travis' own vague surmise concerning
Topaz was proven correct. This had not been an empty world for the
long-gone space people. This planet had a purpose and a use, or else
this beast would not have been here.
"Devil!" Kaydessa made a face of disgust.
"You know it?" Tsoay asked Travis. "What is it?"
"That I do not know, but it is a thing left over from the star people's
time. And I have seen it on two other of their worlds."
"A man?" Tsoay surveyed the body critically. "It wears no clothes, has
no weapons, but it walks erect. It looks like an ape, a very big ape. It
is not a good thing, I think."
"If it runs with a pack--as they do elsewhere--this could be a very bad
thing." Travis, remembering how these creatures had attacked in force on
the other worlds, looked about him apprehensively. Even with the coyotes
on guard, they could not stand up to such a pack closing in through the
dark. They had better hole up in some defendable place and wait out the
rest of the night.
Naginlta brought them to a cliff overhang where they could set their
backs to the hard rock of the mountain, face outward to a space they
could cover with arrow flight if the need arose. And the coyotes, lying
before them with their noses resting on paws, would, Travis knew, alert
them long before the enemy could close in.
They huddled against the rock, Kaydessa between them, alert at first to
every sound of the night, their hearts beating faster at a small scrape
of gravel, the rustle of a bush. Slowly, they began to relax.
"It is well that two sleep while one guards," Travis observed. "By
morning we must push on, out of this country."
So the two Apaches shared the watch in turn, the Tatar girl at first
protesting, and then falling exhausted into a slumber which left her
breathing heavily.
Travis, on the dawn watch, began to speculate about the ape-thing they
had killed. The two previous times he had met this creature it had been
in ruins of the old empire. Were there ruins somewhere here? He wanted
to make sure about that. On the other hand, there was the problem of the
Tatar-Mongol settlement controlled by the Reds. There was no doubt in
his mind that, were the Reds to suspect the existence of the Apache
camp, they would make every attempt to hunt down and kill or capture the
survivors from the American ship. A warning must be carried to the
rancheria as quickly as they could make the return trip.
Beside him the girl stirred, raising her head. Travis glanced at her and
then watched with attention. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes as
fixed as if she were in a trance. Now she inched forward from the
mountain wall, wriggling out of its shelter.
"What--?" Tsoay had awakened again. But Travis was already moving. He
pushed on, rushing up to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder.
"What is it? Where do you go?" he asked.
She made no answer, did not even seem aware of his voice. He caught at
her arm and she pulled to free herself. When he tightened his grip she
did not fight him actively as during their first encounter, but merely
pulled and twisted as if she were being compelled to go ahead.
Compulsion! He remembered her plea the night before, asking his help
against recapture by the machine. Now he deliberately tripped her,
twisted her hands behind her back. She swayed in his hold, trying to win
to her feet, paying no attention to him save as a hindrance against her
answering that demanding call he could not hear.
7
"What happened?" Tsoay took a swift stride, stood over the writhing girl
whose strength was now such that Travis had to exert all his efforts to
control her.
"I think that the machine she spoke about is holding her. She is being
drawn to it out of hiding as one draws a calf on a rope."
Both coyotes had arisen and were watching the struggle with interest,
but there was no warning from them. Whatever called Kaydessa into such
mindless and will-less answer did not touch the animals. And neither
Apache felt it. So perhaps only Kaydessa's people were subject to it, as
she had thought. How far away was that machine? Not too near, for
otherwise the coyotes would have traced the man or men operating it.
"We cannot move her," Tsoay brought the problem into the open--"unless
we bind and carry her. She is one of their kind. Why not let her go to
them, unless you fear she will talk." His hand went to the knife in his
belt, and Travis knew what primitive impulse moved in the younger man.
In the old days a captive who was likely to give trouble was
efficiently eliminated. In Tsoay that memory was awake now. Travis shook
his head.
"She has said that others of her kin are in these hills. We must not set
two wolf packs hunting us," Travis said, giving the more practical
reason which might better appeal to that savage instinct for
self-preservation. "But you are right, since she has tried to answer
this summons, we cannot force her with us. Therefore, do you take the
back trail. Tell Buck what we have discovered and have him make the
necessary precautions against either these Mongol outlaws or a Red
thrust over the mountains."
"And you?"
"I stay to discover where the outlaws hide and learn all I can of this
settlement. We may have reason to need friends----"
"Friends!" Tsoay spat. "The People need no friends! If we have warning,
we can hold our own country! As the Pinda-lick-o-yi have discovered
before."
"Bows and arrows against guns and machines?" Travis inquired bitingly.
"We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future.
Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before,"
Travis calculated--"ten suns. If I do not, send no search party; the
clan is too small to risk more lives for one."
"And if these Reds take you--?"
Travis grinned, not pleasantly. "They shall learn nothing! Can their
machines sort out the thoughts of a dead man?" He did not intend his
future to end as abruptly as that, but also he would not be easy meat
for any Red hunting party.
Tsoay took a share of their rations and refused the company of the
coyotes. Travis realized that for all his seeming ease with the animals,
the younger scout had little more liking for them than Deklay and the
others back at the rancheria. Tsoay went at dawn, aiming at the pass.
Travis sat down beside Kaydessa. They had bound her to a small tree, and
she strove incessantly to free herself, turning her head at an acute and
painful angle, only to face the same direction in which she had been
tied. There was no breaking the spell which held her. And she would soon
wear herself out with that struggling. Then he struck an expert blow.
The girl sagged limply, and he untied her. It all depended now on the
range of the beam or broadcast of that diabolical machine. From the
attitude of the coyotes, he assumed that those using the machine had not
made any attempt to come close. They might not even know where their
quarry was; they would simply sit and wait in the foothills for the
caller to reel in a helpless captive.
Travis thought that if he moved Kaydessa farther away from that point,
sooner or later they would be out of range and she would awake from the
knockout, free again. Although she was not light, he could manage to
carry her for a while. So burdened, Travis started on, with the coyotes
scouting ahead.
He speedily discovered that he had set himself an ambitious task. The
going was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to a
snail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to make careful plans.
As long as the Reds held the balance of power on this side of the
mountain range, the rancheria was in danger. Bows and knives against
modern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter of
time before exploration on the part of the northern settlement--or some
tracking down of Tatar fugitives--would bring the enemy across the pass.
The Apaches could move farther south into the unknown continent below
the wrecked ship, thus prolonging the time before they were discovered.
But that would only postpone the inevitable showdown. Whether Travis
could make his clan believe that, was also a matter of concern.
On the other hand, if the Red overlords could be met in some practical
way.... Travis' mind fastened on that more attractive idea, worrying it
as Naginlta worried a prey, tearing out and devouring the more delicate
portions. Every bit of sense and prudence argued against such an
approach, whose success could rest only between improbability and
impossibility; yet that was the direction in which he longed to move.
Across his shoulder Kaydessa stirred and moaned. The Apache doubled his
efforts to reach the outcrop of rock he could see ahead, chiseled into
high relief by the winds. In its lee they would have protection from any
sighting from below. Panting, he made it, lowering the girl into the
guarded cup of space, and waited.
She moaned again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open,
and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and her
surroundings intelligently or not.
"Kaydessa!"
Her heavy eyelids lifted, and he had no doubt she could see him. But
there was no recognition of his identity in her gaze, only surprise and
fear--the same expression she had worn during their first meeting in the
foothills.
"Daughter of the Wolf," he spoke slowly. "Remember!" Travis made that an
order, an emphatic appeal to the mind under the influence of the caller.
She frowned, the struggle she was making naked on her face. Then she
answered:
"You--Fox--"
Travis grunted with relief, his alarm subsiding. Then she _could_
remember.
"Yes," he responded eagerly.