"I brought you." Swiftly he outlined what had happened at their night
camp.
The hand which had been at her head was now pressed tight across her
lips as if she were biting furiously into its flesh to still some panic
of her own, and her gray eyes were round and haunted.
"You are free now," Travis said.
Kaydessa nodded, and then dropped her hand to speak. "You brought me
away from the hunters. You did not have to obey them?"
"I heard nothing."
"You do not hear--you feel!" She shuddered. "Please." She clawed at the
stone beside her, pulling up to her feet. "Let us go--let us go quickly!
They will try again--move farther in--"
"Listen," Travis had to be sure of one thing--"have they any way of
knowing that they had you under control and that you have again
escaped?"
Kaydessa shook her head, some of the panic again shadowing her eyes.
"Then we'll just go on--" his chin lifted to the wastelands before
them--"try to keep out of their reach."
And away from the pass to the south, he told himself silently. He dared
not lead the enemy to that secret, so he must travel west or hole up
somewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessa
was no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyond
its beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin,
just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things.
Before dark they must discover a protected camp site.
They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration tablets. But
the coyotes could locate water.
"Come!" Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of him
so that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once again
to the influence of the enemy. But his burdened early morning flight had
told on Travis more than he thought, and he discovered he could not spur
himself on to a pace better than a walk. Now and again one of the
coyotes, usually Nalik'ideyu, would come into view, express impatience
in both stance and mental signal, and then be gone again. The Apache was
increasingly aware that the animals were disturbed, yet to his tentative
gropings at contact they did not reply. Since they gave no warning of
hostile animal or man, he could only be on constant guard, watching the
countryside about him.
They had been following a ledge for several minutes before Travis was
aware of some strange features of that path. Perhaps he had actually
noted them with a trained eye before his archaeological studies of the
recent past gave him a reason for the faint marks. This crack in the
mountain's skin might have begun as a natural fault, but afterward it
had been worked with tools, smoothed, widened to serve the purpose of
some form of intelligence!
Travis caught at Kaydessa's shoulder to slow her pace. He could not have
told why he did not want to speak aloud here, but he felt the need for
silence. She glanced around, perplexed, more so when he went down on his
knees and ran his fingers along one of those ancient tool marks. He was
certain it was very old. Inside of him anticipation bubbled. A road made
with such labor could only lead to something of importance. He was going
to make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into these
mountains.
"What is it?" Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge.
"This was cut by someone, a long time ago," Travis half whispered and
then wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers could
hear him when perhaps a thousand years or more lay between the chipping
of that stone and this day.
The Tatar girl looked over her shoulder. Perhaps she too was troubled by
the sense that here time was subtly telescoped, that past and present
might be meeting. Or was that feeling with them both because of their
enforced conditioning?
"Who?" Now her voice sank in turn.
"Listen--" he regarded her intently--"did your people or the Reds ever
find any traces of the old civilization here--ruins?"
"No." She leaned forward, tracing with her own finger the same
almost-obliterated marks which had intrigued Travis. "But I think they
have looked. Before they discovered that we could be free, they sent out
parties--to hunt, they said--but afterward they always asked many
questions about the country. Only they never asked about ruins. Is that
what they wished us to find? But why? Of what value are old stones piled
on one another?"
"In themselves, little, save for the knowledge they may give us of the
people who piled them. But for what the stones might contain--much
value!"
"And how do you know what they might contain, Fox?"
"Because I have seen such treasure houses of the star men," he returned
absently. To him the marks on the ledge were a pledge of greater
discoveries to come. He must find where that carefully constructed road
ran--to what it led. "Let us see where this will take us."
But first he gave the chittering signal in four sharp bursts. And the
tawny-gray bodies came out of the tangled brush, bounding up to the
ledge. Together the coyotes faced him, their attention all for his
halting communication.
Ruins might lie ahead; he hoped that they did. But on another planet
such ruins had twice proved to be deadly traps, and only good fortune
had prevented their closing on Terran explorers. If the ape-things or
any other dangerous form of life had taken up residence before them, he
wanted good warning.
Together the coyotes turned and loped along the now level way of the
ledge, disappearing around a curve fitted to the mountain side while
Travis and Kaydessa followed.
They heard it before they saw its source--a waterfall. Probably not a
large one, but high. Rounding the curve, they came into a fine mist of
spray where sunlight made rainbows of color across a filmy veil of
water.
For a long moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry,
held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lips
again to suck the gathered moisture.
Water slicked the surface of the ledge, and Travis pushed her back
against the wall of the cliff. As far as he could discern, their road
continued behind the out-flung curtain of water, and footing on the wet
stone was treacherous. With their backs to the solid security of the
wall, facing outward into the solid drape of water, they edged behind it
and came out into rainbowed sunlight again.
Here either provident nature or ancient art had hollowed a pocket in the
stone which was filled with water. They drank. Then Travis filled his
canteen while Kaydessa washed her face, holding the cold freshness of
the moisture to her cheeks with both palms.
She spoke, but he could not hear her through the roar. She leaned closer
and raised her voice to a half shout:
"This is a place of spirits! Do you not also feel their power, Fox?"
Perhaps for a space out of time he did feel something. This was a
watering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place--and to his
desert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be taken
for granted. The rainbow--the Spirit People's sacred sign--old beliefs
stirred in Travis, moving him. "I feel," he said, nodding in emphasis to
his agreement.
They followed the ledge road to a section where a landslide of an
earlier season had choked it. Travis worked a careful way across the
debris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn. Then they were on a
sloping downward way which led to a staircase--the treads weather-worn
and crumbling, the angle so steep Travis wondered if it had ever been
intended for beings with a physique approximating the Terrans'.
They came to a cleft where an arch of stone was chiseled out as a
roofing. Travis thought he could make out a trace of carving on the
capstone, so worn by years and weather that it was now only a faint
shadow of design.
The cleft was a door into another valley. Here, too, golden mist swirled
in tendrils to disguise and cloak what stood there. Travis had found his
ruins. Only the structures were intact, not breached by time.
Mist flowed in lapping tongues back and forth, confusing outlines, now
shuttering, now baring oval windows which were spaced in diamonds of
four on round tower surfaces. There were no visible cracks, no cloaking
of climbing vegetation, nothing to suggest age and long roots in the
valley. Nor did the architecture he could view match any he had seen on
those other worlds.
Travis strode away from the cleft doorway. Under his moccasins was a
block pavement, yellow and green stone set in a simple pattern of
checks. This, too, was level, unchipped and undisturbed, save for a
drift or two of soil driven in by the wind. And nowhere could he see any
vegetation.
The towers were of the same green stone as half the pavement blocks, a
glassy green which made him think of jade--if jade could be mined in
such quantities as these five-story towers demanded.
Nalik'ideyu padded to him, and he could hear the faint click of her
claws on the pavement. There was a deep silence in this place, as if the
air itself swallowed and digested all sound. The wind which had been
with them all the day of their journeying was left beyond the cleft.
Yet there was life here. The coyote told him that in her own way. She
had not made up her mind concerning that life--wariness and curiosity
warred in her now as her pointed muzzle lifted toward the windows
overhead.
The windows were all well above ground level, but there was no opening
in the first stories as far as Travis could see. He debated moving into
the range of those windows to investigate the far side of the towers for
doorways. The mist and the message from Nalik'ideyu nourished his
suspicions. Out in the open he would be too good a target for whatever
or whoever might be standing within the deep-welled frames.
The silence was shattered by a boom. Travis jumped, slewed half around,
knife in hand.
Boom-boom ... a second heavy beat-beat ... then a clangor with a
swelling echo.
Kaydessa flung back her head and called, her voice rising up as if
tunneled by the valley walls. She then whistled as she had done when
they fronted the ape-thing and ran on to catch at Travis' sleeve, her
face eager.
"My people! Come--it is my people!"
She tugged him on before breaking into a run, weaving fearlessly around
the base of one of the towers. Travis ran after her, afraid he might
lose her in the mist.
Three towers, another stretch of open pavement, and then the mist lifted
to show them a second carved doorway not two hundred yards ahead. The
boom-boom seemed to pull Kaydessa, and Travis could do nothing but trail
her, the coyotes now trotting beside him.
8
They burst through a last wide band of mist into a wilderness of tall
grass and shrubs. Travis heard the coyotes give tongue, but it was too
late. Out of nowhere whirled a leather loop, settling about his chest,
snapping his arms tight to his body, taking him off his feet with a jerk
to be dragged helplessly along the ground behind a galloping horse.
A tawny fury sprang in the air to snap at the horse's head. Travis
kicked fruitlessly, trying to regain his feet as the horse reared, and
fought against the control of his shouting rider. All through the melee
the Apache heard Kaydessa shrilly screaming words he did not understand.
Travis was on his knees, coughing in the dust, exerting the muscles in
his chest and shoulders to loosen the lariat. On either side of him the
coyotes wove a snarling pattern of defiance, dashing back and forth to
present no target for the enemy, yet keeping the excited horses so
stirred up that their riders could use neither ropes nor blades.
Then Kaydessa ran between two of the ringing horses to Travis and jerked
at the loop about him. The tough, braided leather eased its hold, and he
was able to gasp in full lungfuls of air. She was still shouting, but
the tone had changed from one of recognition to a definite scolding.
Travis won to his feet just as the rider who had lassoed him finally got
his horse under rein and dismounted. Holding the rope, the man walked
hand over hand toward them, as Travis back on the Arizona range would
have approached a nervous, unschooled pony.
The Mongol was an inch or so shorter than the Apache, and his face was
young, though he had a drooping mustache bracketing his mouth with
slender spear points of black hair. His breeches were tucked into high
red boots, and he wore a loose felt jacket patterned with the same
elaborate embroidery Travis had seen on Kaydessa's. On his head was a
hat with a wide fur border--in spite of the heat--and that too bore
touches of scarlet and gold design.
Still holding his lariat, the Mongol reached Kaydessa and stood for a
moment, eying her up and down before he asked a question. She gave an
impatient twitch to the rope. The coyotes snarled, but the Apache
thought the animals no longer considered the danger immediate.
"This is my brother Hulagur." Kaydessa made the introduction over her
shoulder. "He does not have your speech."
Hulagur not only did not understand, he was also impatient. He jerked at
the rope with such sudden force that Travis was almost thrown. Then
Kaydessa dragged as fiercely on the lariat in the other direction and
burst into a soaring harangue which drew the rest of the men closer.
Travis flexed his upper arms, and the slack gained by Kaydessa's action
made the lariat give again. He studied the Tatar outlaws. There were
five of them beside Hulagur, lean men, hard-faced, narrow-eyed, the
ragged clothing of three pieced out with scraps of hide. Besides the
swords with the curved blades, they were armed with bows, two to each
man, one long, one shorter. One of the riders carried a lance, long
tassels of woolly hair streaming from below its head. Travis saw in them
a formidable array of barbaric fighting men, but he thought that man for
man the Apaches could not only take on the Mongols with confidence, but
might well defeat them.
The Apache had never been a hot-headed, ride-for-glory fighter like the
Cheyenne, the Sioux, and the Comanche of the open plains. He estimated
the odds against him, used ambush, trick, and every feature of the
countryside as weapon and defense. Fifteen Apache fighting men under
Chief Geronimo had kept five thousand American and Mexican troops in the
field for a year and had come off victorious for the moment.
Travis knew the tales of Genghis Khan and his formidable generals who
swept over Asia into Europe, unbeaten and seemingly undefeatable. But
they had been a wild wave, fed by a reservoir of manpower from the
steppes of their homeland, utilizing driven walls of captives to protect
their own men in city assaults and attacks. He doubted if even that
endless sea of men could have won the Arizona desert defended by Apaches
under Cochise, Victorio, or Magnus Colorado. The white man had done
it--by superior arms and attrition; but bow against bow, knife against
sword, craft and cunning against craft and cunning--he did not think
so....
Hulagur dropped the end of the lariat, and Kaydessa swung around,
loosening the loop so that the rope fell to Travis' feet. The Apache
stepped free of it, turned and passed between two of the horsemen to
gather up the bow he had dropped. The coyotes had gone with him and when
he turned again to face the company of Tatars, both animals crowded past
him to the entrance of the valley, plainly urging him to retire there.
The horsemen had faced about also, and the warrior with the lance
balanced the shaft of the weapon in his hand as if considering the
possibility of trying to spear Travis. But just then Kaydessa came up,
towing Hulagur by a firm hold on his sash-belt.
"I have told this one," she reported to Travis, "how it is between us
and that you also are enemy to those who hunt us. It is well that you
sit together beside a fire and talk of these things."
Again that boom-boom broke her speech, coming from farther out in the
open land.
"You will do this?" She made of it a half question, half statement.
Travis glanced about him. He could dodge back into the misty valley of
the towers before the Tatars could ride him down. However, if he could
patch up some kind of truce between his people and the outlaws, the
Apaches would have only the Reds from the settlement to watch. Too many
times in Terran past had war on two fronts been disastrous.
"I come--carrying this--and not pulled by your ropes." He held up his
bow in an exaggerated gesture so that Hulagur could understand.
Coiling the lariat, the Mongol looked from the Apache bow to Travis.
Slowly, and with obvious reluctance, he nodded agreement.
At Hulagur's call the lancer rode up to the waiting Apache, stretched
out a booted foot in the heavy stirrup, and held down a hand to bring
Travis up behind him riding double. Kaydessa mounted in the same fashion
behind her brother.
Travis looked at the coyotes. Together the animals stood in the door to
the tower valley, and neither made any move to follow as the horses
trotted off. He beckoned with his hand and called to them.
Heads up, they continued to watch him go in company with the Mongols.
Then without any reply to his coaxing, they melted back into the mists.
For a moment Travis was tempted to slide down and run the risk of taking
a lance point between the shoulders as he followed Naginlta and
Nalik'ideyu into retreat. He was startled, jarred by the new awareness
of how much he had come to depend on the animals. Ordinarily, Travis Fox
was not one to be governed by the wishes of a _mba'a_, intelligent and
un-animallike as it might be. This was an affair of men, and coyotes had
no part in it!
Half an hour later Travis sat in the outlaw camp. There were fifteen
Mongols in sight, a half dozen women and two children adding to the
count. On a hillock near their yurts, the round brush-and-hide
shelters--not too different from the wickiups of Travis' own people--was
a crude drum, a hide stretched taut over a hollowed section of log. And
next to that stood a man wearing a tall pointed cap, a red robe, and a
girdle from which swung a fringe of small bones, tiny animal skulls, and
polished bits of stone and carved wood.
It was this man's efforts which sent the boom-boom sounding at intervals
over the landscape. Was this a signal--part of a ritual? Travis was not
certain, though he guessed that the drummer was either medicine man or
shaman, and so of some power in this company. Such men were credited
with the ability to prophesy and also endowed with mediumship between
man and spirit in the old days of the great Hordes.
The Apache evaluated the rest of the company. As was true of his own
party, these men were much the same age--young and vigorous. And it was
also apparent that Hulagur held a position of some importance among
them--if he were not their chief.
After a last resounding roll on the drum, the shaman thrust the sticks
into his girdle and came down to the fire at the center of the camp. He
was taller than his fellows, pole thin under his robes, his face narrow,
clean-shaven, with brows arched by nature to give him an unchanging
expression of scepticism. He strode along, his tinkling collection of
charms providing him with a not unmusical accompaniment, and came to
stand directly before Travis, eying him carefully.
Travis copied his silence in what was close to a duel of wills. There
was that in the shaman's narrowed green eyes which suggested that if
Hulagur did in fact lead these fighting men, he had an advisor of
determination and intelligence behind him.
"This is Menlik." Kaydessa did not push past the men to the fireside,
but her voice carried.
Hulagur growled at his sister, but his admonition made no impression on
her, and she replied in as hot a tone. The shaman's hand went up,
silencing both of them.
"You are--who?" Like Kaydessa, Menlik spoke a heavily accented English.
"I am Travis Fox, of the Apaches."
"The Apaches," the shaman repeated. "You are of the West, the American
West, then."
"You know much, man of spirit talk."
"One remembers. At times one remembers," Menlik answered almost
absently. "How does an Apache find his way across the stars?"
"The same way Menlik and his people did," Travis returned. "You were
sent to settle this planet, and so were we."
"There are many more of you?" countered Menlik swiftly.
"Are there not many of the Horde? Would one man, or three, or four, be
sent to hold a world?" Travis fenced. "You hold the north, we the south
of this land."
"But _they_ are not governed by a machine!" Kaydessa cut in. "They are
free!"
Menlik frowned at the girl. "Woman, this is a matter for warriors. Keep
your tongue silent between your jaws!"
She stamped one foot, standing with her fists on her hips.
"I am a Daughter of the Blue Wolf. And we are all warriors--men and
women alike--so shall we be as long as the Horde is not free to ride
where we wish! These men have won their freedom; it is well that we
learn how."
Menlik's expression did not change, but his lids drooped over his eyes
as a murmur of what might be agreement came from the group. More than
one of them must have understood enough English to translate for the
others. Travis wondered about that. Had these men and women who had
outwardly reverted to the life of their nomad ancestors once been well
educated in the modern sense, educated enough to learn the basic
language of the nation their rulers had set up as their principal enemy?
"So you ride the land south of the mountains?" the shaman continued.
"That is true."
"Then why did you come hither?"
Travis shrugged. "Why does anyone ride or travel into new lands? There
is a desire to see what may lie beyond----"
"Or to scout before the march of warriors!" Menlik snapped. "There is no
peace between your rulers and mine. Do you ride now to take the herds
and pastures of the Horde--or to try to do so?"
Travis turned his head deliberately from side to side, allowing them all
to witness his slow and openly contemptuous appraisal of their camp.
"_This_ is your Horde, Shaman? Fifteen warriors? Much has changed since
the days of Temujin, has it not?"
"What do you know of Temujin--you, who are a man of no ancestors, out of
the West?"
"What do I know of Temujin? That he was a leader of warriors and became
Genghis Khan, the great lord of the East. But the Apaches had their
warlords also, rider of barren lands. And I am of those who raided over
two nations when Victorio and Cochise scattered their enemies as a man
scatters a handful of dust in the wind."
"You talk bold, Apache...." There was a hint of threat in that.
"I speak as any warrior, Shaman. Or are you so used to talking with
spirits instead of men that you do not realize that?"
He might have been alienating the shaman by such a sharp reply, but
Travis thought he judged the temper of these people. To face them boldly
was the only way to impress them. They would not treat with an inferior,
and he was already at a disadvantage coming on foot, without any backing
in force, into a territory held by horsemen who were suspicious and
jealous of their recently acquired freedom. His only chance was to
establish himself as an equal and then try to convince them that Apache
and Tatar-Mongol had a common cause against the Reds who controlled the
settlement on the northern plains.
Menlik's right hand went to his sash-girdle and plucked out a carved
stick which he waved between them, muttering phrases Travis could not
understand. Had the shaman retreated so far along the road to his past
that he now believed in his own supernatural powers? Or was this to
impress his watching followers?
"You call upon your spirits for aid, Menlik? But the Apache has the
companionship of the _ga-n_. Ask of Kaydessa: Who hunts with the Fox in
the wilds?" Travis' sharp challenge stopped that wand in mid-air.
Menlik's head swung to the girl.
"He hunts with wolves who think like men." She supplied the information
the shaman would not openly ask for. "I have seen them act as his
scouts. This is no spirit thing, but real and of this world!"
"Any man may train a dog to his bidding!" Menlik spat.
"Does a dog obey orders which are not said aloud? These brown wolves
come and sit before him, look into his eyes. And then he knows what lies
within their heads, and they know what he would have them do. This is
not the way of a master of hounds with his pack!"
Again the murmur ran about the camp as one or two translated. Menlik
frowned. Then he rammed his sorcerer's wand back into his sash.
"If you are a man of power--such powers," he said slowly, "then you may
walk alone where those who talk with spirits go--into the mountains." He
then spoke over his shoulder in his native tongue, and one of the women
reached behind her into a hut, brought out a skin bag and a horn cup.
Kaydessa took the cup from her and held it while the other woman poured
a white liquid from the bag to fill it.
Kaydessa passed the cup to Menlik. He pivoted with it in his hand,
dribbling expertly over its brim a few drops at each point of the
compass, chanting as he moved. Then he sucked in a mouthful of the
contents before presenting the vessel to Travis.
The Apache smelled the same sour scent that had clung to the emptied bag
in the foothills. And another part of memory supplied him with the
nature of the drink. This was kumiss, a fermented mare's milk which was
the wine and water of the steppes.
He forced himself to swallow a draft, though it was alien to his taste,
and passed the cup back to Menlik. The shaman emptied the horn and,
with that, set aside ceremony. With an upraised hand he beckoned Travis
to the fire again, indicating a pot set on the coals.
"Rest ... eat!" he bade abruptly.
Night was gathering in. Travis tried to calculate how far Tsoay must
have backtracked to the rancheria. He thought that he could have already
made the pass and be within a day and a half from the Apache camp if he
pushed on, as he would. As to where the coyotes were, Travis had no
idea. But it was plain that he himself must remain in this encampment
for the night or risk rousing the Mongols' suspicion once more.
He ate of the stew, spearing chunks out of the pot with the point of his
knife. And it was not until he sat back, his hunger appeased, that the
shaman dropped down beside him.
"The Khatun Kaydessa says that when she was slave to the caller, you did
not feel its chains," he began.
"Those who rule you are not my overlords. The bonds they set upon your
minds do not touch me." Travis hoped that that was the truth and his
escape that morning had not been just a fluke.
"This could be, for you and I are not of one blood," Menlik agreed.
"Tell me--how did you escape your bonds?"
"The machine which held us so was broken," Travis replied with a portion
of the truth, and Menlik sucked in his breath.
"The machines, always the machines!" he cried hoarsely. "A thing which
can sit in a man's head and make him do what it will against his will;
it is demon sent! There are other machines to be broken, Apache."
"Words will not break them," Travis pointed out.
"Only a fool rides to his death without hope of striking a single blow
before he chokes on the blood in his throat," Menlik retorted. "We
cannot use bow or tulwar against weapons which flame and kill quicker
than any storm lightning! And always the mind machines can make a man
drop his knife and stand helplessly waiting for the slave collar to be
set on his neck!"
Travis asked a question of his own. "I know that they can bring a caller
part way into this mountain, for this very day I saw its effect upon the
maiden. But there are many places in the hills well set for ambushes,
and those unaffected by the machine could be waiting there. Would there
be many machines so that they could send out again and again?"
Menlik's bony hand played with his wand. Then a slow smile curved his
lips into the guise of a hunting cat's noiseless snarl.
"There is meat in that pot, Apache, rich meat, good for the filling of a
lean belly! So men whose minds the machine could not trouble--such men
to be waiting in ambush for the taking of the men who use such a
machine--yes. But here would have to be bait, very good bait for such a
trap, Lord of Wiles. Never do those others come far into the mountains.
Their flyer does not lift well here, and they do not trust traveling on
horseback. They were greatly angered to come so far in to reach
Kaydessa, though they could not have been too close, or you would not
have escaped at all. Yes, strong bait."
"Such bait as perhaps the knowledge that there were strangers across the
mountains?"
Menlik turned his wand about in his hands. He was no longer smiling, and
his glance at Travis was sharp and swift.
"Do you sit as Khan in your tribe, Lord?"
"I sit as one they will listen to." Travis hoped that was so. Whether
Buck and the moderates would hold clan leadership upon his return was a
fact he could not count upon as certain.
"This is a thing which we must hold council over," Menlik continued.
"But it is an idea of power. Yes, one to think about, Lord. And I shall
think...."
He got up and moved away. Travis blinked at the fire. He was very tired,
and he disliked sleeping in this camp. But he must not go without the
rest his body needed to supply him with a clear head in the morning. And
not showing uneasiness might be one way of winning Menlik's confidence.
9
Travis settled his back against the spire of rock and raised his right
hand into the path of the sun, cradling in his palm a disk of glistening
metal. Flash ... flash ... he made the signal pattern just as his
ancestors a hundred years earlier and far across space had used trade
mirrors to relay war alerts among the Chiricahua and White Mountain
ranges. If Tsoay had returned safely, and if Buck had kept the agreed
lookout on that peak a mile or so ahead, then the clan would know that
he was coming and with what escort.
He waited now, rubbing the small metal mirror absently on the loose
sleeve of his shirt, waiting for a reply. Mirrors were best, not smoke
fires which would broadcast too far the presence of men in the hills.
Tsoay must have returned....
"What is it that you do?"
Menlik, his shaman's robe pulled up so that his breeches and boots were
dark against the golden rock, climbed up beside the Apache. Menlik,
Hulagur, and Kaydessa were riding with Travis, offering him one of
their small ponies to hurry the trip. He was still regarded warily by
the Tatars, but he did not blame them for their cautious attitude.
"Ah--" A flicker of light from the point ahead. One ... two ... three
flashes, a pause, then two more together. He had been read. Buck had
dispatched scouts to meet them, and knowing his people's skill at the
business, Travis was certain the Tatars would never suspect their
flanking unless the Apaches purposefully revealed themselves. Also the
Tatars were not to go to the rancheria, but would be met at a mid-point
by a delegation of Apaches. This was no time for the Tatars to learn
just how few the clan numbered.
Menlik watched Travis flash an acknowledgment to the sentry ahead. "In
this way you speak to your men?"
"This way I speak."
"A thing good and to be remembered. We have the drum, but that is for
the ears of all with hearing. This is for the eyes only of those on
watch for it. Yes, a good thing. And your people--they will meet with
us?"
"They wait ahead," Travis confirmed.
It was close to midday and the heat, gathered in the rocky ways, was
like a heaviness in the air itself. The Tatars had shucked their heavy
jackets and rolled the fur brims of their hats far up their heads away
from their sweat-beaded faces. And at every halt they passed from hand
to hand the skin bag of kumiss.
Now even the ponies shuffled on with drooping heads, picking a way in a
cut which deepened into a canyon. Travis kept a watch for the scouts.
And not for the first time he thought of the disappearance of the
coyotes. Somehow, back in the Tatar camp, he had counted confidently on
the animals' rejoining him once he had started his return over the
mountains.
But he had seen nothing of either beast, nor had he felt that
unexplainable mental contact with them which had been present since his
first awakening on Topaz. Why they had left him so unceremoniously after
defending him from the Mongol attack, and why they were keeping
themselves aloof now, he did not know. But he was conscious of a thread
of alarm for their continued absence, and he hoped he would find they
had gone back to the rancheria.
The ponies thudded dispiritedly along a sandy wash which bottomed the
canyon. Here the heat became a leaden weight and the men were panting
like four-footed beasts running before hunters. Finally Travis sighted
what he had been seeking, a flicker of movement on the wall well above.
He flung up his hand, pulling his mount to a stand. Apaches stood in
full view, bows ready, arrows on cords. But they made no sound.
Kaydessa cried out, booted her mount to draw equal with Travis.
"A trap!" Her face, flushed with heat, was also stark with anger.
Travis smiled slowly. "Is there a rope about you, Wolf Daughter?" he
inquired softly. "Are you now dragged across this sand?"
Her mouth opened and then closed again. The quirt she had half raised to
slash at him, flopped across her pony's neck.
The Apache glanced back at the two men. Hulagur's hand was on his sword
hilt, his eyes darting from one of those silent watchers to the next.
But the utter hopelessness of the Tatar position was too plain. Only
Menlik made no move toward any weapon, even his spirit wand. Instead, he
sat quietly in the saddle, displaying no emotion toward the Apaches save
his usual self-confident detachment.
"We go on." Travis pointed ahead.
Just as suddenly as they had appeared from the heart of the golden
cliffs, so did the scouts vanish. Most of them were already on their way
to the point Buck had selected for the meeting place. There had been
only six men up there, but the Tatars had no way of knowing just how
large a portion of the whole clan that number was.
Travis' pony lifted his head, nickered, and achieved a stumbling trot.
Somewhere ahead was water, one of those oases of growth and life which
pocked the whole mountain range--to the preservation of all animals and
all men.
Menlik and Hulagur pushed on until their mounts were hard on the heels
of the two ridden by the girl and Travis. Travis wondered if they still
waited for some arrow to strike home, though he saw that both men rode
with outward disregard for the patrolling scouts.
A grass-leaf bush beckoned them on and again the ponies quickened pace,
coming out into a tributary canyon which housed a small pool and a good
stand of grass and brush. To one side of the water Buck stood, his arms
folded across his chest, armed only with his belt knife. Grouped behind
him were Deklay, Tsoay, Nolan, Manulito--Travis tabulated hurriedly.
Manulito and Deklay were to be classed together--or had been when he was
last in the rancheria. On Buck's stairway from the past, both had
halted more than halfway down. Nolan was a quiet man who seldom spoke,
and whose opinion Travis could not foretell. Tsoay would back Buck.
Probably such a divided party was the best Travis could have hoped to
gather. A delegation composed entirely of those who were ready to leave
the past of the Redax--a collection of Bucks and Jil-Lees--was outside
the bounds of possibility. But Travis was none too happy to have Deklay
in on this.
Travis dismounted, letting the pony push forward by himself to dip nose
into the pool.
"This is," Travis pointed politely with his chin--"Menlik, one who talks
with spirits.... Hulagur, who is son to a chief ... and Kaydessa, who is
daughter to a chief. They are of the horse people of the north." He made
the introduction carefully in English.
Then he turned to the Tatars. "Buck, Deklay, Nolan, Manulito, Tsoay," he
named them all, "these stand to listen, and to speak for the Apaches."
But sometime later when the two parties sat facing each other, he
wondered whether a common decision could come from the clansmen on his
side of that irregular circle. Deklay's expression was closed; he had
even edged a short way back, as if he had no desire to approach the
strangers. And Travis read into every line of Deklay's body his distrust
and antagonism.
He himself began to speak, retelling his adventures since they had
followed Kaydessa's trail, sketching in the situation at the
Tatar-Mongol settlement as he had learned it from her and from Menlik.
He was careful to speak in English so that the Tatars could hear all he
was reporting to his own kind. And the Apaches listened blank-faced,
though Tsoay must already have reported much of this. When Travis was
done it was Deklay who asked a question:
"What have we to do with these people?"
"There is this--" Travis chose his words carefully, thinking of what
might move a warrior still conditioned to riding with the raiders of a
hundred years earlier, "the Pinda-lick-o-yi (whom we call 'Reds,') are
never willing to live side by side with any who are not of their mind.
And they have weapons such as make our bow cords bits of rotten string,
our knives slivers of rust. They do not kill; they enslave. And when
they discover that we live, then they will come against us--"
Deklay's lips moved in a wolf grin. "This is a large land, and we know
how to use it. The Pinda-lick-o-yi will not find us--"
"With their eyes maybe not," Travis replied. "With their machines--that
is another matter."
"Machines!" Deklay spat. "Always these machines.... Is that all you can
talk about? It would seem that you are bewitched by these machines,
which we have not seen--none of us!"
"It was a machine which brought you here," Buck observed. "Go you back
and look upon the spaceship and remember, Deklay. The knowledge of the
Pinda-lick-o-yi is greater than ours when it deals with metal and wire
and things which can be made with both. Machines brought us along the
road of the stars, and there is no tracker in the clan who could hope to
do the same. But now I have this to ask: Does our brother have a plan?"
"Those who are Reds," Travis answered slowly, "they do not number many.
But more may later come from our own world. Have you heard of such
arriving?" he asked Menlik.
"Not so, but we are not told much. We live apart and no one of us goes
to the ship unless he is summoned. For they have weapons to guard them,
or long since they would have been dead. It is not proper for a man to
eat from the pot, ride in the wind, sleep easy under the same sky with
him who has slain his brother."
"They have then killed among your people?"
"They have killed," Menlik returned briefly.
Kaydessa stirred and muttered a word or two to her brother. Hulagur's
head came up, and he exploded into violent speech.
"What does he say?" Deklay demanded.
The girl replied: "He speaks of our father who aided in the escape of
three and so afterward was slain by the leader as a lesson to us--since
he was our 'white beard,' the Khan."
"We have taken the oath in blood--under the Wolf Head Standard--that
they will also die," Menlik added. "But first we must shake them out of
their ship-shell."
"That is the problem," Travis elaborated for the benefit of his
clansmen. "We must get these Reds away from their protected camp--out
into the open. When they now go they are covered by this 'caller' which
keeps the Tatars under their control, but it has no effect on us."
"So, again I say: What is all this to us?" Deklay got to his feet. "This
machine does not hunt us, and we can make our camps in this land where
no Pinda-lick-o-yi can find them----"
"We are not _dobe-gusndhe-he_--invulnerable. Nor do we know the full
range of machines they can use. It does no one well to say
'_doxa-da_'--this is not so--when he does not know all that lies in an
enemy's wickiup."
To Travis' relief he saw agreement mirrored on Buck's face, Tsoay's,
Nolan's. From the beginning he had had little hope of swaying Deklay; he
could only trust that the verdict of the majority would be the accepted
one. It went back to the old, old Apache institution of prestige. A
_nantan_-chief had the _go'ndi_, the high power, as a gift from birth.
Common men could possess horse power or cattle power; they might have
the gift of acquiring wealth so they could make generous gifts--be
_ikadntl'izi_, the wealthy ones who spoke for their family groups within
the loose network of the tribe. But there was no hereditary
chieftainship or even an undivided rule within a rancheria. The
_nagunlka-dnat'an_, or war chief, often led only on the warpath and had
no voice in clan matters save those dealing with a raid.
And to have a split now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklay
and those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the rest
could deny him that right.
"We shall think on this," Buck said. "Here is food, water, pasturage for
horses, a camp for our visitors. They will wait here." He looked at
Travis. "You will wait with them, Fox, since you know their ways."
Travis' immediate reaction was objection, but then he realized Buck's
wisdom. To offer the proposition of alliance to the Apaches needed an
impartial spokesman. And if he himself did it, Deklay might
automatically oppose the idea. Let Buck talk and it would be a statement
of fact.
"It is well," Travis agreed.
Buck looked about, as if judging time from the lie of sun and shadow on
the ground. "We shall return in the morning when the shadow lies here."
With the toe of his high moccasin he made an impression in the soft
earth. Then, without any formal farewell, he strode off, the others fast
on his heels.
"He is your chief, that one?" Kaydessa asked, pointing after Buck.
"He is one having a large voice in council," Travis replied. He set
about building up the cooking fire, bringing out the body of a
split-horn calf which had been left them. Menlik sat on his heels by the
pool, dipping up drinking water with his hand. Now he squinted his eyes
against the probe of the sun.
"It will require much talking to win over the short one," he observed.
"That one does not like us or your plan. Just as there will be those
among the Horde who will not like it either." He flipped water drops
from his fingers. "But this I do know, man who calls himself Fox, if we
do not make a common cause, then we have no hope of going against the
Reds. It will be for them as a man crushing fleas." He brought his hand
down on his knee in emphatic slaps. "So ... and so ... and so!"
"This do I think also," Travis admitted.
"So let us both hope that all men will be as wise as we," Menlik said,
smiling. "And since we can take a hand in that decision, this remains a
time for rest."
The shaman might be content to sleep the afternoon away, but after he
had eaten, Hulagur wandered up and down the valley, making a lengthy
business of rubbing down their horses with twists of last season's
grass. Now and then he paused beside Kaydessa and spoke, his uneasiness
plain to Travis although he could not understand the words.
Travis had settled down in the shade, half dozing, yet alert to every
movement of the three Tatars. He tried not to think of what might be
happening in the rancheria by switching his mind to that misty valley of
the towers. Did any of those three alien structures contain such a grab
bag of the past as he, Ashe, and Murdock had found on that other world
where the winged people had gathered together for them the artifacts of
an older civilization? At that time he had created for their hosts a new
weapon of defense, turning metal tubes into blow-guns. It had been
there, too, where he had chanced upon the library of tapes, one of which
had eventually landed Travis and his people here on Topaz.
Even if he did find racks of such tapes in one of those towers, there
would be no way of using them--with the ship wrecked on the mountain
side. Only--Travis' fingers itched where they lay quiet on his
knees--there might be other things waiting. If he were only free to
explore!
He reached out to touch Menlik's shoulder. The shaman half turned,
opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the spark
of intelligence awoke in them quickly.
"What is it?"
For a moment Travis hesitated, already regretting his impulse. He did
not know how much Menlik remembered of the present. Remember of the
present--one part of the Apache's mind was wryly amused at that snarled
estimate of their situation. Men who had been dropped into their racial
and ancestral pasts until the present time was less real than the
dreams conditioning them had a difficult job evaluating any situation.
But since Menlik had clung to his knowledge of English, he must be less
far down that stairway.
"When we met you, Kaydessa and I, it was outside that valley." Travis
was still of two minds about this questioning, but the Tatar camp had
been close to the towers and there was a good chance the Mongols had
explored them. "And inside were buildings ... very old...."
Menlik was fully alert now. He took his wand, played with it as he
spoke:
"That is, or was, a place of much power, Fox. Oh, I know that you
question my kinship with the spirits and the powers they give. But one
learns not to dispute what one feels here--and here--" His long,
somewhat grimy fingers went to his forehead and then to the bare brown
chest where his shirt fell open. "I have walked the stone path in that
valley, and there have been the whispers--"
"Whispers?"
Menlik twirled the wand. "Whispers which are too low for many ears to
distinguish. You can hear them as one hears the buzzing of an insect,
but never the words--no, never the words! But that is a place of great
power!"
"A place to explore!"
But Menlik watched only his wand. "That I wonder, Fox, truly do I
wonder. This is not our world. And here there may be that which does not
welcome us."
Tricks-in-trade of a shaman? Or was it true recognition of something
beyond human description? Travis could not be sure, but he knew that he
must return to the valley and see for himself.
"Listen," Menlik said, leaning closer, "I have heard your tale, that
you were on that first ship, the one which brought you unwilling along
the old star paths. Have you ever seen such a thing as this?"
He smoothed a space of soft earth and with the narrow tip of his wand
began to draw. Whatever role Menlik had played in the present before he
had been reconditioned into a shaman of the Horde, he had had the
ability of an artist, for with a minimum of lines he created a figure in
that sketch.
It was a man or at least a figure with general human outlines. But the
round, slightly oversized skull was bare, the clothing skintight to
reveal unnaturally thin limbs. There were large eyes, small nose and
mouth, rather crowded into the lower third of the head, giving an
impression of an over-expanded brain case above. And it was familiar.
Not the flying men of the other world, certainly not the nocturnal
ape-things. Yet for all its alien quality Travis was sure he had seen
its like before. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it apart from
lines in the soil.
Such a head, white, almost like the bone of a skull laid bare, such a
head lying face down on a bone-thin arm clad in a blue-purple skintight
sleeve. Where had he seen it?
The Apache gave a sharp exclamation as he remembered fully. The derelict
spaceship as he had first found it--the dead alien officer had still
been seated at its controls! The alien who had set the tape which took
them out into that forgotten empire--he was the subject of Menlik's
drawing!
"Where? When did you see such a one?" The Apache bent down over the
Tatar.
Menlik looked troubled. "He came into my mind when I walked the valley.
I thought I could almost see such a face in one of the tower windows,
but of that I am not sure. Who is it?"
"Someone from the old days--those who once ruled the stars," Travis
answered. But were they still here then, the remnant of a civilization
which had flourished ten thousand years ago? Were the Baldies, who
centuries ago had hunted down so ruthlessly the Russians who had dared
to loot their wrecked ships, still on Topaz?
He remembered the story of Ross Murdock's escape from those aliens in
the far past of Europe, and he shivered. Murdock was tough, steel tough,
yet his own description of that epic chase and the final meeting had
carried with it his terror. What could a handful of primitively armed
and almost primitively minded Terrans do now if they had to dispute
Topaz with the Baldies?
10
"Beyond this--" Menlik worked his way to the very lip of a drop, raising
a finger cautiously--"beyond this we do not go."
"But you say that the camp of your people lies well out in the plains--"
Jil-Lee was up on one knee, using the field glasses they had brought
from the stores of the wrecked ship. He passed them along to Travis.
There was nothing to be sighted but the rippling amber waves of the tall
grasses, save for an occasional break of a copse of trees near the
foothills.
They had reached this point in the early morning, threading through the
pass, making their way across the section known to the outlaws. From
here they could survey the debatable land where their temporary allies
insisted the Reds were in full control.
The result of the conference in the south had been this uneasy alliance.
From the start Travis realized that he could not hope to commit the clan
to any set plan, that even to get this scouting party to come against
the stubborn resistance of Deklay and his reactionaries was a major
achievement. There was now an opening wedge of six Apaches in the
north.
"Beyond this," Menlik repeated, "they keep watch and can control us with
the caller."
"What do you think?" Travis passed the glasses to Nolan.
If they were ever to develop a war chief, this lean man, tall for an
Apache and slow to speak, might fill that role. He adjusted the lenses
and began a detailed study-sweep of the open territory. Then he
stiffened; his mouth, below the masking of the glasses, was tight.
"What is it?" Jil-Lee asked.
"Riders--two ... four ... five.... Also something else--in the air."
Menlik jerked back and grabbed at Nolan's arm, dragging him down by the
weight of his body.
"The flyer! Come back--back!" He was still pulling at Nolan, prodding at
Travis with one foot, and the Apaches stared at him with amazement.
The shaman sputtered in his own language, and then, visibly regaining
command of himself, spoke English once more.
"Those are hunters, and they carry a caller. Either some others have
escaped or they are determined to find our mountain camp."
Jil-Lee looked at Travis. "You did not feel anything when the woman was
under that spell?"
Travis shook his head. Jil-Lee nodded and then said to the shaman: "We
shall stay here and watch. But since it is bad for you--do you go. And
we shall meet you near this place of the towers. Agreed?"
For a moment Menlik's face held a shadowy expression Travis tried to
read. Was it resentment--resentment that he was forced to retreat when
the others could stand their ground? Did the Tatar believe that he lost
face this way? But the shaman gave a grunt of what they took as assent
and slipped over the edge of the lookout point. A moment later they
heard him speaking the Mongol tongue, warning Hulagur and Lotchu, his
companions on the scout. Then came the clatter of pony hoofs as they
rode their mounts away.
The Apaches settled back in the cup, which gave them a wide view over
the plains. Soon it was not necessary to use the glasses in order to
sight the advancing party of hunters--five riders, four wearing Tatar
dress. The fifth had such an odd outline that Travis was reminded of
Menlik's sketch of the alien. Under the sharper vision of the glasses he
saw that the rider was equipped with a pack strapped between his
shoulders and a bulbous helmet covering most of his head. Highly
specialized equipment for communication, Travis guessed.
"That is a 'copter up above," Nolan said. "Different shape from ours."
They had been familiar with helicopters back on Terra. Ranchers used
them for range inspection, and all of the Apache volunteers had flown in
them. But Nolan was correct; this one possessed several unfamiliar
features.
"The Tatars say they don't bring those very far into the mountains,"
Jil-Lee mused. "That could explain their man on horseback; he gets in
where they don't fly."
Nolan fingered his bow. "If these Reds depend upon their machine to
control what they seek, then they may be taken by surprise----"
"But not yet!" Travis spoke sharply. Nolan frowned at him.
Jil-Lee chuckled. "The way is not so dark for us, younger brother, that
we need your torch held for our feet!"
Travis swallowed back any retort, accepting the fairness of that rebuke.
He had no right to believe that he alone knew the best way of handling
the enemy. Biting on the sourness of that realization, he lay quietly
with the others, watching the riders enter the foothills perhaps a
quarter of a mile to the west.
The helicopter was circling now over the men riding into a cut between
two rises. When they were lost to view, the pilot made wider casts, and
Travis thought the flyer's crew were probably in communication with the
helmeted one of the quintet on the ground.
He stirred. "They are heading for the Tatar camp, just as if they know
exactly where it is--"
"That also may be true," Nolan replied. "What do we know of these
Tatars? They have freely said that the Reds can hold them in mind ropes
when they wish. Already they may be so bound. I say--let us go back to
our own country." He added to the decisiveness of that by handing
Jil-Lee the glasses and sliding down from their perch.
Travis looked at the other. In a way he could understand the wisdom of
Nolan's suggestion. But he was sure that withdrawal now would only
postpone trouble. Sooner or later the Apaches would have to stand
against the Reds, and if they could do it now while the enemy was
occupied with trouble from the Tatars, so much the better.
Jil-Lee was following Nolan. But something in Travis rebelled. He
watched the circling helicopter. If it was overhanging the action area
of the horsemen, they had either reined in or were searching a
relatively small section of the foothills.
Reluctantly Travis descended to the hollow where Jil-Lee stood with
Nolan. Tsoay and Lupe and Rope were a little to one side as if the final
orders would come from their seniors.
"It would be well," Jil-Lee said slowly, "if we saw what weapons they
have. I want a closer look at the equipment of that one in the helmet.
Also," he smiled straight at Nolan--"I do not think that they can detect
the presence of warriors of the People unless we will it so."
Nolan ran a finger along the curve of his bow, shot a measuring glance
right and left at the general contours of the country.
"There is wisdom in what you say, elder brother. Only this is a trail we
shall take alone, not allowing the men with fur hats to know where we
walk." He looked pointedly in Travis' direction.
"That is wisdom, _Ba'is'a_," Travis promptly replied, giving Nolan the
old title accorded the leader of a war party. Travis was grateful for
that much of a concession.
They swung into action, heading southeast at an angle which should bring
them across the track of the enemy hunting party. The path was theirs at
last, only moments after the passing of their quarry. None of the five
riders was taking any precautions to cover his trail. Each moved with
the confidence of one not having to fear any attack.
From cover the Apaches looked aloft. They could hear the faint hum of
the helicopter. It was still circling, Tsoay reported from a higher
check point, but those circles remained close over the plains area--the
riders had already passed beyond the limits of that aerial sentry.
Three to a side, the Apaches advanced with the trail between them. They
were carefully hidden when they caught up with the hunters. The four
Tatars were grouped together; the fifth man, heavily burdened by his
pack, had climbed from the saddle and was sitting on the ground, his
hands busy with a flat plate which covered him from upper chest to belt.
Now that he had a chance to see them closely, Travis noted the lack of
expression on the broad Tatar faces. The four men were blank of eye,
astride their mounts with no apparent awareness of their present
surroundings. Then as one, their heads swung around to the helmeted
leader before they dismounted and stood motionless for a long moment in
a way which reminded Travis of the coyotes' attitude when they
endeavored to pass some message to him. But these men even lacked the
signs of thinking intelligence the animals had.
The helmeted man's hand moved across his chest plate, and instantly his
followers came into a measure of life. One put his hand to his forehead
with an odd, half-dazed gesture. Another half crouched, his lips
wrinkling back in a snarl. And the leader, watching him, laughed. Then
he snapped an order, his hand poised over his control plate.
One of the four took the horse reins, made the mounts fast to near-by
bushes. Then as one they began to walk forward, the Red bringing up the
rear several paces behind the nearest Tatar. They were going upslope to
the crest of a small ridge.
The Tatar who first reached the crest put his hands to cup his mouth,
sent a ringing cry southward, and the faint "hu-hu-hu" echoed on and on
through the hills.
Either Menlik had reached the camp in time, or his people were not to be
so easily enticed. For though the hunters waited for a long time, there
was no answer to that hail. At last the helmeted man called his
captives, bringing them sullenly down to mount and ride again--a move
which suited the Apaches.
They could not tell how close was the communication between the rider
and the helicopter. And they were still too near the plains to attack
unless it was necessary for their own protection. Travis dropped back to
join Nolan.
"He controls them by that plate on his chest," he said. "If we would
take them, we must get at that--"
"These Tatars use lariats in fighting. Did they not rope you as a calf
is roped for branding? Then why do they not so take this Red, binding
his arms to his sides?" The suspicion in Nolan's voice was plain.
"Perhaps in them is some conditioned control making it so that they
cannot attack their rulers--"
"I do not like this matter of machines which can play this way and that
with minds and bodies!" flared Nolan. "A man should only _use_ a weapon,
not be one!"
Travis could agree to that. Had they by the wreck of their own ship and
the death of Ruthven, escaped just such an existence as these Tatars now
endured? If so, why? He and all the Apaches were volunteers, eager and
willing to form new world colonies. What had happened back on Terra that
they had been so ruthlessly sent out without warning and under Redax?
Another small piece of that puzzle, or maybe the heart of the whole
picture snapped into place. Had the project learned in some way of the
Tatar settlement on Topaz and so been forced to speed up that
translation from late twentieth-century Americans to primitives? That
would explain a lot!
Travis returned abruptly to the matter now at hand as he saw a peak
ahead. The party they were trailing was heading directly for the outlaw
hide-out. Travis hoped Menlik had warned them in time. There--that wall
of cliff to his left must shelter the valley of the towers, though it
was still miles ahead. Travis did not believe the hunters would be able
to reach their goal unless they traveled at night. They might not know
of the ape-things which could menace the dark.
But the enemy, whether he knew of such dangers or not, did not intend to
press on. As the sun pulled away, leaving crevices and crannies shadow
dark, the hunters stopped to make camp. The Apaches, after their custom
on the war trail, gathered on the heights above.
"This Red seems to think that he shall find those he seeks sitting
waiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoay
remarked.
"It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe they
are greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking into
the arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.
"A man with a rifle does not fear a man armed only with a stick," Travis
cut in quickly. "This one is armed with a weapon which he has good
reason to believe makes him invulnerable to attack. If he rests tonight,
he probably leaves his machine on guard."
"At least we are sure of one thing," Nolan said in half agreement. "This
one does not suspect that there are any in these hills save those he can
master. And his machine does not work against us. Thus at dawn--" He
made a swift gesture, and they smiled in concert.
At dawn--the old time of attack. An Apache does not attack at night.
Travis was not sure that any of them could break that old taboo and
creep down upon the camp before the coming of new light.
But tomorrow morning they would take over this confident Red, strip him
of his enslaving machine.
Travis' head jerked. It had come as suddenly as a blow between his
eyes--to half stun him. What ... what was it? Not any physical
impact--no, something which was dazing but still immaterial. He braced
his whole body, awaiting its return, trying frantically to understand
what had happened in that instant of vertigo and seeming disembodiment.
Never had he experienced anything like it--or had he? Two years or more
ago when he had gone through the time transfer to enter the Arizona of
the Folsom Men some ten thousand years earlier--that moment of transfer
had been something like this, a sensation of being awry in space and
time with no stable footing to be found.
Yet he was lying here on very tangible rock and soil, and nothing about
him in the shadow-hung landscape of Topaz had changed in the slightest.
But that blow had left behind it a quivering residue of panic buried far
inside him, a tender spot like an open wound.
Travis drew a deep breath which was almost a sob, levered himself up on
one elbow to stare intently down into the enemy camp. Was this some
attack from the other's unknown weapon? Suddenly he was not at all sure
what might happen when the Apaches made that dawn rush.
Jil-Lee was in station on his right. Travis must compare notes with him
to be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now than
to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the
chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in
a cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect.
"Did you feel something just now--in your head?" Travis found it
difficult to put that sensation into words.
"Not so. But you did?"
He had--of course, he had! The remains of it were still in him, that
point of panic. "Yes."
"The machine?"
"I don't know." Travis' confusion grew. It might be that he alone of the
party had been struck. If so, he could be a danger to his own kind.
"This is not good. I think we had better hold council, away from here."
Jil-Lee's whisper was the merest ghost of sound. He chirped again to be
answered from Tsoay upslope, who passed on the signal.
The first moon was high in the sky as the Apaches gathered together.
Again Travis asked his question: Had any of the others felt that odd
blow? He was met by negatives.
But Nolan had the final word: "This is not good," he echoed Jil-Lee's
comment. "If it was the Red machine at work, then we may all be swept
into his net along with those he seeks. Perhaps the longer one remains
close to that thing, the more influence it gains over him. We shall stay
here until dawn. If the enemy would reach the place they seek, then they
must pass below us, for that is the easiest road. Burdened with his
machine, that Red has ever taken the easiest way. So, we shall see if he
also has a defense against these when they come without warning." He
touched the arrows in his quiver.
To kill from ambush meant that they might never learn the secret of the
machine, but after his experience Travis was willing to admit that
Nolan's caution was the wise way. Travis wanted no part of a second
attack like that which had shaken him so. And Nolan had not ordered a
general retreat. It must be in the war chief's thoughts as it was in
Travis' that if the machine could have an influence over Apaches, it
must cease to function.
They set their ambush with the age-old skill the Redax had grafted into
their memories. Then there was nothing to do but wait.
It was an hour after dawn when Tsoay signaled that the enemy was coming,
and shortly after, they heard the thud of ponies' hoofs. The first Tatar
plodded into view, and by the stance of his body in the saddle, Travis
knew the Red had him under full control. Two, then three Tatars passed
between the teeth of the Apache trap. The fourth one had allowed a wider
gap to open between himself and his fellows.
Then the Red leader came. His face below the bulge of the helmet was not
happy. Travis believed the man was not a horseman by inclination. The
Apache set arrow to bow cord, and at the chirp from Nolan, fired in
concert with his clansmen.
Only one of those arrows found a target. The Red's pony gave a shrill
scream of pain and terror, reared, pawing at the air, toppled back,
pinning its shouting rider under it.
The Red had had a defense right enough, one which had somehow deflected
the arrows. But he neither had protection against his own awkward seat
in the saddle nor the arrow which had seriously wounded the now
threshing pony.
Ahead the Tatars twisted and writhed, mouthed tortured cries, then
dropped out of their saddles to lie limply on the ground as if the
arrows aimed at the master had instead struck each to the heart.
11
Either the Red was lucky, or his reactions were quick. He had somehow
rolled clear of the struggling horse as Lupe leaped from behind a
boulder, knife out and ready. To the eyes of the Apaches the helmeted
man lay easy prey to Lupe's attack. Nor did he raise an arm to defend
himself, though one hand lay free across the plate on his chest.
But the young Apache stumbled, rebounding back as if he had run into an
unseen wall--when his knife was still six inches away from the other.
Lupe cried out, shook under a second impact as the Red fired an
automatic with his other hand.
Travis dropped his bow, returned to the most primitive weapon of all.
His hand closed around a stone and he hurled the fist-sized oval
straight at the helmet so clearly outlined against the rocks below.
But even as Lupe's knife had never touched flesh, so was the rock
deflected; the Red was covered by some protective field. This was
certainly nothing the Apaches had seen before. Nolan's whistle summoned
them to draw back.
The Red fired again, the sharp bark of the hand gun harsh and loud. He
did not have any real target, for with the exception of Lupe the Apaches
had gone to earth. Between the rocks the Red was struggling to his feet,
but he moved slowly, favoring his side and one leg; he had not come
totally unharmed from his tumble with the pony.
An armed enemy who could not be touched--one who knew there were more
than outlaws in this region. The Red leader was far more of a threat to
the Apaches now than he had ever been. He must not be allowed to escape.
He was holstering his gun, moving along with one hand against the rocks
to steady himself, trying to reach one of the ponies that stood with
trailing reins beside the inert Tatars.
But when the enemy reached the far side of that rock he would have to
sacrifice either his steadying hold, or his touch on the chest plate
where his other hand rested. Would he, then, for an instant be
vulnerable?
The pony!
Travis put an arrow on bow cord and shot. Not at the Red, who had
released his hold of the rock, preferring to totter instead of lose
control of the chest plate--but into the air straight before the nose of
the mount.
The pony neighed wildly, tried to turn, and its shoulder caught the
free, groping hand of the Red and spun the man around and back, so that
he flung up both hands in an effort to ward himself off the rocks. Then
the pony stampeded down the break, its companions catching the same
fever, trailing in a mad dash which kept the Red hard against the
boulders.
He continued to stand there until the horses, save for the wounded one
still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve.
They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two
strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the Apaches could
handle.
Apparently the other was also aware of that, for now he pushed out from
the rocks and stumbled along after the ponies. But he went only a step
or two. Then, settling back once more against a convenient boulder, he
began to work at the plate on his chest.
Nolan appeared noiselessly beside Travis. "What does he do?" His lips
were very close to the younger man's ear, his voice hardly more than a
breath.
Travis shook his head slightly. The Red's actions were a complete
mystery. Unless, now disabled and afoot, he was trying to summon aid.
Though there was no landing place for a helicopter here.
Now was the time to try and reach Lupe. Travis had seen a slight
movement in the fallen Apache's hand, the first indication that the
enemy's shot had not been as fatal as it had looked. He touched Nolan's
arm, pointed to Lupe; and then, discarding his bow and quiver beside the
war leader, he stripped for action. There was cover down to the wounded
Apache which would aid him. He must pass one of the Tatars on the way,
but none of the tribesmen had shown any signs of life since they had
fallen from their saddles at the first attack.
With infinite care, Travis lowered himself into a narrow passage, took a
lizard's way between brush and boulder, pausing only when he reached the
Tatar for a quick check on the potential enemy.
The lean brown face was half turned, one cheek in the sand, but the
slack mouth, the closed eyes were those, Travis believed, of a dead man.
By some action of his diabolic machine the Red must have snuffed out his
four captives--perhaps in the belief that they were part of the Apache
attack.
Travis reached the rock where Lupe lay. He knew that Nolan was watching
the Red and would give him warning if he suddenly showed an interest in
anything but his machine. The Apache reached out, his hands closing on
Lupe's ankles. Beneath his touch, flesh and muscle tensed. Lupe's eyes
were open, focused now on Travis. There was a bleeding furrow above his
right ear. The Red had tried a difficult head shot, failing in his aim
by a mere fraction of an inch.
Lupe made a swift move for which Travis was ready. His grip on the
other's body helped to tumble them both around a rock which lay between
them and the Red. There was the crack of another shot and dust spurted
from the side of the boulder. But they lay together, safe for the
present, as Travis was sure the enemy would not risk an open attack on
their small fortress.
With Travis' aid Lupe struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited.
Jil-Lee was there to make competent examination of the boy's wound.
"Creased," he reported. "A sore head, but no great damage. Perhaps a
scar later, warrior!" He gave Lupe an encouraging thump on the shoulder,
before plastering an aid pack over the cut.
"Now we go!" Nolan spoke with emphatic decision.
"He saw enough of us to know we are not Tatars."
Nolan's eyes were cold, his mouth grim as he faced Travis.
"And how can we fight him--?"