"You'd better eat." Nik took one of the ration containers out of the pouch and handed it to Leeds. "Any other way out of this place except that passage? And does he have a torch?"
"No, we left that as a signal—which I see you found."
No torch. Even with the cins on, to retreat along that passage and into the big chamber was a move Nik would not care to make. But had Vandy been driven hard enough by his conditioning to do just that? He'd have a look around here first.
Leeds pressed the button on the container. The hands with which he held the tin were shaking. Nik gazed about the root-matted room. At the opposite end of the room, there was one easily noticed exit, the way the water flowed, and that was large enough for a stooping man to enter. Vandy could have walked through there. Nik went to inspect that exit.
He noted that any touching of the roots left dark bruises on their surfaces—one way of tracing Vandy's passage. But those clustered at the mouth of the water tunnel were unmarked. Either they had recovered in that interval of time between Vandy's flight and now or he had not tried that path.
Nik began a circuit of the walls. The plants were more thickly massed to the left; to the right only a few smaller and more widely spaced ones grew. The entrance to this whole series of cavern rooms had been hidden behind a plug of vegetation. Could another such exist here behind the plants? He loathed going near them, but it had to be done.
Only, as far as he could see, there was no break in the wall behind them, and the light given off by their fleshy leaves, those twining reptilian roots, was enough to make the rock surfaces plainly visible. It began to appear that Vandy had gone back down the entrance passage. Nik said as much, but the captain shook his head.
"Without a torch—no. He hated that place when we came through, dragged back on me all the way. That's what made me so tired that I got careless when I hit here and he stopped whining about being in the dark. The cins wouldn't give him vision enough there. He went some other way. Through that water channel probably—"
Nik went back to the channel. He did not see how even one as slight as Vandy could have worked his way through the mass of roots directly before that opening without leaving some trace on the vegetation. The marks of his own passing were not only darkened, but now, a few moments after that bruising, the stuff seemed to be sloughing off as if his touch had killed it. Vandy's path had to be the other way—in spite of Leeds' report.
The captain had finished the contents of the container. "Think the Patrol will follow you?"
Remembering Commander i'Inad, Nik had no doubt of that. But whether the Patrol could trace him into this cave maze, he did not know.
Leeds had been fingering the pouch; now he looked up with a very grim twist of lips.
"Well, I do!" he said. "Look here."
He turned the pouch upside down, sending its contents spinning and displaying to Nik the inner part. There was a small bar set there.
"Caster!" Leeds identified. "They probably have had a fix on this all the time. Any supply pouch taken would lead them right to us. They obviously foresaw a jump try on your part."
"So, the Patrol could be on the way even now, coming up the passage, and with Vandy gone—"
The goggles must not have masked his face too much for Leeds to read his expression, for the captain nodded again.
"Just so—they will be coming. And our answer is Vandy. So we'd better find him—and quick!"
Fifteen
Nik fingered the supply bag, staring down at the telltale rod. The Patrol would have a fix on that all right. Maybe Barketh had deliberately set him up this way, allowing an escape at the first opportunity so they could trace him and then claim the bargain off—but they were not here yet. Methodically, he began to twist and wad the pouch into as small a compass as possible. Now he and Leeds needed time. Finding this had changed his plan for trailing Vandy. He could not leave the captain here alone to be picked up by the Patrol with no Vandy. Commander i'Inad might just burn him out of hand.
"What are you doing?" Leeds wanted to know.
"Giving them something to follow." Nik went back to the stream exit from the root chamber. He was certain now Vandy had not gone that way, but something smaller and more dangerous to them could. Nik thrust the supply bag between two of the curling roots into the water, where the current of the stream, weak though it was, tugged the container out of sight. The Patrol fix was on the move again, and Nik thought that any tracker might have a rather difficult time following it along its present path.
"That makes sense." Leeds applauded his action. "But they'll come this far—" He pulled himself up a little as if to test his ability to get to his feet.
"Yes, so we'll be gone," Nik answered. "Only we have to pick the right road." He went back to his survey of the chamber walls. Vandy had left here, and Leeds seemed very sure the boy had not backtracked on the way in. Then there was another way out, and, taking it, he must have left some trace for Nik to find.
"I'm not exactly up to a clean lift out of here," the captain commented. He was standing, or rather leaning, braced among the roots. "You can't blast off at a good rate with me slowing the rockets, and back there I'm lost without goggles." He spoke levelly, not as if he were trying to ask for assistance but as one merely pointing out the disadvantages of some proposed plan. Neither did he offer any suggestions.
"Vandy got out of here some way!" Nik's frustration at not finding any trail was rising to something stronger than irritation. By all he could discover, Vandy had simply vanished into thin air—unless Leeds was wrong and Vandy had backtracked.
"He must have gone back!" he added, but the captain shook his head.
"You don't know how hard it was to get him through there the first time. I had to drag him. He kept saying there was something there waiting to get us—"
"He has the goggles now—" Nik was beginning, but the memory of that sensation he himself had felt, that there was something he could not see or hear lurking, ready and waiting for him to step beyond some intangible barrier of safety, came back to him.
"Even the goggles aren't much use without a torch there. I know they weren't for me. We were really lucky to get this far."
Nik moved on along the wall. There was another exit here then, somewhere. And it was the susceptibility of the roots to touch that finally revealed it. A blackened, withering length caught his eye, and he hurried to it. Vandy must have set foot there to climb to the opening above. Nik regarded the hole with a measuring eye. It was small but not too small, he thought, for both of them to squeeze through. Yet what if they found the going on the other side rough—with Leeds crippled. On the other hand, could he leave the captain behind now with the Patrol following the fix?
"So that's the way!" Leeds hobbled across to join Nik, his step a sidewise lurch and recover, which drew lines about his mouth and tightened his lips.
"Can you make it up there?"
"It's a matter of have to now, isn't it?" the captain returned. "We never know just what we can do until we have to. Give us a hand now—"
Somehow with Leeds' straining to lift himself and Nik's boosting, the captain made it up to the hole. He clung there to look down.
"Better get those supplies—" He nodded at the tins beside the stream. "If we do catch up with that brat, we'll need them."
Nik shed his damp tunic, bundled the containers into it, and so fashioned a pack. How long could Vandy keep going on the Sustain pills? It might be that they would find him exhausted not too far ahead. He scrambled up to join Leeds.
"You'll have to be eyes for both of us from now on." The captain hooked his fingers in Nik's belt. "And I'm not up to either a fast run or an easy climb. But let's take off—"
Nik had to keep the dying torch for emergencies and depend upon the goggles. But in this crack, as they drew away from the ghostly glimmer of the root room, he was almost as blind as Leeds. And they must go so slowly, a crippled fumbling, when he was goaded by the need for haste.
L
uckily, the footing here was even, so regular that Nik thought it had been purposely smoothed. This was no natural fissure in the rock but an established passage. Also, there was a distinct current of air, not quite as humid as that of the outer surface. Could they be heading into another refuge?
There were tenuous traces of Vandy here. The footprints where he had left some vegetable deposits from the roots made faint marks on the flooring, but these dwindled, to vanish entirely.
"Listen!"
Nik did not need that alert from Leeds. Far away or else distorted by the walls of the winding passage—there was no mistaking that whistle that hurt the ears and was a throb within the skull. Nik took a longer stride forward, and Leeds went off balance, stumbling into him and bringing them both up against the supporting wall.
"Keep on course!" the captain snapped. "What is it?"
"The Disians! They hunted me on the way back; now they must be after Vandy!"
"What Disians?" Leeds demanded. When Nik told him, he whistled in turn, but not the throbbing call of the natives.
"We never saw any of them! Men here—natives?"
"Not much like men now." Nik corrected grimly. "They're hunters and they hunt for—food—"
Vandy in the dark, being hunted as Nik had been—watched, driven, finally lured into the open. There, at the last, in spite of Nik's off-world weapon and determination to stand up to danger, the primitives had brought him out as an easy kill. And if they could do that to him, forewarned and armed, what would they do to Vandy!
"We have to get to him!" Nik burst out. He caught at Leeds' arm, pulled the captain close enough to support him, and then pushed them both on. Leeds made no complaint, but Nik could hear the panting breaths the other drew and guessed that the captain was straining his powers to the limit. Yet they still kept to a short-paced shuffle.
Just that one whistle. They did not hear another, although Nik listened not only with his ears, it seemed, but also with every nerve in his tiring body. Had that been the signal to begin a hunt, not to urge attack? Suppose they came up from the rear and caught the Disians from behind? Vandy was armed. After his experience in the ruins and on the reef, the boy would be alert against dangers native to Dis and the dark. Whether that would give him a small measure of safety now, Nik did not know. He could not do more than hope.
"Light—" Leeds got the word out between two gasping breaths.
It was very faint, that light, but it was there. They headed for it and came out in another large chamber.
"Refuge!" Leeds cried.
The walls had a glow that did not extend far down the passage. It was as if some invisible curtain hung there.
"It's bright—"
"Not to me. That's what the goggles do for you," Leeds commented. "But it is like refuge light all right. We stepped this up back at the base after we took over."
"But this can't be the same refuge," Nik protested. "We're a long way from there."
"Maybe it's not the same series of burrows but another system. Or it could be the same. We never did explore a lot of the tunnels—no reason to. We just closed off those we didn't need."
"You can see here." Nik took in the possibilities of that. He thought, observing Leeds, that the captain would not be able to keep on his feet much longer.
"Yes, I can see." Leeds' tone was colorless, neither adding to nor denying that fact. "All right—you go on. Let me follow at my own pace."
The decision was the only one that made good sense. If the Disians were hunting Vandy somewhere in this maze, Nik had to find him before they closed in. And Leeds was close to collapse.
"Give me a couple of the supply tins—and your blaster and the torch," the captain continued. He had reached the wall of a room and was lowering himself with it as a steadying brace.
The supplies—yes, Nik would leave some of those. And the torch. It was nearly exhausted now. But the blaster—with Vandy ahead in danger? Nik had to weigh one demand against the other. He opened the tunic bundle and took out two of the containers. Now as he tied up the roll again, he said flatly, "I can't give you the blaster. The Disians are hunting."
"And if they double back here?" Leeds asked just as tonelessly. "The boy has two weapons—and you have that." He pointed to the fringe of mock tools and fantastic arms that were part of Hacon's equipment.
"Those? You know they're fakes!"
"Fakes maybe for the uses Vandy dreamed for them, but they could have other uses—"
Leeds was not so far wrong, Nik thought. He had used one of those gadgets to force open the armory door back at the refuge. But that any of them could be a practical weapon against Disian attack, he doubted.
"That one—" The captain pointed at the one that in some manner resembled a blaster. In Vandy's fantasy, it shot a ray that turned its victims into stone. Nik only wished that the property with which Vandy had endowed that hunk of metal were a true one.
"Have you tried it?" Leeds continued.
"It doesn't work." Nik wondered if Leeds' mind was affected by his exertions.
"Maybe not the way Vandy intended. But we gave you some fireworks to use to impress, and that is one of them. Try it."
Nik drew the weapon. It was lighter than the blaster, of course, a small, bright toy. Now he aimed it at a midpoint of the chamber and pressed the firing button.
A second later he cried out, his hand sweeping up to cover his goggled eyes. The answering burst of light had been blinding!
"Take off your goggles now," Leeds ordered.
Nik obeyed. Blinking, he looked out into the chamber. There was light there, but not blinding any more.
"To infrared based sight, that burst is blinding," the captain told him. "And the effect lingers for some moments, long enough for you to make some attack. Creech thought that one up, and he's a com-tech with real brains."
"Why didn't you tell me about it before?" Nik wanted to know. Back there in the ruins when Vandy had been surrounded by the furred hunters or later—when he had fallen prey to the lure of the Disians—he could have used this.
Leeds met his accusing stare unruffled. "I told you that I believe in luck. I didn't expect you to have to take off here on Dis but to stay put in the refuge. And—it's well to have some insurance. There was a chance, of course, that you'd discover its use, but there was also a chance we might have been put in a position to need a new weapon, just as we are. Nobody but Creech and I knew that rayer was more than a prop for Hacon the hero. And it's always well to nurse a star in reserve while you're moving your comet on the broad swoop. Orkhad came in on this deal against my wishes. I had to foresee the possibility of a showdown—"
Nik understood. This all fitted with Leeds as he had learned to know him.
"And if we were disarmed, they wouldn't suspect this tinware?" Nik flipped a finger along the fake equipment.
"Just so. But you have a weapon now, and I need the blaster."
Nik drew the more conventional weapon and weighed them both in his hands as he considered the point. The rayer was a weapon, right enough. But on the other hand, he was sure of the effect of the blaster.
"Make up your mind!" That was sharp. "You haven't too long—for more than one reason—"
"Yes, the Patrol and the Disians." Nik rehooked the rayer, but he still turned the blaster over in hesitant fingers.
"And a third—you haven't looked in a mirror lately!"
"Mirror?" Nik repeated. Then his right hand went to his face fearfully. He was afraid to brush fingers across cheek and jaw.
"Without your goggles"—Leeds was matter of fact—"it's beginning to show. Gyna was right in her doubts of full success. I don't know the rate of slip, but if you don't catch up with Vandy soon, you may not be able to play Hacon when you do. And if you front him as Nik Kolherne, I don't think you'll have any influence over him."
Under those questing fingertips, the skin did feel rough! How long—hours? A day? Maybe two before it really began to break and return him to the horror from which
a small boy would shrink.
Nik was cold, shaking. He had to brace himself to keep on his feet. The blaster—there was one way he could end the nightmare—with the blaster.
But Leeds now moved with a speed and precision that Nik thought he had lost. His arm shot out, the edge of his hand chopped Nik's wrist, and the blaster fell between them, with Leeds scooping it up.
"I would advise you to go—and fast!" All the crack of an order was in that. "We have to get Vandy out of here. And if you ever want a human face again, you'll get him! Just to make sure you'll hunt him, I'll keep this—"
He held the blaster on the knee of his good leg, looking up at Nik with such complete belief in himself that it was as strong as a blow. Because Nik had been Hacon for so long without thinking of the change that might come, to return now to that other would be worse than he dared to consider. Pulling the bundle of supplies up under his arm, he did not even look back at Leeds as he staggered across the chamber to the opening on the far side, his hand to his cheek.
As he went through that doorway, Nik forced his fingers away, his arm down to his side. He did not want to know—he did not dare to learn how bad it was. Leeds was right as always. Nik had to find Vandy before he ceased to be Hacon and so lost all control over the boy. He had to find Vandy to buy his own future, his chance to be a man in the company of his kind.
For a space, he trudged on mechanically, all his thoughts turned inward, the chill of fear still riding him. Then he forced both thoughts and fears back and centered his attention on the task at hand. There had been only one way into that back chamber, and Vandy had taken it. There was only one way out—along here.
Nik snapped his goggles back into place, trying hard not to touch his face too much in the process. Instantly the walls glowed with a light as bright as any in the Dipple rooms—but he wasn't going to think of the Dipple and Korwar!
There was no trace of footprints on the floor of the passage, no break in the glowing walls. But there was—Nik lifted his head and expanded his nostrils, striving to catch that elusive scent. Yes—the sickly odor of vegetation! Either this passage ran on to the outside or to another root room. The current of air was blowing straight into his face, and it carried the smell.
Norton, Andre - Dipple 02 Page 14