by Andre Norton
Lightning crisped in the sky, bringing the tingling smell of ozone. Another such flash halted them, half blinded, and Kade was sure that unleashed energy had struck not too far away. Could the burn-off scar, by some weird chemistry of the glassy slag, be drawing the electrical fury of the storm?
That whip of flashing death was merely the forerunner of rain. Rain and wind which beat, pummeled their bodies, washing away their mud disguises, leaving them gasping in a blanket of rushing water. They tied their weapons to their belts and linked hands, to stagger on, backs bent to the storm. The falling fury of the water, the dark of the clouds which held it, concealed from Kade whether the Trade ship still stood, fins planted on the landing apron.
The off-worlder stumbled and went to his knees, losing his hold on Dokital, his line partner. His palm came down on slick, wet surface, smooth yet rippling. What he had fallen over was the edge of the burn site. And there was no waiting ship.
They could not walk across that surface crust, running wet and too slippery for feet shod in either Terran boots or the hide coverings of the Ikkinni. On hands and knees the party crept over the glassy expanse, searching for the opening to the underground installation.
Kade found it difficult to connect this slick slab of crystallized earth and stone with the square of buildings, the inner courtyard, he had known. He could not even guess from what quarter of the compass he had approached the scar. Where their goal might now lie could be within inches, feet, yards, or the length of the scar.
It was not the Terran who located the break in the crust. Kade, alerted by the message running from man to man along the advancing Ikkinni, came to the pit he had to explore by touch rather than sight. One or two of the Team had refuged below, to be freed by the ship’s crew. Whether the com was still there and undestroyed he must learn.
Water poured over his fingers, cascaded into the depths. That flood could ruin the com in a short time. Kade managed to make the Ikkinni understand what had to be done. One of the hunting nets was slung over the edge and Kade used it for a ladder. As he descended water rose about his feet, lapped at his calves, wet the breeches above the tops of his boots. Then his feet met solid surface, he could feel walls on either side but not ahead.
The passage, if passage it was, ran on. And the water, pouring from above, was rising. If that unknown path ahead took a downward way perhaps the flood had already sealed it.
Kade shivered. If the water reached the com he was exiled. Time was not on his side now. He released his hold on the net, waded forward, waves washing about him, splashing to mid-thigh.
The footing was good, although the flood hindered swift movement. He kept one hand on the wall as a guide. And when he had gone some twenty paces he knew that the water was not rising any more swiftly than it had in the entrance pit.
On his twenty-first step the black dark of the pocket was lost in a flick of light. Over his wet head shown the green glow of an atmo lamp. He must have crossed some automatic signal set in the wall. Ahead were two more such lights, their round balls reflected from the curling waves through which he labored. Three lights then a sealed door, a door with a locking hand hollow in its center panel.
Was that lock tuned to open to the flesh pattern of any Terran, or only to certain members of the Team? But who could select survivors in advance?
Kade wiped his right hand back and forth across his chest, tucked it into his armpit for a long moment, hoping to rid it of the chill moisture. Then he fitted fingers and palm into the mold and waited. The slow creep of water was now washing a fraction of an inch higher every time it slapped against his body.
There was no warning click. Kade snatched his hand away as the panel flipped back into the wall. Around him the water rushed on, lapping into the room, swirling around the few pieces of furniture. There were wall bunks, some open ration tins on a pull-down table, signs of hasty leaving.
But what Kade wanted was still there; the com. He splashed to that shelf. However as he reached for the starting button he saw another object, poised directly before the communicator. And he had been briefed in the proper use of that sectional rod mounted on a firm base.
Now he knew that the men who had waited in that room, or some member of the ship’s crew, had suspected—or hoped—for his escape. There would be no answer to any message sent from the com. Perhaps the installation itself had been booby-trapped to prevent examination by native- or Styor—but he did not need it.
Kade caught up that tube. Sealed into it were delicate works, the technology of which was beyond him. But it would work when and if he desired. Cradling it against him, the Terran made his way back along the waterlogged passage. He had only to locate a proper site, set up what he carried, and there would be a new landing field on Klor, one not supervised by the Styor.
“It has?” Kakgil pushed close as he climbed out of the pit.
“It has a Star drum!” Kade fended off the other’s hand. “But only it can sound this drum.”
“Sound then!” Dokital moved in from the other side.
Kade shook his head. “Not here. Not now. A safer place, in the mountains.”
With what he carried he wanted to be as far from the post as he could get before the storm ceased to protect them from the threat of Styor sky sweeps. And he conveyed that urgency to the Ikkinni.
The rainfall lessened as they plodded on, their pace which had begun as a trot, dropping to a dogged walk. Towards sunset they gained refuge in a criss-cross maze of foothills and they camped wet and cold that night, not daring a fire.
Two days later they came again into the valley of Kakgil’s village to find it deserted. Only the horses, still free, welcomed Kade. He mounted volunteers from his escort, Kakgil one of them, and they headed on, into the heart of the range where the most daring slave hunters had never ventured.
A full week of the longer Klorian days passed before their small party caught up with an Ikkinni war party. Kakgil called a conference of scouts who knew the land while Kade set up his signal tube in demonstration, explained the terrain needed and why. Hunters compared notes, grew heated in dispute, finally agreed and voiced their suggestion through Iskug, who had joined the band.
“Two suns, two sleeps away, there is a place where long ago the Spearman struck deep into the earth.” He rounded his hands into a cup. “It has seen the ships from the stars. If it who drives such a ship is skillful, the ship could be set into this place as so.” He inserted a finger tip into the curled fingers of his other hand.
“This is the only place?” Iskug’s description was too graphic to be reassuring. The Ikkinni agreed that the described crater was the best and safest landing the range had to offer.
Later Kade, standing at the end of a grueling climb and looking down into that hole, was not sure. There was floor space enough, yes, to set a scout down. And the surface appeared as level as any ground. But the fitting of the ship into the hollow required skill such as only a veteran pilot would possess. However Trade pilots were top men.
They made their way to the floor of the crater. The eruption which had caused the blowout must have been a cataclysmic one. Kade held the signal at shoulder level, triggered a thumb button, and slowly turned, giving the hidden lens the complete picture of this rock-walled well for broadcasting. Then he walked to what he judged was the center of the open space and secured the tube on the ground with latching earth spikes. Last of all he brought his hand down sharply on the pointed tip of the cone. There was no way for him to know whether the broadcaster was really working, his answer could only come, in time, from off-world.
Kade sat outside the crude hut at the lip of the crater. His calendar was a series of scratches on the boulder which served as a section of wall. By that reckoning he had been doing sentry duty here more than a month.
His thoughts were series of ifs now. If the signal, lonely in the crater, had somehow been damaged during their journey here, then the broadcaster had never been beamed starward at all.
If the Ikkinni lost patience they might turn on him. Styor parties were raiding unceasingly into the lower valleys driving many clans from their villages. The spring hunting was interrupted. Hunger stalked the refugees. Let some chieftain pin the blame on the presence of the off-world fugitive and Kade might be delivered to the aliens for a truce.
If the Styor continued to bore in they would force his own withdrawal from here.
If—if—if—
A whistle from below broke his moody thoughts. Dokital, his dark-haired body hardly distinguishable from the rocks until he moved, came up at a pace suggesting trouble.
“Slavers!” The Ikkinni reported curtly.
“Where?”
“The water valley. They make camp.”
Never before had any Styor-controlled party come this close to the crater. And if the aliens were establishing a camp this early in the day, they meant a stay of more than one night’s duration.
“Kakgil—the horses?”
“They move north taking the kwitu trail.”
That was a slight lifting of the Terran’s burden of responsibility. Kakgil would move his people and the off-world animals they now cherished to safety, putting a stretch of rough and easily defended country between themselves and the invaders.
“It goes?” Dokital fidgeted by the hut. Having once worn a collar he was not minded to be trapped again.
“It must stay for awhile.” Within the hour, before sunset, at any moment, the Terran ship could land. He must remain here. “Let Dokital go.”
“Not so.” The Ikkinni sat down, laid his spear across his knee. “From this place the evil ones can be seen, they can not creep up as if they net the musti.”
Maybe they could not bring a net, Kade thought grimly, but the aliens had other and more potent ways of bringing the hunted to terms. And he was sure that the Styor had provided these servants with them.
Once they sighted a group of collar slaves searching for fire wood. But there was no indication that their own perch was under suspicion. In the hut they had water, two day’s rations of seed cakes. And they could stretch that supply if need be.
“One comes."
“Whereso?”
“By the rock of the kwitu horn."
Kade followed the line of Dokital’s pointing spear tip. The newcomer was no Ikkinni, collared or free, nor the Overman of a squad. Away from a carrying-chair, the other marks of his Klorian godship, a Styor was climbing stiffly up the rugged slope. He held one arm bent at chest level and divided his attention between his footing and a band about his wrist. In his other hand he carried the ultimate in the aliens’ armament—the needler!
Flight was cut off. The Terran judged that the wristband was some kind of tracking device, perhaps centered on his own thought waves. He could walk backward, step out into the space of the crater, and crash down to end near the signal. Only then the Styor might use that signal for bait.
On the other hand, suppose he was needled down. Would the alien pass the signal unnoticed? The Styor was astute enough to investigate why the off-worlder had camped here. Either way the bejeweled, slim humanoid had all the cards on his side. Kade had overestimated the sloth of the pampered lords, underestimated their desire to make sure of the last Terran.
About the Styor’s middle was a anti-person belt. No over-lord would risk his precious skin with the slightest chance of a counterattack. The spear in Kade’s hold, any Ikkinni net, a rock thrown by a desperate man, would rebound from the aura now about the alien as from a dura-steel wall.
Unless—Kade searched the ground about him for some suggestion of offense or defense. The Styor could probably track them if they tried to run for it. He did not know the range of the instrument the alien wore. On the other hand he was not going to be needled down without some counterattack, no matter how feeble.
More to gain time than by any plan the Terran signalled Dokital away from the hut, along the edge of the crater. The rough terrain hid them from actual sighting by the Styor, though his locator would bring him on their track.
Single file the two walked a narrow line along the drop. An idea grew in Kade’s mind. A chance he was now desperate enough to try.
The Styor reached the hut, did not even glance into its empty interior, but came on, treading the same way the fugitives had taken. Again Kade signed to Dokital, sending the Ikkinni away from him. Then the Terran halted, balancing his spear in his hand. A few feet beyond, the ancient bowl of the crater was split with a crack wide enough to offer protection to a slender Terran body. He marked that down.
He was waiting as the Styor’s head arose, the alien’s eyes raised from the device on his wrist to the man before him. Then Kade hurled his spear.
The aim was true, though the point struck that invisible guard a good six inches away from the Styor’s chest. And the involuntary reaction of the other carried through even as Kade had hoped. A flinch backward set the alien’s booted heel on a patch of smooth stone. There was a wide flail of arms as the Styor went backward into thin air.
His safety belt would save his life, but now he would have the inner wall of the crater to climb. The Terran’s attack had bought them a measure of time. Kade sped to the crevice, Dokital joining him. The Styor was floating down, settling to the floor of the crater. But they had only gained a few moments of time, no real escape. Only—
Kade’s arm went about Dokital, he carried the native with him in a rush as from overhead came a clap of sound louder than any thunder. Stone scraped skin raw as they tumbled into the rock crack. Above there was a flare of blinding light, and Kade hid his eyes with one bruised arm. The roar of a ship’s tail flames as it braked into the heart of the crater was deafening.
Perhaps the Styor had had one instant of horror, a second’s realization of descending death—then nothing at all. The same end he or his fellows had visited on the Trade post had already been his.
As the Terran and the Ikkinni crawled from their refuge the fumes of molten sand arose from that cup. Set neatly in the center was the star-ship. Kade climbed to the rim of the rock wall, waved at that expanse of pitted metal although no hatch had yet opened. But the response came soon enough, a ramp swung out to ground against the mountain some feet below him. He slid down, hearing his boots clang against its surface, hardly yet able to believe in that opportune arrival.
Somehow he was not surprised to be met by Abu in the cabin adjoining the control section. Nor was he more than mildly interested in the fact that the Commander's companion there wore five ticks of gold on the collar of his tunic.
“That’s about it, sir.” He had cut his report to the pertinent facts as best he could. Reaction was beginning to undermine the exultant self-confidence which had accompanied him into that cabin. There was a black list of sins of omission and commission which could be charged against him. What had Ristoff said on Lodi? If he fouled this last chance—And now the Book-of-Rules boys could pick Kade Whitehawk into little bits.
“Most reprehensible !” The five tick VIP pressed the button to turn off his recorder. “Now,” the officer pushed away the machine with a gesture of repudiation. “Let us consider our real business.”
“Most satisfactory.” Abu’s tone mimicked that used only moments before, but the words were different.
Somehow the formality of their meeting was gone as if the VIP had skinned off a tight tunic. He grinned and punched refreshment keys in the tabletop.
“A nice piece of work, one to keep rolling, Whitehawk.”
“Roll right along,” Abu joined the approbation. “Harder to stop now than a meteor with a musti net.”
Kade was almost brave enough to demand an explanation.
“The time has come, sir,” Abu added, “to initiate another fledgling into the fold.”
Kade accepted the drink bubble the VIP extended, sucked a full mouthful of Stardew, Mars-side proof, without knowing just what he swallowed.
“Yes, a tale to unfold.” The VIP drank. He bore, Kade decided critically,
a not too distant-resemblance to Che’in at that Trader’s blandest and most irritating.
“The answer to your leading question,” the officer continued blandly,” is that you’ve passed a little test with all jets flaming. You were handpicked for a job, sent here to use your wits. And you did. You see, there is the Policy—and the Plan.”
“Seldom do the twain meet,” Abu intoned piously.
His superior chuckled. “Be glad, Commander, that the right hand and the left do not shake too often. This is the way of it, young man. We have our loyal servants of Trade, who live and breathe by the Book, never, never make a mistake, and are a shining glory to the Service. Then we have some blacksheep who also serve in their rebellious fashion. We call them the warrior breed.” He paused, sucked at his drink bubble. “Their first general testing is to be sent to a planet where the Styor are really unbearable. If they can scrape through an ‘incident’ without being too far damned by the resultant publicity, then they are promoted to a Team on such a world as Klor.
“As you know, each Team is selected from widely different basic Terran racial stocks with a few of the normal “Trade-type” for cover. It is always our hope that one of our undercover ‘warriors’ will find inspiration in his new environment and manage to pull off a coup which will give another nudge toward the upsetting of Styor power. A pinch here, a prod there, little irritations breaking out all over the galaxy, yet nothing they can actually connect with us or any plan. That is the Plan!”
Kade saw. It was looking at a familiar landscape from an angle so bizarre he might indeed be viewing a new world.
“But the Styor burnt the post. Why?”
“There is such a thing as coincidence. Here your bit of pushing worked into the High-Lord-Pac’s own bid for fame and fortune. He is trying out a formula for getting rid of unwelcome Terrans and building up a reputation for law enforcement at one and the same time. We’ll let him think he got away with it—for awhile. Long enough for your experiment to get a good start. What have you in mind for these Ikkinni? Mounted raids and guerrilla warfare?”