by Andre Norton
Deep in his eyes, naked now that there was no one but the big cat to see, was the thing the Sirian Commander had sensed in him. The galaxy might lie at peace, but Hosteen Storm moved on to combat once again.
There was a company of Arzoran men on board, third- and fourth-generation descendants of off-world settlers. And Storm listened to the babble of their excited talk, filing away all the information that might be useful in the future. They were frontiersmen, these fighters from a three-quarter wilderness world. Their planet produced one product for export—frawns. Frawn meat and frawn-skin fabric, which had the sheen of fine silk and the water-repellent quality of ancient vegetable rubber, were making modest fortunes for the Arzor men.
The frawns moved in herds across the plains; their shimmering blue, heavily wooled foreparts and curving horned heads sloping sharply back to slender, almost naked hindquarters gave them a top-heavy look, which was deceitful since the frawn was well able to protect itself. There was no meat elsewhere in the galaxy to compare with frawn steak, no fabric to match that woven from their hair.
“I’ve two hundred squares cut out down on the Vakind—running straight back to the hills. Get me a crew of riders and we’ll—” The fair-haired man Storm knew as Ransford held forth eagerly.
His bunk mate nodded. “Get Norbies. You don’t lose any young stock with them riding herd. They’ll take their pay in horses. Quade uses Norbies whenever he can get them—”
“Don’t know about that,” cut in a third of the Arzoran veterans. “I’d rather have regular riders. Norbies aren’t like us—”
But Storm lost the thread of the conversation in the sudden excitement of his own thoughts. Quade was not a common name. In all his life he had only heard it once.
“Don’t tell me you believe that blather about Norbies being hostile!” The second speaker had challenged the third sharply. “Me and m’ brother always sign Norbies for the roundup, and we run the tightest outfit near the Peaks! Two of ’em are better at roundin’ herd than any dozen riders I can sign up at the Crossin’. And I’ll name names right out if you want me to—”
Ransford grinned. “Climb down off your spoutin’ post, Dort. We all know how you Lancins feel about Norbies. And I’ll agree with you about their bein’ good trackers. But there has been trouble with stock disappearin’—as well you know.”
“Sure. But nobody ever proved that Norbies made them disappear. Push anyone around and he’ll try to loosen your teeth for you! Treat a Norbie decent and square, and he’s the best backin’ you can get in the outcountry. The Mountain Butchers aren’t Norbies—”
“Mountain Butchers are herd thieves, aren’t they?” Storm asked, hoping to steer the conversation back to Quade.
“That they are,” Ransford returned pleasantly. “Say, you’re the Beast Master who’s signed up for settlement, aren’t you? Well, if all the stories we’ve heard about your kind of trainin’ are the straight goods, you’ll be able to light and tie right off. Mountain Butchers are a problem in the back country. Start a stampede in the right stretch of land, and they can peel off enough young stock durin’ it to set up in business. A man and his crew can’t cover every bit of the range. That is why it pays to hire Norbies, they know the trails and the broken lands—”
“Where do the Mountain Butchers sell their stolen goods?” Storm asked.
Ransford frowned. “That’s something every owner and rider, every frawn-protection man on the planet would like to know. There’s just one space port, and nothin’ passes through that without being checked double, sidewise and across. Unless there’s some hidden port out in the hills and a freebooter runnin’ cargo out—why, you’ve as good a guess as I have as to what they want the animals for. But they raid—”
“Or Norbies raid and then yell about outlaws when we ask pointed questions,” the third Arzoran commented sourly.
Lancin bristled. “That isn’t so, Balvin! Don’t Quade hire Norbies—and the Basin country swings along by Brad Quade. He and his folks has held that district since First Ship time and they know Norbies! It’d take an eruption of the Limpiro Range to make Quade change his mind—”
Storm’s gaze dropped to his own hands resting on the mess table—those brown, thin hands with the thread of an old scar across the back of the left one. They had not moved, nor could any of the three men sitting with him see that sudden change in his eyes. He had the answer he wanted. Brad Quade—this man of importance—whom he had come so far to meet. Brad Quade who had a blood debt to pay to other men on a world where life did not and could not exist, a debt Storm had come to collect. He had sworn an oath as a small and wondering boy, standing before a man of power and knowledge beyond that of other races calling themselves “civilized.” A war had intervened, he had fought in it, and then he had journeyed halfway across the galaxy—
“Yat-ta-hay—” But he did not say that aloud. “Very, very good.”
Immigration and custom inspection were only a formality for one with Storm’s papers, though the Terran was an object of interest to the officers at the space port as he loosed his animals and Baku. Beast Team tales had been so exaggerated across deep space that Storm believed none of the port personnel would have been surprised if Surra had answered in human speech or Baku waved a stun ray in one taloned foot.
Men on Arzor went armed, though the lethal blaster and the needler were both outlawed. A stun ray rod hung from all adult male belts and private differences were settled speedily with those, or with one’s fists—a custom Storm could understand. But the straggle of plasta-crete buildings about the space port was not the Arzor he wanted. The arch of sky overhead, with the tinge of mauve to give it an un-Terran shade, and the wind that swept down from the distant rust-red ripples of mountains hinted of the freedom he desired.
Surra held her head into that wind, her eyes slitted, and Baku’s wings lifted a little at its promise. Then Storm halted, his head snapped around, his nostrils dilated as Surra’s could. The scent borne on that wind—he was pulled by it, so strongly that he did not try to resist.
Frawn herds ranged widely, and men, who perhaps on the other worlds of their first origin had depended upon machines for transportation, found that the herder here must be otherwise equipped. Machines required expert tending, supply parts that had to be imported at astronomical prices from off-world. But there remained a self-perpetuating piece of equipment that the emigrants to the stars had long known at home, used, discarded for daily service, but preserved because of sentiment and love for sheer grace and beauty—the horse. And horses, imported experimentally, found the plains of Arzor a natural home. In three generations of man-time, they had spread wide, changing the whole economy of both settler and native.
The Dineh had lived by the horse and with the horse for centuries, back into the dim past. Love and need for the horse was bred into them. And the smell of horse now drew Storm as it had when as a child of three he had been tossed onto the back of a steady old mare to take his first riding lesson.
The mounts he found milling about in the space port corral were not like the small tough pony of his native desert land. These were larger, oddly marked in color—either spotted regularly with red or black spots on white or gray coats and with contrasting dark manes, or in solid dark colors with light manes and tails—strikingly different from the animals he had ridden in the past.
At the shrug of the Terran’s shoulder Baku took wing, to perch on the limb of a tree, a black blot amid the yellow foliage, while Surra and the meerkats settled down at the foot of the bulbous trunk, allowing Storm to reach the corral fence alone.
“Nice bunch, eh?” The man standing there pushed up his wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, plaited from native reed straw, and grinned in open friendliness at the Terran. “Brought ’em in from Cardol four-five days ago. Got their land legs back now and I can road ’em on tomorrow. They ought to make fellas set up and take notice at the auction—”
“Auction?” Storm’s attention was more than three-qua
rters claimed by a young stallion trotting around, his tail flicking, his dancing hoofs signaling his delight in his freedom to move. His sleek coat was a light gray, spotted with rich red dots coin-sized and coin-round, bright on the hindquarters, fading toward the barrel and chest, with his mane and tail copying that same warm color.
The Terran did not, in his absorption with the horse, note the long glance with which the settler measured him in return. Storm’s green uniform might not be known on Arzor—Commandos furnished a very minor portion of the Confed forces—and he probably wore the only lion mask badge in this part of the galaxy. But that searching examination assessed more than his clothing.
“This is breeding stock, stranger. We have to import new strains from other planets where they shipped horses earlier. There won’t be any more of the pure Terran breed to buy now. So this bunch will be driven down to Irrawady Crossin’ for the big spring auction—”
“Irrawady Crossing? That’s in the Basin country, isn’t it?”
“You hit it, stranger. Plannin’ to light and tie on some range, or take up your own squares?”
“Light and tie, I guess. Any chance of a herd job?”
“You must be a veteran, come in on that troopship, eh? But I’d say you’re off-world, too. Can you ride?”
“I’m Terran.” Storm’s answer fell into a sudden silence. In the corral a horse squealed and reared, and the ex-Commando continued to watch the red and gray stallion. “Yes, I can ride. My people raised horses. And I am a Beast Master—”
“That so?” drawled the other. “Prove you can ride, boy, and you’ve signed yourself on with my outfit. I’m Put Larkin; this here’s my own string. You take your pay in mounts and get your workin’ horse into the bargain.”
Storm was already climbing the rail wall of the corral. He was more eager than he had been for over a year. Larkin caught at his arm.
“Hey, those aren’t gentled any—”
Storm laughed. “No? But I must prove I’m worth my pay.” He swung around to watch the stallion he had marked in his heart for his own.
CHAPTER TWO
R
eaching down, Storm jerked at the fastening of the corral gate just as the young horse approached that point. The red and gray mount came trotting out without realizing for an important second or two that he was now free.
With a speed that left Larkin blinking, the Terran leaped down beside the hesitant horse. His hands were fast in the red mane, drawing the startled animal’s head down and around toward him. Then he breathed into the stallion’s expanded nostrils, keeping his grip in spite of an attempted rear.
The horse stood shivering when Storm loosed his first hold, to run his hands slowly along the arching neck, up the broad nose, cupping them over the wide eyes for an instant, coming down again to smooth body, legs, barrel. So that at last every inch of the young horse had experienced that steady stroking pressure of the gentling brown hands.
“Got a length of rope?” Storm asked quietly. Larkin was not his sole audience now, and the horse trader took a coil of stout hide twist from one of the other spectators, tossed it to the Beast Master.
The Terran looped it about the horse just behind the front legs. Then in what looked like a single, swift movement he was mounted, his knees braced under the loop, his hands resting lightly on the mane. The stallion shivered again under the grip of the rider’s legs, neighed a protest.
“Look out!” At Storm’s warning the stallion whirled, plunged away into the open with a bound that did not dislodge his rider. The Terran leaned forward so that the coarse hairs of the mane whipped into his face. He was crooning the old, old words that had tied horses and his race together for the countless years of the past, letting the mount race out his fear and surprise.
At last, when the space port lay behind as a scattering of white beads on the red-yellow earth of this land, the Terran used pressure of his knee, the calm authority of his mind, the gentle touch of hand, the encouragement of voice, to slacken the pace, to turn the now trotting horse back to the corral.
But Storm did not halt by the knot of waiting men, heading instead for the globular trunked tree where his team lazed. The stallion, catching the alien and frightening scent of cat, tried to shy. But Storm spoke soothingly. Surra got to her feet and strolled forward, her leash trailing across the beaten earth. When the stallion would have attacked, the Terran applied knee pressure, the murmur of voice, the weight of mental command, as he had learned to control the team.
So it was the cat that raised forepaws from the ground, sitting well up on her haunches so that those yellow slits of eyes were not far below the level of the foam-flecked muzzle. The stallion’s head tossed restlessly and then he quieted. Storm laughed.
“Do you hire me?” he called to Larkin.
The horse trader stared his wonder. “Boy, you can sign on as breaker any time you’ve a mind to stack your saddle in my camp! If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes I’d have said some harsh things about double-tongued liars! That there animal’s your trail horse, if you want to fork him all the way to the Crossin’. And what are these here?”
“Baku, African Black Eagle.” The bird mantled at the sound of her name, her proud fierce eyes on Larkin. “Ho and Hing—meerkats—” That clownish pair sniffed high with their pointed noses. “And Surra—a dune cat—all Terran.”
“Cats and horses don’t rightly mix—”
“So? Yet you have seen these two meet,” countered Storm. “Surra is no wild hunter, she is well trained, and as a scout also.”
“All right,” Larkin was grinning. “You’re the Beast Master, son, I’ll take your word for it. We hit the trail this afternoon. Got your kit?”
“I’ll have it.” Storm rode the stallion back to the corral to turn him in with the rest of the herd.
The trail herd was compactly organized by a man who knew his business. Storm had high standards, but he approved of what he saw some two hours later when he joined the party. Ransford and Lancin accompanied him from the veterans’ muster-out, willing to hire on as riders for the sheer pleasure of plunging at once into their normal routine of life. Joining with the Terran they bought a small two-wheeled cart for their kit, one that could be hooked on to the herd supply wagon. And when that was packed the meerkats climbed to the top for a ride, while Baku and Surra could be carried or range as they wished.
Storm accepted Lancin’s advice in shopping for his own trail equipment, following the veteran’s purchases at the space port stores. At the last he changed into the yoris-hide breeches, lined with frawn fabric, tough as metal on the outside and almost as durable as steel, worn with high boots of the same stuff in double thickness. A frawn shirt of undyed silver-blue took the place of his snug green tunic, and he left the lacings on the breast untied in imitation of his companions’ informal fashion, enjoying the freedom of the new soft wear.
Before he left the Center he had obediently exchanged the deadly blaster of service issue for a permitted stun ray rod and the hunting knife of the frontiersman. And now as he settled the broad-brimmed hat of local vintage on his thick black hair and looked into the mirror of the dressing room, Storm was startled at the transformation clothes alone could make. He had further proof of that a short time later when he joined Larkin unrecognized.
Storm smiled. “I’m your breaker—remember?”
Larkin chuckled. “Boy, you look like you were born center-square down in the Basin! This all your kit? No saddle?”
“No saddle.” The light pad he had contrived, the simple headstall, were his own devices. And no one who had watched his taming of the stallion questioned his choices when he again bestrode the red and gray horse for the ride out.
On Arzor, galactic civilization was an oasis built around the space port. As they left that cluster of structures behind and moved south into the haze of the late afternoon, Storm filled his lungs thankfully, his eyes on that range of mountains beyond. There was a flap of wings and Baku spiraled up into
the mauve sky, tasting in her turn the freedom of the new world, while Surra lay at ease on the cart and yawned, lazing away the hours before the coming of night, her own special time for exploring.
The road swiftly became a track of earth-beaten hard stone, but Storm knew that Larkin intended to cut across the open lands, making use of the quickly growing wet-season grass for the herd. This was spring and the tough yellow-green vegetation was still tender and thick. In three months more or less the mountain-born rivers would dry up, the lush grass carpet would wither, and trail herds must cease to move until the coming of fall produced a second wet period to revive the land for another short space of a few weeks.
When they camped that night Larkin appointed guards, with a changing schedule, in four-hour shifts.
“Why guards?” Storm questioned Ransford.
“Might not be needed this close to where the law runs,” the veteran agreed. “But Put wants to get his schedule working before we do hit the wilds. This herd’s good stock, worth a lot in the Basin. Let the Butchers stampede us and they could gather up a lot of the loose runners. And, in spite of what Dort Lancin says, there’re a lot of Norbie clans who don’t care too much about working for their pay in horses. Outer fringe tribes raid to get fresh blood to build up their studs. Breeding stock such as this will bring them sniffing around in a hurry. Then there are yoris—horse is tasty meat as far as those brutes are concerned and a yoris kills more than just its dinner when it gets excited. Let that big lizard stink reach a horse and he high tails it as fast as he can pick up those hoofs and set ’em down!”
Surra aroused from her nap, stretched cat fashion, and then came to Storm. He hunkered down to meet her eye to eye, in his mind outlining the dangers to be watched for. She was already familiar, he knew, with the scent of every man in the herding crew, and with every horse, either ridden or running free. Whatever or whoever did not belong about camp during the hours of the night would have Surra’s curiosity to reckon with. Ransford watched her pad away after her briefing.