The Game of Stars and Comets

by Andre Norton

  Kade began to understand the pattern. The Styor had tried to make sure not only of the Traders at the post, but of any who might possibly escape into the mountains. The aliens had planted this story of monsters, seen that the rumor trickled back by "bush telegraph" into the holds of the outlaws, thereby making sure of a hostile reception for any refugees.

  "Now warriors believe differently?"

  Dokital selected another cake. "The warriors of five tribes have seen with their own eyes, heard with their lips. Soon they will come to this fire, ask for more talk concerning Swiftfeet and his wife ones."

  But it was not about horses that the two Ikkinni who stepped quietly into the camp came to talk. Kakgil and the taller, thinner native who had introduced himself in the arena as Vuqic, stood waiting until Kade arose. And then, using the same ceremony as they had before, they pushed spear points into the earth.

  "There is fire, and food," the Terran recited the formula he had learned at the post. "It is welcome," he inclined his head toward Kakgil and Vuqic, remaining on his feet until both were seated.

  Kakgil came to the point brusquely. "There is a story that the one from beyond the stars has a new weapon to make collars into nothingness."

  "Part of such a story is the truth," Kade admitted. "But there is this also; that when the weapon makes nothingness of the collars, some of those wearing them die."

  "That is the truth," Dokital added. "Yet it is free." His hand went to his throat, rubbing the calloused skin where a collar had once chaffed.

  "These weapons which make a collar nothing. Let us see one."

  Kade held up empty hands. "One each of those did the starwalkers carry. It is gone blasted away, and so are the rest. For the masters of the collars brought the fire death to all my clan."

  "So has that story been told also," Kakgil assented. "But if these weapons exist beyond the stars, then those who fly into the far sky can bring us more. Do they not give the masters many things in exchange for the skins of susti? And we know caves in which musti have never been troubled. We can build a mountain of skins in return for such weapons."

  "There is this," Kade brought his own problem to the fore. "A ship of the starwalkers came two suns ago to the burnt place where its clan lived. When those in that ship find no life, they will depart again. Maybe to come no more. And already that ship may have returned to the stars."

  "In the high places there are drums to send thoughts and calls from one clan holding to the next." Vuqic spoke for the first time. "Have the starwalkers no drums to sound among the star?"

  "There is a chance that there is one. But between this place and that lies much ground, also many hunting parties of collared ones. Out in the open country the flying ships of the collar masters can capture or kill those who try to reach the burned place. And it can not be sure that the drum is still there."

  Kakgil laid a stick upon the small fire. "This matter shall be thought upon," he declared. "Now what of this Swiftfeet who serves warriors without a collar? Why was it brought?"

  Kade noted that the Ikkinni gave the horse the "it" designation of a man, rather than the "that" of an animal.

  "There is a saying," Vuqic cut in once more, "that it was to be taken to a master of collars—the high master—for a new toy thing."

  "So was the thought," Kade said cautiously.

  "But not all the thought," Dokital corrected. "It," he indicated Kade, "said that the runners are for warriors. And what master of collars is a true warrior? Kill is the order, but there is no spear in the hand of such a one. A warrior kills for himself, not afar and by word only."

  Kade relied on what he knew of Ikkinni customs. "There is a story—in truth a story," he used their own idiomatic approach of one of the honored elders of their kind, a born story teller whose phenomenal memory and powers of invention could recall one of their age-old sagas, or add a new tale fashioned out of the events of the latest clan hunt. And to the Terran's gratification he saw that they were giving him close attention.

  "Where it dwells among the stars there were once those who were also in their way masters of collars. And these same animals were ridden into battle by their warriors, so that the other peoples who had no such helpers could be easily hunted for killing or caught to be made into collared ones. But the animals were new to the land which they found a good one, and they broke free from their masters, running into hidden places. And the Ikkinni of that land found the beasts were also friends to them, so they stole more from the city places of the masters." He simplified, made into a story they could understand the explosion of history which had marked the coming of the horse to his own plains-roaming race, and what had occurred thereafter. And seeing their gleaming eyes, Kade knew that the parallel was plain to them.

  Dokital spoke first. "These are a treasure to keep!"

  "Ha, so!" agreed Kakgil. "But that is locked in time. Now is now and there is the weapon of the starwalkers. Give such into the hands of warriors and no hunters or collar masters shall enter these lands!"

  "The weapons are beyond the stars!" Kade objected, afraid they would demand which he could not possibly give them.

  "Other things have come from the stars. This is a thing to be thought on." Kakgil arose, reached for his spear. "This star drum for your signaling must be thought on, too."

  Chapter 12

  This time the Terran headed toward the plains by night instead of day, and he did not go alone. A picked band of Ikkinni trackers, seasoned to the alarms and cautions of the hunted, went as guides, and, he suspected, guards. The natives were determined not to lose the off-worlder until they had made some sort of a bargain for stunners. Although Kade had continued to argue that the Trade Ship might have long since left Klor.

  The very slim chance of using the hidden com was one he did not like to consider. He could not push out of mind the doubt that he might now be an exile on the alien planet, without hope of rescue. So he tried to concentrate on the business of getting safely back to the destroyed post.

  They threaded a more complicated route than the one he had used days earlier, once skirting a camp of collared men, sleeping feet to the fire, their Overman sheltered in a lean-to of branches. Kade's Ikkinni neighbor toyed with his spear as he eyed them thoughtfully. But any miss from a death stroke meant torture for the slaves and the native did not use his weapon.

  "Two watchers," he whispered to Kade, his motion only dimly to be seen in the light of the dying fire as he motioned right and left.

  The Terran could detect no sound except the usual ones of the night. A sleeping slave stirred, and both watchers tensed. Kade had a knife, a spear under his hand. But he longed for a stunner. The slave muttered and rolled over, but his restlessness did not arouse any of his fellows.

  With finger pressure on the Terran's shoulder, the Ikkinni signaled Kade to the right. And the off-worlder applied all his knowledge of woodcraft to melt into the brush as noiselessly as possible. Together they flitted into a small gully where another joined them.

  "It on watch now sleeps?"

  The low voice of Kakgil answered. "It does."

  Again their party drew together and pushed on. False dawn found them in file along the banks of a stream where rank, reedlike grass grew. The Ikkinni put the natural features of the spreading bog to their use. Mud, grey-green, was scraped from holes, plastered to the haired skins, to Kade's breeches, chest and shoulders. Handfuls of dried grass laid into that sticky coating so that every man could fade undetected into the landscape.

  They continued to stick to the bog, following a trail, the markers of which Kade could not discover. Perhaps they existed only in the memory of the native who now led. As far as the Terran could determine they were now to the north of the former post, well out into the plains region.

  Looming up now and again were islands of firmer land on which they paused to rest. And, as the first lines of the climbing sun split the sky, they ate grain cakes, drank sparingly from the leather bottle Kakgil carried. It contained
a thin, acid liquid which burned the tongue, but satisfied the body's desire for water.

  The village chieftain smoothed out a stretch of clay, marked on it with a stick. A finger's whirl was the swamp about them, a dot the site of the post. Kade began to realize that, far from being kept to the mountains as the Styor had contended and the Traders believed, these free natives must have made countless scouting trips into the plains in which their fathers had been hunted, each carrying in a trained memory vast knowledge of the lost lands. What raiders they would make, given adequate weapons and the means for swift movement!

  But this was not a matter of future guerrilla attacks against Styor holdings. It was their own safe visit to a site which could easily be patrolled from both air and ground level. The Terran digested that crude map, tried to align it with his memories of the countryside.

  If the scout ship had been sighted by the Styor—and unless the aliens were possessed by a suicidal folly they would have left a sentry near the post—there could be a Klorian force at hand already, or on their way to the burn-off. Kade warned of that and found that Kakgil had accepted such a possible peril. If the Styor were at the side, the mountaineers would leave a scout in hiding and withdraw, to try again. And the Terran understood the monumental patience of these people who had fought for a century against drastic odds. The drive which had sent his own species into the star lanes met time as an enemy, these men used it as a tool.

  The sun which had promised so brightly in the dawn hours, shone only for a space. Clouds gathered above the mountains. Dokital, pointing to the wall of mist hanging above their back trail, laughed.

  "The Planner has planned, now the Spearman readies His weapon. This is a good day, a good thing, a good plan."

  Wind rasped across the plains, struck chill, lifting the vapors of the bog, thrusting at the tangled covering of their island. The signs of the storm suggested one more severe than any Kade had witnessed on Klor.

  With the push of the wind at their backs they obeyed Kakgil's order to move on. Half an hour later, cloaked in the deepening murk, they splashed from a shallow runnel of water onto a solid strip of earth marking the fringe of the plains.

  A Styor flyer might just try to buck the wind, but Kade doubted it unless the pilot had definite orders to operate. This weather should ground all routine patrols. But the method of advance, in a zig-zag pattern with frequent halts to take cover, proved to the Terran that Kakgil did not intend to underestimate the enemy.

  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 shone 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 mould 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 safe 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.<
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  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 suggestions 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.