Let us return to camp now; the noise will have driven off the
others."
He looked speculatively at Karrde. "Perhaps tomorrow, Syndic Hart,
will be your day for a kill."
"Perhaps," Karrde said, looking at the downed Morodin. So that was
that. The big, dangerous Morodin safari . . . and it had turned out
to be no more challenging than shooting a bruallki in a net. "I can
hardly wait."
The pilots arrived within an hour, and for nearly two hours afterward
the encampment was busy as they shuttled slabs of Morodin meat in from
the kill and held interminable conversations with Tarnish and Colycaree
as to which would get which part of the head and their preferences in
trophy mount and framing. Karrde stayed out of the activity,
retreating back to his seat by the tree with a portable melodium and
leaving Tapper to handle their share of the work. He overheard one or
two rather finely honed comments about poor sportsmanship directed his
way, but he ignored them. Leaning back against the tree, eyes half
shut, he let the music from the melodium envelop him.
And, surreptitiously, fiddled with the settings of the comm-relay
concealed inside the device.
The sun was dipping low over the forest by the time the pilots finished
their work and the airspeeders took off back toward base camp.
"I trust you've been enjoying
yourself," Tapper commented, sitting down beside Karrde and wiping his face with the sleeve of his no longer
sleek hunter's outfit. "Some of the others think you've been
sulking."
"I can't help what they think," Karrde said. "Don't get comfortable;
we're going for a walk."
"Wonderful," Tapper groaned, hauling himself back to his feet.
"What's the drill?"
"I've been playing a little with the comm-relay," Karrde said, standing
up and slinging the melodium's strap over his shoulder. "If Falmal and
company have been planting transpond markers in the vicinity, we should
be able to pick them up with it. Nice and easy; let's not attract any
attention."
They slipped out of camp and headed into the jungle.
Karrde's hunch was right: almost immediately the rigged comm-relay
found a signal, coming from the direction of the Morodin kill.
Following the slime trail again, they soon reached what was left of the
carcass, already busy with scavengers.
"There it is," Tapper said, pointing to a group of bushes a few meters
away. "It's a transpond marker, all right. And right by one of the
slime trails again."
"Yes," Karrde said, kneeling down for a closer look.
The ground at the edge of the slime had been freshly turned, he saw.
Almost as if something had been planted there . . .
He looked up sharply, catching Tapper's eye. The other nodded: he'd
heard the faint crunching noise, too.
"Coming from the camp," he murmured.
The sound came again. "Let's take the long way," Karrde murmured back,
pointing to the section of slime trail Tarnish and Cob-caree had
arrived along earlier. Explaining to Falmal or his cohorts why he was
carrying a melodium on a walk through the jungle could get awkward.
Especially if they found the gimmicked comm-relay inside it.
They heard the crunching sound once more as they left
the site, but after that it seemed to fade behind them.
Which was just as well. No more than fifteen meters into the jungle,
the slime trail broke off; and when it reappeared three meters farther
away, it had suddenly sprouted three more branches. "Uh-oh," Tapper
muttered.
"Which way?"
"I'm not sure," Karrde said, glancing behind them.
The thought of a whole herd of Morodins prowling around was not an
especially pleasant one. "Let's try this one," he said, pointing to
the rightmost of the two trails.
"We'll mark one of these trees first so we can backtrack if we have
to."
Tapper was staring off into the jungle. "Let's try going a little
farther in first," he suggested slowly. "We can always come back."
Karrde frowned at him. "Something?"
"A hunch," Tapper said. "Just a hunch."
Karrde pursed his lips. "How far in do you want to go?"
"About three hundred meters," Tapper said. "I remember a ridge in that
direction on the map that overlooks a sort of wide depression in the
ground."
Karrde grimaced. Three hundred meters into an unfamiliar jungle was
nothing to be taken lightly. But on the other hand, Tapper's
infrequent hunches were nearly always worth following up. "All right,"
he said. "But no farther than the ridge. And we head back sooner if
our trail ends."
"Agreed. Let's go."
The slime trail split again a few meters along, and twice more made one
of those short, three-meter breaks with new branches going off in
different directions when it resumed. For a while Karrde tried to keep
track of the number of lines, hoping to figure out how many animals
they were dealing with here. But he soon gave up the effort.
If the Morodins decided to get nasty, the difference between six and
sixty of them would be largely academic.
"There's the ridge," Tapper said, pointing ahead at a
last line of trees that seemed to open onto blue sky. "Let's take a look."
They stepped forward and between the trees. There, stretched out
perhaps 100 meters below them, was the wide valley-like depression
Tapper had described.
And gathered together at one side of it were upwards of fifty
Morodins.
"We've found the crowd, all right," Karrde muttered uneasily. The
slope down from their ridge into the valley was mildly steep, but he
doubted it would bother something with the size and musculature of a
Morodin. In fact he knew it wouldn't; the slime trail they were
following rounded the ridge and continued down without a break.
"Don't look at the Morodins," Tapper said. "Look at the slime
trails."
"What about them?"
"Look at them," Tapper urged. "Tell me you see it, tOO."
Karrde frowned, wondering what he was getting at. The whole depression
was full of the lines, that was for sure, clearly visible between the
trees and over the trampled bushes. Lots of lines, showing the same
bends and branches as the ones they'd encountered up here . .
.
And then, abruptly, he got it. "I don't believe it," he breathed.
"I didn't either," Tapper said. "Look--one of them's trying it."
One of the Morodins had detached himself from the group and into the
three-meter channel between two of the trails. Waddling quickly on
those short legs, it moved to the first bend and turned to the left.
Into the first section of the elaborately constructed maze.
"Let's get back," Karrde said, shaking his head in disbelief.
"I have a feeling we don't want Gamgalon's people finding us here."
"Too late," a soft voice said.
Carefully, Karrde looked over his shoulder. Two meters
behind him
stood Faimal and two of the Krish pilots, all three with blaster rifles
at the ready. Behind them stood a fourth Krish, gazing thoughtfully at
him. "Indeed," Karrde said, lowering the muzzle of his own rifle and
turning around to face them. "Well. At least we shouldn't have any
trouble finding the way back to camp."
"Whether we return to camp directly has yet to be decided," the fourth
Krish said in that same soft voice. "Put your weapons down, please.
And tell me what you are doing here."
"We were looking for Morodins," Karrde said as he and Tapper lowered
their blaster rifles to the ground. "In the process we stumbled on the
fact that they're more than just simple animals." He cocked an
eyebrow.
"They're fully sentient beings, aren't they, Gamgalon?"
The Krish smiled. "Very good," he said. "On both counts. You know my
name; what is yours?"
Under the circumstances, there didn't seem to be much point in
continuing the masquerade. "Talon Karrde," Karrde identified
himself.
"This is my associate, Quelev Tapper."
Falmal hissed. "Was it not as I said, my liege?" he snarled.
"Smugglers. And spies."
"So it would appear," Gamgalon said. "Why are you here, Talon
Karrde?"
"Curiosity," Karrde said. "I've heard stories about these safaris of
yours. I wanted to find out what was going on."
"And have you?"
"You're hunting sentient beings," Karrde said. "In violation of
Imperial law. Even in these days, I imagine what's left of the Empire
would deal rather harshly with you if they knew that."
Gamgalon smiled again. "You imagine wrongly. As it happens, the
Imperial governor in charge of Varonat is fully aware of what is
happening here. His portion of the earnings are quite adequate to
insure that there are no such questions about the hunts."
Karrde frowned. "Surely you're not bribing an Imperial governor with
scraps from safari tickets."
"Indeed not," Gamgalon said. "But as the safaris provide ideal cover
for our planting and harvesting operations, it is in his best interests
to allow them to continue."
"You're not bribing him with aleudrupe berries, either," Tapper put
in.
"You can buy those things on the open market for thirty or forty a
packload."
"Ah-but not these aleudrupe berries," Gamgalon said smugly. "This
particular crop is grown in soil saturated with Morodin slime . . .
and during their' growth, these berries undergo an extremely
interesting chemical change."
"Such as?"
Falmal hissed again. "My liege--?"
"Do not worry," Gamgalon soothed him. "Consider, Talon Karrde, a
merchant ship carrying three cargoes to a politically tense world:
rethan-K, promhassic triaxli, and aleudrupe berries. All harmless, all
legal, none worth so much as a raised voice from either Imperial
customs or officials of the New Republic. The ship is sent on its way
to the surface, where it is greeted enthusiastically by its
customers.
"Who, a scant hour later, will be launching an attack on their
political or military enemies. With weapons utilizing a blaster
formulation fully as powerful as spin-sealed Tibanna gas."
Karrde stared at him, a hard lump forming in his stomach.
"The berries are a catalyst?"
"Excellent," Gamgalon said approvingly. "Falmal was right--you are
indeed clever enough to be dangerous. To be precise, it is the pits of
the berries that create this new gas from the rethan and promhassic.
The fruit itself is perfectly normal, and can stand up to any chemical
test."
"And the safaris mask both the planting and the harvesting," Karrde
nodded. "With the transpond markers there to help you find the crops
again after you've
planted them. All the profits of weapons
smuggling, with none of the risks."
"You understand," Gamgalon beamed. "And thus you must also understand
why we can't allow any hint of this to leak out."
He gestured, and one of the Krish pilots stepped forward, bending
awkwardly down to pick up the blaster rifles Karrde and Tapper had
dropped. "Certainly I understand," Karrde said. "Perhaps we could
discuss an arrangement?
My organization--" "There will be no discussion," Gamgalon said.
"And my arrangements are my own. This way, please." The pilot
straightened up, gestured to the side with Karrde's rifle-And suddenly
Tapper's hands snapped out, plucking the rifle from the pilot's hands
and jabbing the muzzle hard into the Krish's torso. Diving into the
cover of the nearest tree, he swung the' rifle back toward Falmal and
Gamgalon-And dropped spinning to the ground as a pair of blaster bolts
slashed through him from down the ridge to his right. A single
shuddering gasp, and he lay still.
"I trust, Talon Karrde," Gamgalon said into the brittle silence, "that
you will not be so foolish as to similarly resist."
Karrde lifted his eyes from Tapper's crumpled figure, to see the third
Krish pilot step out of concealment along the ridge, his rifle steady
on Karrde's chest. "Why shouldn't I?" he demanded, his voice sounding
ugly in his ears. "You're going to kill me anyway, aren't you?"
"Do you choose to die here?" Gamgalon countered.
"This way, please."
Karrde took a deep breath. Tapper dead; Karrde himself unarmed and
alone. Completely alone--even the Morodins down below had vanished,
apparently scattering at the sound of the blaster fire.
But, no, he didn't wish to die here. Not when there was any chance at
all that he could live long enough to avenge
Tapper's death.
"All right," he sighed. Two of the pilots stepped forward and took his
arms, and together they all set off.
Karrde hadn't expected them to take him back to the encampment, and
they didn't. From the direction Falmal was leading them, it looked
like they were heading toward one of the other clearings they'd passed
just before setting up camp. Undoubtedly where Gamgalon's airspeeder
was waiting. "What sort of distribution setup do you have?" he
asked.
"I have no need of assistance," Gamgalon said, looking back over his
shoulder. "As I have said already."
"My organization could still be useful to you," Karrde pointed out.
"We have contact people all over the--" "You will be silent," Gamgalon
cut him off.
"Gamgalon, listen--" And from behind him came a deep, rumbling growl.
A growl that was echoed an instant later from both sides.
The group came to a sudden halt. "Falmal?" Gam-galon snapped.
"What is this? Why are there Morodins here?"
"I do not know," Falmal said, an uneasiness in his voice. "This is not
at all like them."
The growls came again, from what seemed to be the same positions.
"Maybe they've finally gotten tired of being the prey," Karrde said,
looking around. "Maybe they've decided to hold a safari of their
own."
"Nonsense," Falmal bit out. But he was looking around, too. And he
was starting to tremble. "My liege, I suggest we move on.
Quickly."
<
br /> The roars came again. "Falmal, take the prisoner," Gamgalon ordered,
his voice suddenly grim as he pulled a blaster from beneath his
tunic.
"You others: to the sides and rear. Shoot anything you see."
Warily, the three pilots spread out into the jungle, blaster rifles
held high. Falmal stepped to Karrde's side, closed a tense hand around
his arm. "Quickly," he hissed.
Gamgalon stepped to Karrde's other side, and together the three of
them hurried forward. Ahead, through the trees, Karrde could see the
glinting of sunlight from an airspeeder. Another chorus of Morodin
roars came, all from behind them this time. They reached the last line
of trees, stepping into the clearing-And with a gasping sigh Falmal
suddenly released Karrde's arm and stumbled to sprawl on the ground, a
knife hilt protruding from his side. Gamgalon snarled and spun around,
his blaster searching for a target.
Tales From The Empire Page 5