"Sit down," Dilullo said. "We're trying to decide how to tackle this thing."
"And so of course we need the advice of our newest Merc," said Bollard.
Dilullo told him, "Chane was the one who spotted that code-signal and the only one who knows which building it is. He ought to hear this."
Bollard shrugged, but shut up.
Dilullo told Chane, "We figure that Randall Ashton, or at least some of his party, are prisoners in that building. They saw an Earth-type ship land—you can't mistake our ships with their eyebrow bridges—and they tried to tell us they were there. If Ashton's in there, we've got to get him out. If he's not there, someone is there who should know where Ashton is."
Chane nodded.
Kimmel broke in, saying quickly, "And of course we can't risk landing the ship there again. They'll be expecting that; they'll be all set for us and they'll hit our ship with everything they've got."
He closed his eyes, as though the wrecking of his beloved vessel was too horrible to contemplate.
"So," Dilullo patiently continued, "we're not going to land the ship on Arkuu. We'll swing over and drop the skitter-flier well outside the city, by night. In the flier will be a small party of us. We'll try to get the Ashtbn people in that building out of there. If we do, we'll call the ship to come back and pick us up outside the city."
Chane nodded again but said nothing. He was not being asked his opinion of the plan, and did not venture to give it.
"I'll lead the landing party," Dilullo told him. "I think Bollard and Milner and Janssen too ... and you, Chane."
"Of course," said Bollard. "How could we leave out the heroic Chane—the man who nearly got us scragged on Kharali by his playfulness, the man who on Vhol was off boating with a pretty girl while we sat and sweated it out under the gun ..."
"... and also," Dilullo added, "the man who can identify the building we have to reach."
"Oh, all right," said Bollard. "But don't you think our party will be a mite small? Five men, to invade a planet?"
"Fifty would be no better, if they caught us," Dilullo said. "The flier won't carry too many, remember, and we may be bringing back four people with us."
He stood up. "Milner, I want you to help check out the weapons we'll take with us."
Twenty-four Earth hours later, the Merc ship came back to Arkuu. Dilullo had picked a time when the capital city was on the dark side of the planet. But the ship went downward a hundred miles away from the city.
Dilullo went over their maps with Kimmel, marking down a spot for emergency rendezvous in case they could not get a call through. Then he went down to the hold, where the others were ready in their places in the flier.
Janssen, the sandy-haired, stocky Merc who was the best man with a flier, sat at the controls, and Dilullo, Bollard, Chane, and Milner in the sketchy bucket-seats.
They could see nothing, here in the dark hold. It was up to Mattock, in the bridge of the ship, to pick the place and the altitude for the drop. They could hear the hold bulkheads closing.
Then the big ejection-port in the side of the hold slid open. They got just a glimpse, over Janssen's broad shoulders, of a vista of jungle below, lighted by one of the two moons of Arkuu.
"Now," said Mattock's voice from the intercom.
Janssen's hand slammed down on the ejection button. The flier shot out through the port like a bullet.
Its wings and rotors unfolded automatically as it went out. They bit into the atmosphere, finding it roiled and bumpy from the wake of the ship. Janssen steadied the flier gently and swung it around, only a few thousand feet above the jungle.
"Luck, John," said Kimmel's voice from the communicator.
Janssen set a course and the skitter-flier leaped fast. It went high over the jungle like a humming shadow. It had been especially designed for jobs like this one; it had VTO and a motor so near noiseless as to make no difference.
In less than an hour they glimpsed the lights of the city. There were not many; it was late at night here, the way Dilullo had planned it.
"Get over the east side of that spaceport and then take her down," he told Janssen. And to Chane, "Take the scope. Talk Janssen in to the roof of that building you caught the signal from."
Chane watched through the scope as the flier dropped vertically downward. He finally identified the building, which had a few lighted windows.
He gave Janssen direction. After a moment he added, "There's something else. A man seems to be standing guard on the roof."
"Ah, the bastards," said Bollard. "They must have got suspicious we'd come back."
"Could be the guard is a regular thing," Dilullo said curtly. "Anyway, we have to get him before we go down farther. Hold it, Janssen. Milner, use the heavy duty stunner hooked to the scope. Non-lethal."
Milner gave him a wizened grin and came forward, hauling the weapon that looked like an old-fashioned bazooka. He set it into place on the mount atop the scope in the firing-port, and with quick efficiency clicked the synchronizing links into place. Then he opened the port.
Janssen had slowed their descent. Milner peered through the scope, the white of his one eye visible. He made adjustment of its positioning-wheels, squinted again, then pressed the trigger.
The stunner droned. Milner cut it, then raised his head and gave them another pleased, toothy grin.
"He's out."
"All right, Janssen," said Dilullo. "Go on down."
The flier landed on the roof, quiet as an over-sized dragonfly.
Dilullo cracked the cabin door and all of them but Janssen went out of it fast, Milner toting along the heavy-duty stunner.
Dilullo's voice, low but forceful, drove them. The building had several stories, and he split them up, each to search through one of its levels.
They ran down stone stairways, feebly illuminated by occasional glowing bulbs in the walls. Chane had the second highest level; he left the stairway and went down a long, poorly-lit corridor, his stunner in his hand.
The marble blocks of the walls had been beautiful once, but they were cracked and grimed with age. This whole world had an antique, battered look, Chane thought. He wondered again what there could be about it that had made the Varnans, who were afraid of nothing, forbid their raiders coming here.
He opened doors along corridors. Nothing. Dark, musty rooms with nothing in them.
Then he found a door that was locked. As he tried it, he thought that he heard movement inside.
Chane drew a pocket atoflash out, with his left hand. Keeping the stunner ready in his right, he used the flash to cut out the lock.
The door swung open and a girl looked at him from the lighted room beyond.
VII
This girl was no little slip of a thing. She was nearly as tall as Helmer had been, and had the same kind of pale-gold skin and yellow hair. She too wore a belted jerkin, of silken white material, and she had magnificent arms and legs that the garment showed to full advantage.
Her gray-green eyes stared into Chane's, in complete astonishment. She opened her mouth, and he thought that she was going to shout. He was too close to her to use the stunner without getting a backlash from it. He dropped the atoflash and grabbed her, putting his hand over her mouth.
And he got the surprise of his life. This young woman, for all her delectable curves, was stronger than anything feminine he had met since he left Varna. She nearly threw him headlong before he managed to clamp down a tighter grip on her.
Bollard came loping into the corridor from the stair. In danger, he was quite unlike the fat, sloppy Bollard of relaxed moments. His face was drawn tight and the stunner in his hand was ready.
He saw Chane grappling with the tall Arkuun girl; he lowered his weapon a little and stood staring, in wonder and admiration.
"By God, Chane, I have to hand it to you," he said.
"You do find fun wherever you go. I hear something up here and come running to save you, and I find you wrestling with a big beautiful blonde."
"Get John," said Chane. "She was locked up here; there may be others."
He relaxed his grip a little as he spoke. Next moment he was sorry. The Arkuun girl got her teeth around one of his fingers and bit it to the bone.
Chane did not take his hand off her mouth. He swung her around a little, looking into her blazing eyes, and smiled at her.
"I do like a girl with spirit," he said. Then he drew his hand back and cracked her across the point of the chin.
He only used the flat of his hand but he put some of his Starwolf strength into it. The girl's head jerked back and she went out cold.
Chane lowered her to the floor, where she sat with her back against the wall, looking like a discarded doll. As an afterthought, Chane bent down and crossed the long, beautiful legs at the ankles, and put her hands together in her lap. He looked down at her admiringly, as he sucked his bitten finger.
"Isn't she something?" he said.
Dilullo came hurrying into the corridor, with Milner behind him.
"Two guards down at the entrance ... we stunned them," he said.' 'Nothing else. What have you got here?''
Chane told him. Dilullo went along the further doors. There was one other door that was locked.
When Dilullo tried it, they heard an excited voice inside, and then a hammering of hands on the door.
"Stand back," said Dilullo.
With the atoflash, he cut the door open.
A young Earthman with stiffly-upstanding black hair and a high-cheekboned Spanish-Indian face came out. His eyes were wild with excitement.
"You're the Earthmen from that ship?" he cried. "I saw it ... ! I tried to signal ..."
"Hold on," said Dilullo. "You're one of Ashton's party?"
"Martin Garcia. It's been weeks ... months ..."
Dilullo interrupted. "Where are the others?"
"Caird's dead," said Garcia, making an effort to calm down. "Died here more than a week ago. Killed? No, he wasn't killed. He caught a bug, seemed to get weaker and weaker. I stayed with him when Ashton and McGoun and the others left."
"Where's Randall Ashton now?" demanded Dilullo.
Garcia spread his hands. "My God, I don't know. He and McGoun got away with the ship and crew, weeks ago. They thought they could find the Free-Faring. The Arkuuns here had forbidden us to look for it, but they went anyway. The Open-Worlders helped them get their ship away. I stayed because Caird looked so bad."
"John, there's no time now for life stories," said Bollard. "If Ashton isn't here, let's go, and get the facts out of this chap later on."
Garcia had caught sight of the girl sitting with her hands in her lap further along the corridor.
"Vreya ... did you kill her?" he exclaimed.
"She's only unconscious," said Bollard. "Who is she, anyway?"
"She was one of the Open-Worlders who helped Ashton get away," said Garcia. "She can talk galacto, and they used her as a secret contact. But Helmer's men caught her and locked her up here like me."
"Would she know where Randall Ashton and the others have gone?" demanded Dilullo.
"I don't know," said Garcia. "I think so."
"We'll take her along with us," Dilullo said decisively. "Now out of here on the double!"
Chane picked up the unconscious girl effortlessly, and they hurried back to the roof. When Janssen, in the flier, saw the long golden legs dangling from Chane's arms, he uttered a low whistle of appreciation.
"Well, you found something, anyway."
"Save the humor," said Dilullo. "Get us out of here—back the way we came. And move!"
The flier went up and away from there, and started arrowing back out across the moonlit jungle. Garcia, in a bucketseat beside Dilullo, talked rapidly but not incoherently. He had got over his first excitement.
"We were there for nearly two months, the four of us," he said. "In Yarr, the city back there. Randall kept trying to find out from the Arkuuns about the Free-Faring, but their officials wouldn't tell us a thing and kept demanding that we leave. Then the Open-Worlders made secret contact with Randall."
Garcia went on. "The Open-Worlders are Arkuuns who dissent from the rule of keeping the Closed Worlds closed. They want to open the system to interstellar trade. She's one of them."
He nodded toward the girl Vreya. Chane had dropped her into a seat and buckled its strap across her, but she was still unconscious.
"Why would these dissidents want to help Ashton get away to find this—what did you call it?—the Free-Faring? I take it that's the mysterious thing he was after."
"Yes." Garcia shrugged. "They said it was because they wanted him to bring them weapons later on, for a coup. They'd help him find the Free-Faring if he'd promise the weapons."
Bollard grunted, but made no comment. Garcia added, "Anyway, they helped Ashton and Sattargh and McGoun and the crew make a break for the ship and get away. One of them went along, but Vreya, was caught. Caird was sick, dying, so I wouldn't go."
Dilullo made a sound of disgust. "So Randall Ashton not only had to come to the Closed Worlds to chase his interstellar wild goose, he had to get mixed up in local politics and intrigues as well."
He looked sourly at the girl. "Wake her up, Chane."
"With pleasure," said Chane.
He kneaded the nerve centers in the back of the girl's neck until her eyes fluttered open. She looked around the plane, and then looked back at him with a flaming stare.
"You're really too big a girl to bite," he said.
Garcia spoke to her earnestly in galacto. "Vreya, these are friends. They come from Earth looking for Randall Ashton."
Vreya's cool gray-green eyes measured them. Then she asked, "Did you bring a big force of ships?"
Dilullo shook his head. "One small ship. A couple of dozen men."
The Arkuun girl looked disappointed. "What can you expect to accomplish with no more force than that?"
"We didn't come here to interfere in Arkuun politics," said Dilullo pointedly. "We just came to get a few men and take them back to Earth."
Chane, watching the girl's profile, guessed that she was thinking rapidly, trying to evaluate this new factor in the situation. She was, he thought, no fool. With that magnificent body and all that strength she didn't really need a keen mind, but he thought she had one.
Dilullo interrupted her thinking. "Where's Randall Ashton?"
She shook her bright head. "I don't know."
"Why don't you know? You were one of the Arkuun party who got Ashton and the others out of Yarr. Your party helped him to escape so he could find this thing, this ..."
"Free-Faring," said Garcia.
"You must know where he was going, to find this thing," said Dilullo.
"But I don't," said Vreya. "The Free-Faring has been lost, hidden, for a long time. One of the men with Ashton, the man named McGoun, thought he knew where it could be found. We helped him escape, but I was caught."
Dilullo stared at her. "What is this thing he's looking for, anyway—this Free-Faring?"
Vreya remained silent, but a light came briefly into her eyes and then was gone. Dilullo turned to Garcia. "You must know— you came all the way out here to the Closed Worlds to look for it."
Garcia looked uncomfortable. "Ashton didn't tell us all that McGoun told him. Of course, it's been a legend for a long time but the stories are contradictory."
"Come off it," said Dilullo. "You must know something of what the thing is supposed to be."
Garcia got a dogged look on his face. "It's supposed to be something by which a man can go anywhere in the universe in a minute."
They stared, and then Chane uttered a low laugh. "Just like that?" he said. "Convenient."
"For God's sake!" cried Dilullo. "You mean you followed Ashton all the way to Allubane for a myth as crazy as that?"
Vreya spoke, her face flushed, her eyes bright. "It is no myth." This time she did not try to conceal the intensity of her interest. "It existed. It may still exist."
Dilu
llo could only shake his head. Janssen spoke from the control-chair of the flier, turning his head toward them.
"I'd just like to remind you, John, that it'll soon be daylight and that the Arkuuns have fliers and will be looking for us."
Dilullo frowned. Then he said, "No use calling the ship back till we find Ashton or some clear lead to him. We'll set down for a while."
"Set down?" exclaimed Janssen. He motioned toward the dense jungle underneath them, brightly illumined now that the second moon had climbed into the sky. "There isn't an opening in that stuff big enough for a fly to set down!"
"We passed over some ruined cities," Dilullo said. "Set down in one of those."
Janssen grunted, and changed the course of the flier. Vreya had not understood their English, but when she saw the white gleam of ruins far ahead, she understood.
"I have to warn you," she said in galacto, "that there are highly dangerous life-forms in the jungles."
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Dilullo, looking down distastefully at the moonlit expanse. "Nevertheless, we have to hole up somewhere and camouflage the flier and wait till the search for us dies down."
"And then what?" asked Bollard.
Dilullo shrugged. "Why, then we go ahead and do the job we were hired for ... we look for Randall Ashton."
"You always make it sound so simple, John," said Bollard.
"That's because it is," said Dilullo sourly. "Danger and sudden death are always simple things. Take her down, Janssen."
VIII
Chane walked amid shifting, ever-changing shadows as he went through the towering ruins. The two moons were both up, and they struck down a glow of tarnished silver light that made the white walls and buttresses and statues as unreal as a dream. The soft light was kind to the ruins, and it was not too apparent where a roof had fallen in or a wall had collapsed.
The breeze was warm and sluggish, and heavy with the dry-rot smell of the jungle. There were little sounds of small animals and birds that lived in the ruins, but nothing else. Under his feet the stone blocks were here and there thrust askew by roots, but the old builders had worked well and the streets were still streets.
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