by Andre Norton
Kana's hopeful outlook continued to grow as he climbed the pass, and it colored the report he was able to make to Hansu before noon.
"They gave you no idea as to when they would let us know their decision?" The Blademaster pinned him down.
"No, sir. They were stripping the Landing, withdrawing to their sea strongholds. Seemed to think that they could outsit the trouble—"
"I have yet to see a neutral win anything—especially when the enemy wants something he has. But we can't quarrel with even half luck—we'll settle for the use of their port buildings now."
When the van of the Horde reached the outer guard post they found it deserted, the building empty, the sentry and the wedge car gone. And as they marched on down to the Landing nothing moved in the narrow lanes between the warehouses. The turtle ships had vanished—a last conning tower slicing the waves could just be seen far out on the bay. But not a Ventur, not a scrap of their goods was left in the silent and empty port.
Hansu posted sentries, though he allowed that the sturdiness of the thick walls would be ample protection against the most that even a Mech force could throw against them. The Blademaster took up quarters in the house backing upon the sea where Kana had met with the Venturi leaders. The apparatus was gone from the wall of the room, leaving holes and dangling brackets, but the small tables were still bolted to the floor and a seat pad had been left behind.
For the first time since they had left Tharc the Combatants were under roofs. And none too soon, for the rising wind of the night brought with it the banners of a storm.
The thick walls kept out most of the howl of the wind. But one could lay a hand against their surfaces and feel the vibration of such tempests as the Terrans had not known before. They need fear no attack while this held.
Curiosity led them to explore their new quarters, finding a few discarded articles, the use of half of which they could not deduce. Kana, with Mic and Rey, armed with Terran night torches, dared a trap door they discovered in a far hallway and descended a steep flight of steps whose risers had not been fashioned for off-world feet. They ended in a cellar, half natural sea cave, in which a water-filled slip ran part way up, slopping back and forth with the force of the wind-driven sea without.
Flicking his light across the water Kana sighted a line fastened inconspicuously to a hook embedded in the floor, pulled taut below the surface. Something heavy must be tethered there!
He gave it a questioning tug. There was an object on the other end all right. The three of them dragged it together, bracing their feet and trying to free what lay below with a series of sharp jerks. Seconds later they pulled up the slimy incline a strange craft. It was rounded, contained, like the turtle ships—more so, for it lacked the conning tower.
"A bomb?" ventured Mic.
"No, not when it's anchored that way." Kana moved around the end. "One man escape ship maybe."
"They went off and forgot it—?"
"No," Kana denied again. "It was hidden—so I'd say we still have a visitor."
"Left behind to watch us—" Mic's eyes roved about the rough walls. "Perhaps he's to set some traps, too."
"I don't think that the Venturi have the trap-type mind," Kana defended the traders. "I'd say we were left an observer—maybe even a contact with Po'ult, if we handle it right. However, perhaps it would be better if we kept a watch on this." He kicked the ship with the toe of his boot. Whoever traveled in that would have cramped quarters indeed. A Terran could not fit in it at all, not even when flat and unmoving.
They reported the find to Hansu and the ship was transported to an upper hall. A searching exploration was made of all the Landing buildings without any concrete results.
The storm had not blown out by morning. Instead it increased and it became almost impossible, because of the wind and driven spray, to win from one building to another. But this would continue to keep off attack—which almost balanced the Arch disappointment at being unable to search for the space port Hansu was sure must be close at hand.
Kosti examined the escape ship with care and solved the riddle of its opening, displaying to his crowding comrades the narrow padded slit within, which would cradle the body of the navigator.
"What kinda man would fit in there?" demanded Sim.
"Perhaps not a `man' at all," Kosti returned.
"Huh?"
"Well, none of us have seen a Venturi without one of those muffling robes. How do we know if they are like the Llor—or us? This could be comfortable for a non-human."
Kana eyed the slit speculatively. It was too narrow for the length if it were fashioned to accommodate a humanoid. It suggested an extremely thin, sinuous creature. He did not feel any prick of man's age-old distaste for the reptilian—any reminder of the barrier between warm-blooded and cold-blooded life which had once held on his home world. Racial mixtures after planet-wide wars, mutant births after the nuclear conflicts, had broken down the old intolerance against the "different." And out in space thousands of intelligent life forms, encased in almost as many shapes and bodies, had given "shape prejudice" its final blow. The furred Llor and Cos were "man"-shaped, but it might be that they shared Fronn with another race, evolved from scaled clans.
Why not snake or lizard? There were races whose far ancestors had been feline, and others who had, dim ages ago, sacrificed the wings of birds to develop intelligence and civilization—and yet the Yabanu and the Trystian were now equal partners in the space lanes. As for reptiles—what of the lizard Zacathans, whose superior learning had confounded half the universe and yet who were a most peace-loving and law-abiding collection of scholars?
Kana, remembering the Zacathans he had known and admired, viewed that padded cushion with no aversion, only curiosity. What did it matter if a body was covered with wool, or with scales, or with soft flesh which had to be protected by clothing? The Venturi he had met had not been in any way terrifying or obnoxious creatures—once one became used to their constant concealment of their faces and forms. Now he wanted to know what they were really like—and why they shrouded themselves so carefully.
But the owner of the escape ship, if he were concealed somewhere within the Landing, made no move to declare his presence. And the storm continued. On the morning of the second day Hansu fought his way across a short strip of court to a nearby building and returned, being once hurled against a wall with a force which almost lost him his footing. Kana, waiting, grabbed for the Blademaster's coat and dragged him inside. The commander gasped painfully before he could speak.
"We can't face this. It is the West Wind Drive!"
Kana recalled the record-pak. The West Wind Drive, that paralyzing push of Fronn's terrible windy season when all life went to cover and death itself rode the blasts. There would be no hope of surviving even a short journey in the open. Anything caught outside the shelter of the Landing would be whirled off and battered flat. Their luck had held—bringing them out of the mountains behind the strong walls of the port just in time.
"No spacer would try to land now," Kana pointed out. "They would be warned."
Hansu nodded. But it was plain that his inability to do something about the situation was an added irritant.
"I wish I could meet the Ventur." He gazed down the hall as if he could summon the hidden one out by the force of his will. "We must be ready to move the minute this clears."
Their future was still a race for time. If the Blademaster could get a messenger aboard a spacer before Hart Device located them and brought up his wings—they would win. And—did the Venturi hold the deciding cards in this game?
12 — ON TO PO'ULT
The inactivity caused by the storms began to bore the Combatants. At first they had been content to sleep much of the time, rebuilding the stores of energy worn out by the trek across the mountains. But now they roamed restlessly through the buildings, making reckless sorties from one to another during what they believed were lulls, or allowing their irritation to show in sudden snarling quarrels. B
ut Hansu was prepared to meet this. There were drills in unarmed combat and scouting as well as follow-the-leader hunts in which a handful of veterans hid and the younger members of the teams traced them in silent pursuit.
Since the storm established a perpetual gray dusk one could no longer distinguish day from night. It might have been noon or well into evening when Kana climbed one of the perilously steep flights of narrow stairs to almost roof level of a warehouse. His eyes had long since adjusted to the pallid green light given off by the walls and he moved softly, intent upon reaching the small platform just under the curve of the domed roof. From there he would be able to see into the large storage space which occupied the center section of the building. He was a hound and Sim was hare today. It had become a matter of pride for the recruit to locate this one veteran, even if he must devote every moment until the sleep period to the problem.
As Kana climbed, the light faded. He put out a hand to touch the steps as a guide. But he was still at least three from the top when he stopped and shrank against the wall. He sensed that he was not alone.
From below he had estimated that the platform was about five feet square. There was a trap door above it which must give upon the roof—and in this wind nothing could perch outside for an instant. The roof!
Kana's shoulder rubbed the wall as he forced his memory to reconstruct the outline of this warehouse building as he had seen it from the headquarters two hours before. It was like all the rest, a rounded dome which offered small resistance to the wind. The roof—
He took the remaining steps cautiously. Then he stretched to his full height, raising his arms above his head until his fingers were on the surface above him. But what he expected he did not find.
Twice during these scout games he had climbed to these vantage points in warehouses and both times he had discovered that the roof vibrated faintly, a trembling born of the blasts beating across it. But here it was quiet, as if insulated against the outer world. And he still believed that he was not alone.
With his finger tips he explored the ceiling, locating the small trap door which should give on the roof. As his hands fingered its hinges he realized that here was a difference. There was no fastening on this side. The latch which kept the door from swinging down must be on the other side!
Kana slipped his torch from his belt and snapped it on at the lowest power, no longer caring if Sim sighted him. The platform was covered by that gritty dust which constantly sifted through the air during the storms. His boots had left plain tracks in it. But there were other marks too, though these were shapeless scuffs which could not have been left by a Terran unless he had purposely tried to conceal his spoor. And directly under the trap door were other marks he could not identify.
He beamed the torch up at the door. It was firmly set; he could hardly see the lines marking the square. The two hinges glistened. Kana investigated delicately. Grease—some sort of grease so recently applied that it was liquid instead of viscid and its strange odor was sharp as he brought his smeared finger to his nose. Someone was using this door. But to go outside—that was impossible!
Kana aimed the beam at the ceiling, beginning his examination farther out than the platform. After a careful study he was certain that there was a space overhead between the ceiling he saw and the outer dome of the building. The curve was curtailed, the angle between the side wall and the dome sharper than it should be. But what a perfect hiding place! No Terran would attempt to explore the roofs in the storm. He was prepared to take Knife-Oath that he had discovered the hiding place of the Venturi spy! Hansu need only station a guard here and—
A whisper of sound, so faint it barely reached his ears, made him snap off the torch and back against the wall to the left of the stairs. Some of the green radiance seeped up, but the light was so faint he could not really see. He must depend upon his ears—his nose.
For now he was aware of an odor. Below, where the bales of trade goods had once been stored, smells fought with one another and the general aroma was often sickening to a Terran. But this was different, faintly spicy and fresh—transporting him for an instant to the gambling establishment on Secundus. There was nothing unpleasant about it and it was growing stronger.
Next came a soft plop and Kana froze, hardly daring to breathe. Something, his ears told him, had fallen from the trap door to the platform. He swung his torch before him as if it were a flamer.
Other sounds reached him—movements he was not sure of.
He pressed the stud of the torch, setting the power at full. And it flashed on, pinning in its thick beam the creature who had just stepped from the last loop in a rope ladder to the floor. It made one grab for the rope and then froze, erect and quiet, accepting the fact that escape was now impossible.
The cushioned bed in the escape ship had been a clue right enough, but reality out-stripped imagination. If this were a Ventur—and Kana had no reason to doubt that—the second major race of Fronn had little or nothing in common with the Llor physically.
Its extreme slenderness gave it the appearance of greater height than it really possessed, for it was shorter than he. Its arms fitted to the barrel of the trunk without any width of shoulder and the pouchy neck was only a shade under the girth of the chest. The legs were long and as thin as a gu's ending in flat, webbed feet, and there were two sets of upper limbs, all equipped with six-fingered hands.
But the head was the least humanoid, four eyes set in pairs on either side, a wide mouth which now gaped in surprise, no visible chin—Kana started as with horror he realized where he had seen the like before—in miniature. This was a tif—a tif turned land dweller with only its size and greater brain case to distinguish it from the ferocious hunters of the river.
As Kana remembered the tif he knew the cold chill of fear—until he met those eyes blinking in the torture of his light The black beads of hate, promising all manner of evil to come, which had watched him from the stream were not here. These larger orbs were golden, intelligent, mildly peaceful. And the Arch guessed that the Ventur was as alarmed as he—tif the other might look, but tif in nature he was not.
None of those four hands had gone to the knife which was sheathed on the Ventur's hip. A shiver crossed the green-gray skin beneath the scanty tunic which covered it to mid-thigh. Abruptly Kana switched off the torch.
And then it was his turn to blink as a green beam, far under the power of his own, struck him, flitting from head to boots and back again.
"One only?" The question out of the dark did not sound as if it had come from between those wide loose lips, out of the wattled throat.
"Just one."
The light went to his hands and then to his sword-knife at his belt. It centered there for a moment as if the Ventur was studying the weapon—as if that undrawn blade answered some private question for the other.
"You will come?" The green light pinpointed the dangling ladder.
Kana did not hesitate. He thrust his own torch back in its loop and stepped forward.
He made the short climb up the rope and wedged his shoulders through the trap door. It was a tight fit. Above was a pocket-sized room. A spongy pad covered a third of the space and he sat down on one end of it as his host emerged from the floor and made some adjustment which brought more light from the walls. There was, in addition to the pad, a flat box and a neat pile of containers. By the end of the cushion was a small brazier emitting coils of spicy, scented smoke. The quarters might be cramped, but the hidy-hole was provided with Venturi comforts. And now the frog-man seated himself on the other end of the pad, pushing aside his folded robe.
"You have watched us?" Kana asked.
"I have watched you." The ungainly head, its four golden eyes fixed on the Terran, gave a twitch of agreement.
"For the Masters-of-Trade?"
"For the nation," the other corrected swiftly. "You are traders in death. Such bargains may be evil—"
"You are a speaker-for-many?"
"I train to be a spea
ker-for-many. I am but one of limited years and small wisdom. You are a lord over many swords?"
It was Kana's turn to deny honors. "I, too, am but a learner of this trade. This is my first battle journey."
"Tell me, why do you creep through these buildings spying upon one another?" the Ventur asked, a note of real puzzlement in his voice.
"We train ourselves—that we may come upon the enemy secretly. It is a practice of our art."
The four eyes continued to regard him unblinkingly. "And the Llor is now this enemy you would creep upon unseen. But why—did not the Llor summon you to Fronn in their service? Why should you now turn against them?"
"We were brought to serve the Chortha Skura. He made a bargain with our Masters-of-Trade. But he was killed in the first battle. According to custom we then ceased from battle and asked to be returned to our own place. But the Llor invited our Masters to hold a meeting over this matter, and when they were gathered together the Llor killed them treacherously. It was then that we discovered that they had with them certain outlaws of our own kind whose desire was to hunt us all down lest we return to our Masters-of-Trade and report the truth of what was done.
"Now our enemies hold Tharc where our spaceships land. We came to Po'ult hoping to find a trading spacer that would carry a messenger off-world for us—"
"But those which land here are not ships of war."
"It does not matter whether they are or not. They are not so small that they have not space for one or two men besides their crew. And once our Masters-of-Trade know what has happened they will send ships to take us off."
"Then you do not wish to stay on Fronn? With such arts of war as you know you might win the leadership of this world."
"We are of Terra. To us that is the world to call home. All we wish is to leave Fronn in peace."
The Ventur leaned forward to draw in deep breaths of the smoke arising from the brazier. Then, without a word, he opened a round box and brought out two small basins or handleless cups. They were fashioned in the form of spiraled shells of a delicate blue-green across which moved amethyst shadows. Into each of these he measured a minute portion of golden liquid poured from a small flagon as beautifully made as the cups. Then he held out one to Kana while he lifted the other, chanting some words in his own tongue.