by Andre Norton
Who was this stranger – that his recapture was of such great importance? Or was it a case like that of the murder of the Survey people – a killing ordered because no one who knew of this base could be allowed to escape? The why was not important now. What was important was that Storm and those with him win past this check point before that drive started down in the valley or before the one man now ahead could be reinforced.
He had one good trick left. If it worked! Storm’s head went down until it rested on his crooked arm. He closed his eyes to the plateau. But he held in his mind the picture of the enemy guard in his rock post – making it as vivid as he could. Clinging to that image, the Terran drew upon that other sense he had never tried to name, launching a demanding call. Surra he was sure of. Hing could be controlled only by hand and voice, her sly mind touching his on the far edge of the band that united the team. But Baku – now he must reach the eagle. She would be up in the air at dawn, cruising for sight of him. If he could attract her by that unvoiced call –!
That tenuous thing that he could not rightly call power but which tied him to cat, eagle, and meerkats, centred now on that one purpose. For so long they had been united in their life and efforts that surely the bond had been strengthened until he could rely upon it now for the only help that would mean anything to them. Baku – come in, Baku! Storm sent that strong soundless call up into the grey-mauve sky, a sky he did not see except as a place that might hold a wheeling black eagle.
11
Baku – Storm’s will became a cord – a noose tossed high in the lighting heavens to find and draw down that wide-winged shape. Once before, more than a Terran year earlier, he had summoned the great eagle to a similar task and she had obeyed, with all the power in her fearless body and those raking talons. Now – could he do it again?
Surra crowded against him, he could feel through fur and flesh the tension of the cat’s nervous body, as if she had joined her untamed will to his, strengthening his calling. Then the dune cat growled, so almost noiselessly that Storm felt rather than rightly heard that warning.
The Terran raised his head from his arm, opened his eyes to the morning sky. It seemed to him that he had been using his will for hours, but the space of time could not have been more than a few moments. The Xik guard was still there, still half-crouched by one of the rocks he had chosen for his improvised fort, staring downslope, slightly to Storm’s left.
“Ahuuuuuuu!” That cry might have been a scream from the furred throat of one of Surra’s large kin. Once it had been the war shout of a desert people, now it summoned the team to battle.
The strike of a falcon or eagle is a magnificent piece of precision flying. It is also one of the most deadly attacks in the world. The guard at the pass could have had a second of apprehension, but only a second, before those talons closed in his flesh, the beak tore at his eyes, and the wings beat him close to senselessness.
Storm sped from one side, Surra from the other. The attack was all over in moments. And the Terran stripped from the other’s body those weapons that would go a long way to insure the safety of his own party. Then he dragged the body of the guard along to thrust it into a crevice where it would lie hidden unless there were a detailed search. No man would now recognize the badly torn features, but Storm did not need to see that faintly green skin, the welling blood that was a different colour from his own, to identify the species of the dead man. The Xiks were humanoid – perhaps more so in appearance than the Norbies, setting aside such small differences as colour of skin and texture of hair. But there was a kinship of feeling between the horned and hairless Norbies and the Terran-descended settlers, which could never exist between man and Xik. So far no common meeting ground with the ruthless invaders had been discovered, in spite of patient search. And though they could and did mouth each other’s speech understandably, there was no communication between his species and the Xiks that reached below surface exchange of information. Dramatically opposed aims drove the two peoples. Failure upon disastrous failure had followed every contact between them.
The Terran could not control his instinctive aversion as he dragged the body into hiding – and that feeling was far more than his dread of touching the dead – just as he could not and had not tried to smother the rage that ate into him that night before when he had been forced to witness the cold-blooded torture slaying of the horses. There was no understanding the invader mind. One could only guess at the twisted motives that drove them to do the things they did. The destruction of Terra had been one result of their kind of warfare – and perhaps it was just as useless as the continued carnage in the meadow below, for spread throughout the galaxy in numberless colonies the Terran breed had survived the destruction of their first home, while here the prisoner the Xik had thought to catch in the power net was now also on his way to safety.
Gorgol had only been waiting to have their path cleared. Already he was moving at the best pace he could force his charge to maintain across the plateau to the pass itself. The Norbie’s greater height was pulled to one side as he supported the wavering stranger. And Storm, having set Surra and Baku to scout duty and having slung the plundered blaster over his shoulder, hurried to lend a hand.
In the increasing daylight it was easy to see that the rescued man had been brutally handled. But not as badly as some captives Storm had helped to release from Xik prison camps. And the very fact that he was able to keep on his feet at all was in his favour. But when Storm came up to steady the shuffling body, Gorgol allowed the full support to shift to the Terran. He had pulled his wounded arm out of its sling, and now he signed swiftly:
“Horses – free – on the side trail. We shall need them – I bring –”
Before Storm could protest he sped away. They could use the mounts right enough. But the sooner they were safe out of this sinister valley, the better. And goodness only knew how far the beaters in that drive for the fugitive had advanced below. The Terran kept on through the pass, staggering a little under the lurching weight of the stranger.
Surra he stationed in the pass. If Gorgol did flush horses up that narrow trail, she would help to herd them in. The big cat was tiring, but she was able to do sentry duty awhile, while Baku would provide them with eyes overhead. King scampered along before them, pausing now and then to turn over some flat stone and nose out an interesting find.
A band of aching muscles began to tighten about Storm’s legs, his breath came in short, hard gulps that ended in a sharp stitch in his side. Must be out of condition, he thought impatiently – too long at the Centre. He tried to plan ahead. Their camp on the gravel bar was too exposed – and they could not push the stranger too far into exhaustion, even if Gorgol did produce horses to ride. That meant they must discover a hiding place down in the flooded valley.
Storm knew of only one, much as he disliked it, the cave into which Rain had blundered during the cloudburst. That lay to the east of the pass they now threaded, perhaps a mile from the gravel bed. Surely the water had fallen well below its entrance now. Water – Storm ran a dry tongue over drier lips and turned his thoughts resolutely from the subject of water.
There would be no time to rest in the camp – just gather together their few supplies and mount the stranger on Rain, then get moving at once. And now Gorgol’s try for horses no longer seemed so reckless. If successful, it would make very good sense. That is – if the poor brutes hadn’t been run until they were almost foundered. Mounts could mean the difference between disaster and safety for the fugitives.
“You’re – not – Norbie –” Though the words came in slow pauses from those cut and battered lips, they startled Storm. He had been unconsciously considering his companion as so much baggage that had to be supported and tended, but that had no individual will. To be addressed intelligently by the stranger surprised him.
The face half-turned to his was a mass of cuts and bruises, so well painted with dried blood that it was hard to guess at the fellow’s normal features. Nor did Stor
m realize that his own attempt at camouflage war paint did almost as well to make him equally a mystery.
“Terran –” He replied with the truth and heard a little gasp from the other, which might have been in answer to that statement or because the stranger stumbled and slapped one dangling hand inadvertently against an outcrop.
“You – know – who – they – are –?”
Storm needed no better identification for that “they”. “Xiks!” he returned tersely, using the very unflattering service term for the invaders.
The explosive sound of that word was echoed by the walls of the pass, but above it sounded the pounding of hoofs. Since Surra had given no warning, Gorgol must have been successful. Storm drew the stranger back against the wall and waited.
It would have taken an expert horseman to see any value in the three animals that picked their way down the slope, their heads hanging, the marks of dried foam on them, their eyes glazed. None could be called upon for any great effort now, save that of keeping on its feet and moving. But Gorgol strode after them, the ivory of his horns glowing in the growing light of the morning as he held his head high in this small triumph. He clapped his hands together, the small report loud enough to turn the weary shuffle of his charges into a limited trot. Then leaving them to drift on downslope to the outer valley, he came to help Storm with his charge.
“You have had good hunting!” the Terran congratulated him.
“No time – or hunting – would have been better. The Butchers are foolish – few horses are left to them now – but still they do not try to round them up –” Gorgol replied before he used his hands for the purpose of aiding the injured man.
With the Norbie to take half the burden, the three covered the rest of the distance to the floor of the valley in better time. The horses, too exhausted to graze, stood with drooping heads, while Rain cantered up, full of interest, to inspect the newcomers. Beside the overdriven trio the stallion was a fine sight as he stood, pawing at the sod with one forehoof, the wind pulling at his red mane and forelock.
“That – is – all – horse!” The battered stranger had come to a halt, half-braced against his supporters, but the eyes in his pulped face were all for Rain.
Think you can stick on him?” questioned Storm. “Sorry, fella, but we’ll have to keep moving for a while.”
“Can – try –”
Together Norbie and Terran boosted their rescued man up on the nervous stallion. He tried to crook his fingers into the mane for a hold and failed. And Storm, seeing for the first time the condition of those fingers, snapped a few sharp and biting words in the native tongues of at least two worlds.
There was a ghost of an answering laugh from the other. “All that and more,” he mouthed. They play pretty rough, those Xiks of yours, Terran. Once – a long time ago – I thought I was tough –”
He slumped so suddenly that Storm could not have saved him from falling off Rain’s back. But the Norbie moved more quickly.
“He is hurt –”
Storm did not need to be told that. That way –” he pointed.
“Beyond the mound where Dagotag and the others lie – a cave in the cliff wall –”
Gorgol nodded, steadying the stranger’s now limp body while Storm went ahead, Rain obediently following him.
They located the cave and Storm left the stranger with the Norbie and Hing, then rode back to collect their supplies. On the return trip he was accompanied by Surra and hazed before him the horses from the other valley, knowing that the two mares and the yearling colt would be protected by Rain. And with the stallion alert they would not stray too far from the new camp after they recovered their normal strength.
Gorgol met him at the cave entrance with news he had not expected – which a week earlier would have been exciting.
This Sealed Cave once.” Taking Storm by the arm, the native drew him farther in to point out the unmistakable marks of tools on roof and walls. He waved his hand toward the darkness beyond. “Hidden place – go far in –”
Would the Norbie refuse to stay here now, Storm wondered wearily. The Terran was too exhausted himself to care. Knowing that if he so much as sat down he would not be able to fight off sleep, Storm packed in the supplies and then went to look at the stranger. Stretched out on the floor of the cave, his head pillowed on a blanket roll, the Arzoran seemed to have shrunk in a curious way. His bruised face rested against the blanket, his breath caught a little now and then as if he were a child who had cried himself to sleep.
Storm sent Gorgol for water to be boiled over the fire the native had built, and laid out the supplies from the aid kit. Then delicately, with all the gentleness he could muster, he went to work, first to wash away the blood from those battered features, and then to assess the rest of the stranger’s injuries. The other moaned once or twice under the Terran’s ministrations, but he did not come to full consciousness.
At the end of a good half-hour’s work Storm drew a deep breath of relief. Judging by Xik standards, they had hardly started to use their unpleasant methods of breaking a prisoner. It would be several days before the stranger would have full use of his hands, the lash weals on his back and shoulders would also be tender at least that long, and his face would display a rainbow-coloured mask for some time. But there were no bones broken, no disabling wounds.
Leaving his patient as comfortable as possible, Storm went down to the lake, stripped, washed from head to foot, coming back to roll up in a blanket and sleep with the complete surrender of sodden exhaustion.
A tantalizing smell pulled him at last out of the mazes of a dream in which he ran across gradually rising mountains in pursuit of an Xik ship that, oddly enough, fled on human legs and twice turned to look at him with the face of Brad Quade. And he sat up to see Gorgol toasting grass hens on peeled spits over a fire. The process was watched with close attention by a mixed audience of Hing, Surra, and the stranger, now very much aware of his surroundings and sitting up backed by a brace of saddle pad and supply boxes.
Outside it was night, but they saw little of that save a patch of sky framing a single star, for the barrier once left by the landslip had been partly restored to mask their camp from anyone who did not have Baku’s powers of elevation. And Baku, as if Storm’s thought had once more summoned her, stirred now on a perch on the top of that barrier where she sat staring out on the valley.
But it was the rescued stranger who drew most of Storm’s attention. He had been too tired, too absorbed in the task at hand when he had worked over the other, to really look objectively at the man whose wounds he tended. Now, in spite of the bruises, the bandages and the battering, he noted something that brought him upright, betraying surprise as much as Hosteen Storm could ever register it.
Because beneath the bruises, the bandages, the temporary alterations left by Xik treatment, Storm knew those features. He was facing now not just one of his own general human kind, but a man – a very young man – of his own race! Somehow – by some strange juggling of fate – he was confronting across this dusky cave another of the Dineh.
And the other’s eyes, the only part of him that was not Dineh – those startling blue eyes – were focused back on the Terran with the same unwavering look of complete amazement. Then the swollen lips moved and that other asked his question first:
“Who, in the name of Seven Ringed Thunders, are you?”
“Hosteen Storm – I am Terran –” He repeated his former self-introduction absently.
The other raised a bandaged hand clumsily to his own jaw and winced as it touched the swelling there.
“You won’t believe this, fella,” he said apologetically. “But before I took this workin’ over, you an” I looked somethin’ alike!”
“You are of the Dineh –” Storm slipped into the tongue of his boyhood. “How did you come here?”
The other appeared to be listening intently, but when Storm was finished, he shook his head slowly.
“Sorry – that’s not my
talk. I still don’t see how I got me a part-twin on Terra. Nor how he turned up to help pull me out of that mess back there. Enough to make you think the smoke drinkers know what they’re talkin’ about when they say dreams are real –”
“You are —?” Storm, a little deflated by the other’s refusal to acknowledge a common speech, asked in a sharper tone.
“Sorry – there’s no mystery about that. I’m Logan Quade.”
Storm got up, the firelight touching to life the necklace on his breast, the ketoh on his wrist as he moved. He did not know, and would not have cared, what an imposing picture he made at that moment. Nor could he guess how the eagerness mirrored in his face a moment earlier had been wiped away, to leave his features set and cold.
“Logan – Quade –” he repeated without accent, evenly. “I have heard of the Quades –”
The other was still meeting his gaze with equal calmness though now he had to look up to do so.
“You and a lot of others – including our friends back yonder. They seemed to like Quades just about as much as you do, Storm. I can understand their dislike, but when did a Quade ever give you a shove, Terran?”
He was quick, Storm had to grant him that. Too quick for comfort. The Terran did not like this at all. For a moment he felt as if he had a raging frawn bull by the tail, unable either to subdue the animal or to let it free. And that was an unusual feeling of incompetence that he did not find easy to acknowledge.
“You’re on the wrong track, Quade. But how did the Xiks pick you up?” It was a clumsy enough change of subject and Storm was ashamed of his ineptitude. To make matters worse he had a well-founded idea that Quade was amused at his stumbles.
They gathered me in with the greatest of ease after settin’ up some prime bait,” Logan answered. “We’ve a range a little south of the Peaks and our stock has been disappearin’ regularly in this direction. Dumaroy and some of the other spread owners around here yammer about Norbies every time they count noses and miss a calf. There’ve been a lot missin’ lately and Dumaroy’s talkin’ war talk. That sort of thing can blow up into a nasty mess. We’ve had minor differences with some of the wild tribes right enough, but let Dumaroy and his hotheads go attackin’ indiscriminately and we could make this whole planet too hot for anyone who didn’t wear horns on his head!