The Beast Master bm-1

by Andre Norton

  “He can’t ride until he comes to.” Dumaroy commented. “Keep an eye on him, Coll, and let me know when he wakes up. Yes, I want to ask him a few questions –”

  They moved off while Storm held his body rigid until the ache in his sorely tried muscles came close to matching the ache in his heavy head. So Coll Bister was to keep an eye on him? That would give Bister opportunity to get rid of one Hosteen Storm with as little fuss as possible. If he only had Surra waiting out there in the grass – or Baku – Then Storm took hold of himself firmly, surely he was not so lacking in resources that he had to depend only upon his animals!

  The gurgle of the river made a steady sound, backing all the noises of the camp. In this country rivers were necessary. Quade and his party were undoubtedly camped on one bank or the other of this same stream. Storm did not know whether he could muster the strength to sit a horse – even Rain. Could he trust himself to the water instead?

  All riders habitually strapped a canteen to their saddles or saddle pads when on the range. But a camp as large as this one, with the men planning to head into the drier mountains, would have in addition other preparations for the transportation of water. And a common one here, Storm knew, was water-toad hide bags that could be slung in pairs across the backs of pack animals.

  Such bags were large oval affairs, each made from the entire skin of one of the huge amphibians found in the marshes, tanned and cured for use by the fisher-Norbies of the southern coasts. Almost transparent, the skins inflated like balloons when moistened as they were before being filled. Storm had seen Norbie children make rafts of them at Krotag’s camp. With a pair of those to buoy him up, a man’s swimming ability would be no great problem; he could float along with the current.

  There remained the point of his break out of camp past Bister’s sentry-go, and the stealing of one, maybe two water bags. If the posse was going to start out on the Shosonna trail in the early morning, Dumaroy would send one of his riders down to the river to refill those bags. They had to stand through the night hours with the purifying tablets in them or their contents would not be drinkable for half the next day. It was a procedure Storm had followed himself when with the Survey party.

  Weakened as he was, Storm believed he could handle one rider, especially if he took the man by surprise. But Bister – Bister remained the big threat. All depended upon chance and his own ability to seize the first possible opening.

  He slowly flexed his fingers and wrists, feeling his bonds give. What was left him for a weapon? Only the fact that his enemy – though he might look human, be drilled to think and act human – was not born of the same species. How could Coll Bister, the aper, ever be sure from one moment to the next that he would not make some small slip that would damn him utterly for what he was? Perhaps his hatred for Storm was based on that fear, for Bister could recognize in the Beast Master one who had been selected for that service because of just such off-beat qualities of mind – though probably not the same ones – as those he himself possessed. So Bister might have built up his distrust of the Terran until at present he credited Storm with far higher gifts of perception and extrasensory powers than any living man could hope for. Bister, in his present state of mind, could not be sure how Storm would react to anything – even a ray beam. Now the Terran must turn that gnawing uncertainty of his enemy to his own account in the opening move of their private struggle.

  Storm waited until he was rewarded by what he had hoped to see, one of Dumaroy’s men passing on the way to the river, empty water skins flapping on his shoulders. He allowed him to pass and then staged his act.

  With a low moan the Terran twisted, apparently fighting his bonds. The man turned, gaped at him, and came over. Luck was on Storm’s side so far; he had not fallen afoul of a quickwitted man. Another moan, low, and as realistic as he could make it – he was a little surprised at his own artistic ability – and the man, dropping his burden, went down on one knee to inspect the captive more closely.

  Storm’s arm swept up to strike at the side of the other’s neck. The blow did not land quite true, he was too weak to deliver it correctly, but it brought the rider off balance and down on top of the Terran. Then the right pressure applied and the fellow, still surprised, went limp. For a long moment of perilous waiting Storm held the flaccid body to him, waiting for the shout, the running feet, and also to gather strength for his next move.

  When there was no reaction from the camp, the Terran cautiously rolled out from under the rider and stretched the man in his place. Sweeping up the water skins, he forced himself to walk at an even pace to the river bank. Three – maybe four more yards and he would make it. Then to inflate the water bags – and not to force the air out of them again. He need only secure the mouth of each skin with its dangling cord and he had his improvised raft.

  However, the river was a popular place at present. A noisy party was bathing and there were horses being brought down to drink. Storm, the bags crumpled tight in one arm, took to cover, working his way through a reed bank, expecting every moment to have the cry of alarm raised behind him.

  What did happen was that he caught sight of Rain among the horses being watered. The stallion was not taking kindly to this shepherding and he was plainly in an ugly mood. A black horse squealed and offered challenge and the red-spotted mount was only too ready to oblige. The rider in charge pushed his own animal forward and used his quirt freely for discipline.

  But with Rain that was a very wrong move. The stallion, who had never been touched by a whip since Storm had brought him out of Larkin’s corral at the space port, went completely fighting mad. And Rain, though young, was a formidable opponent, as he let loose with both hoofs and teeth.

  Storm slipped to the water’s edge. The attention of all the men along the stream was on the plunging, screaming horses. He saw Rain dash into mainstream as he himself plunged into the current, the inflated bags ready as a buoy when he needed them. The river, which appeared so lazy from the bank, was provided with a swifter core and Storm struck out into it.

  He heard more shouting, saw the red and grey horse break from the water and race, at a speed the Terran was sure few if any of the mounts in the camp could match, through the riders in the general direction of the mountains and freedom. Then the river curved and Storm was carried out of sight.

  The excitement of escape gave him the energy to reach the main current, but once in its grip the Terran did little except cling to the puffed skins and hope that Quade’s camp was not too far away. Night came and Storm, his head and shoulders supported above the level of the water, shivered under the touch of a mountain-born wind. There was a flick of lightning over those heights, the distant rumble of thunder as a threat. He would have to watch the water about him, be ready to make for the shore before the wash of a flood added to the current.

  But it was hard to think clearly and his whole body trailed soddenly behind the bobbing skins. Storm could not judge the passing of time. The thought that he had beat Bister was for the moment a small triumph, quickly dulled.

  There were no moons visible in the sky and the stars showed dim and far away between ragged patches of wind-driven clouds. Storm, his cheek pillowed on the clammy skins, was only half aware that he was still waterborne southward. He was nosed by an investigating water rat. But perhaps the scent of his off-world body made the big rodent wary, for the creature only swam beside him for a space.

  However, the coming of the rat aroused Storm to make some efforts on his own for the streams of Arzor had larger and more dangerous inhabitants than water rats. And some of them might be less fastidious. He began to kick his legs, attempting not only to quicken his rate of travel, but to steer the odd raft.

  Sometime in the dark hours the Terran ran into difficulty. The river made another turn and here drift had built a tongue of tangled flotsam out into the water. Before Storm was conscious of danger a snag pierced one skin and its sudden deflation into tatters plunged him under water, bringing him up with cruel
force against the wall of drift.

  Somehow he pulled himself up that barrier, fought his way over it at the price of scratches and gouges, until he was able to reach sand and finally meadow turf beyond. He sprawled there face down, too spent to struggle, and went to sleep.

  “– bring him around now –”

  “It’s that Terran, Storm! But what –?”

  “Been in the river by the looks of him.”

  There was light now, the warmth of fire combined with the clearer gleam of a camp atom-light. There was an arm under his shoulders, holding his head up so that he could swallow from a cup pressed against his lips. There was a strange dreamlike haze over the scene, but one face swam out of that haze, took on reality, perhaps because those features had had a place in so many of his dreams. And this time Storm was able to talk to the man he had come to Arzor to – to kill. Yes, he had come across space to kill Brad Quade! Yet that desire seemed now as remote as a year-old battle in a jungle wilderness, three solar systems away!

  “Trouble –” He got that out and the word was such a limited expression of what he must say. “Xik holdouts in the Peaks –Norbies – Dumaroy – Logan –”

  He was being shaken, first gently, and then with rougher insistence.

  “Where is Logan?”

  And Storm, caught again in the mazes of his dream, answered with some of his own longing:

  “Terra – garden of Terra.”

  16

  When he made better sense later, Storm discovered that the party who had followed Brad Quade into the Peak Ranges did not ride with closed minds. Kelson, of the Planetary Peace Police, a big, slow-speaking man with eyes that Storm decided overlooked nothing, and with a computer bank for a mind, asked a few questions, every one directly to the point.

  The Terran had been reluctant to voice his suspicions concerning Bister. Such a story might be accepted by veterans of his own corps who had good reason for knowing that agents could assume a wide variety of cover. But to ask these men who had never come up personally against the Xiks at all to accept the fact that one had been living among them undetected, and without any more proof than Storm was able to offer, was another matter.

  To his vast surprise when Kelson drew from him that revelation – with the questions of a well-trained inquisitor as the Terran understood too late – none of his listeners displayed incredulity. Maybe these planet bound settlers were more open to such imaginative flights – as the existence of an aper among them – than were the service officers trained to meet the nonproven with wary disbelief.

  “Bister –” Quade repeated thoughtfully. “Coll Bister. Anybody here know him?”

  Dort Lancin answered first. “He rode down from the port as trail herder, “long with me and Storm. Just like the kid here tells it. Seemed just like any other drifter to me. Only I heard about apers when I was with the outfit. Seems like they captured two of them close to the end, wearing Confed uniforms and runnin’ a side show to the big muddle. Might have fouled up that whole sector if one of the messes they cooked up hadn’t been called to the attention of a section commander in time. After that mix-up a lot of the boys looked close at each other, providin’ they weren’t born and raised together in the same river valley or such! Bister didn’t come in on our ship, and he was a new light and tie with Larkin, never rode for Put before. Don’t know where he came from – except Put picked him as a hire rider along with the rest of us.”

  “Guilt,” Kelson observed, “is a queer thing. Bister hated Terrans, and he was probably, as you say, afraid of you, Storm, because you were trained for a duty not unlike his own. If he hadn’t been guilty – and afraid – he wouldn’t have tipped his hand by his treatment of you. Bister is one man we are going to rope tomorrow – or rather today – and tight! If Dumaroy’s moved out, we’ll trail him. But we don’t want to tangle with the Xiks. Since they are provided with the type of weapons you report, Storm, we’ll need a Patrol ship in here to really mop up. Quade, you’ll want to collect your kid anyway – you strike in that direction, angle up with a scout party to the east. I’ll ride on with the rest of you and try to head Dumaroy off. I think we can learn a lot more by splitting –”

  So they did as Kelson suggested. Quade, with Storm as a guide, and two of the settler’s riders, took the side trail after they found Dumaroy’s river bank camp deserted and indications that the Peaks settler had proceeded with his plan to trace the Norbies and his missing herd into the mountains.

  Storm rode in a dreamy haze. He located his landmarks, made his calculations as to where they must avoid possible ambush. But all of that was handled mechanically by a part of him operating as a robot set to a well-defined task and keeping to the pattern of a work tape. Whether the stun ray had more lasting effects than he had supposed, the Terran could not tell. But nothing about him appeared to have much meaning. He rode beside Quade for a space and answered questions concerning his meeting with Logan, their escape from the Xiks and through the cave of the gardens, and the final disastrous attack of the yoris. Yet to the Terran the conversation was all a part of a dream. Nor was he conscious when Quade began to study him covertly as they bored farther into the wild territory of the foothills.

  However much that haziness clouded his mind, it did not prevent an instant reaction to trouble when attack did come. They were in the narrow opening of that gorge leading to the valley of Gorgol’s cave entrance, riding single file as the ground demanded. Storm had perhaps five seconds of time to sound the alert. He saw that yellow-red arm move, the blue streaks of painted horns against a domed skull.

  “Ahuuuuuuu!” The war cry of his people was a warning as bowstrings sang. Then the ground erupted with men about them. A numbing blow just below his shoulder almost sent Storm crashing from his saddle. His left arm hung heavy and limp as a blue-horned Norbie grabbed for his belt.

  The Terran struck out with his other hand in a Commando blow but the weight of the falling native dragged him to the ground where they rolled into a pocket between two rocks. For a frenzied space of time Storm fought one-handed to keep a sword-knife from his throat. Only the fact that his first blow had practically disabled the Norbie saved his life. He brought his knee up and toppled the other off balance, rolling over again to send the Nitra senseless, sprawling out into the floor of the valley where the struggle was still in progress.

  Storm struggled to his feet, only to collapse again as a stun ray clipped the side of his spinning head. He slid, bonelessly limp, behind the rocks and did not feel it when he landed full upon his wounded shoulder, driving the cruelly barbed arrowhead deeper into his flesh, snapping off its painted shaft.

  Perhaps that second dose of the ray neutralized in a measure the effects of the first, for when Storm opened his eyes, he remembered clearly all that had happened just before his raying.

  The bright sunlight had left the gorge and the small passage was chill, chill and very quiet. Shivering, catching his breath at the twinge in his stiff shoulder, Storm somehow dragged himself upright to lean against the small wall of rocks that had protected him. He must have been overlooked, he decided. The Nitra had not mutilated his body after their custom.

  There were no bodies in the narrow way, though broken arrows, and churned earth, a splash or two of blood marked the field. Storm staggered into the open and attempted to read the trail. Bootmarks leading away – prisoners forced to walk?

  Storm pressed his hand tightly over the ragged hole in his shoulder and squinted down at that mixture of hoof, boot, and Norbie tracks. With one hand out to fend him off from the walls he reeled along, heading for the garden cave.

  Just how he reached the mouth of the outer doorway he could not tell. But he was there, calling softly for the two he had left behind. There was no reply out of the dark. Storm stumbled on, guided by the light seeping from the garden cavern. The doorway they had half-closed and then reopened was still unblocked. The Terran wavered in and went to his knees on the path between two flanking gardens.

&nbs
p; “Logan!” He called weakly. “Gorgol!” He could not get to his feet again. But somewhere there was a pine tree – and green grass – and the fragrance of the hills of home. Storm wanted that as much as he wanted cool water in his throat, an end to the burning pain in his shoulder, cool green grass and the arch of pine boughs over his head.

  He was crawling now, and there was an object barring his path, a yellow-red barrier. He touched the softness of flesh, saw Gorgol’s face turned up to his, the eyes closed, the mouth a little open. But the native was still alive. Storm could see the beat of a labouring pulse in a vein running beneath one of the ivory white horns. There were no visible wounds; the Norbie might have been peacefully asleep.

  “Gorgol!” Storm shook him. Then raised his good hand and slapped the Norbie’s face stingingly. Until at last those eyes opened and the native stared bewildered up at him. With one hand Storm asked his question:

  “Who?”

  Gorgol levered himself up, both hands going to his head. He moaned softly, pressed his fingers hard over his eyes, before he used them to answer.

  “I come – go find water – Head hurt – fall – sleep –”

  “Rayed!” Storm looked about him. There was no Logan, Surra and Hing were missing, as were the horses.

  “Nitra?” He doubted that. Would the Nitra, who could hardly be familiar with a settler’s side arm, use the ray on Gorgol?

  “Nitra kill with arrows – knife –” Gorgol was signing. Then he caught sight of Storm’s wound, that inch or so of arrow shaft showing out of the ragged tear. “Nitra – that! Here?”

  “Ambush – down valley –”

  “Come!” Gorgol, one hand going again to his head as he arose, stooped to draw Storm up beside him. Supporting the Terran, he led him along through the maze of gardens. Until at last Storm realized that he was indeed lying on a bed of pine needles, looking up once more into the green tent of the Terran tree. Not too far away Gorgol had built a small pile of dry twigs and was now engaged in coaxing a spark from his firestone to ignite it. When a tongue of flame sent fragrant smoke curling up, the native drew his knife and passed its sharp point into the red heart of the fire.