by Dan Donoghue
Two years is a long time. Before half of it was over, people's backgrounds began fading a little in importance. They began to have something in common. They gradually became firstly travellers of the Star-bird. The events of ship-life gave diverse people something in common to talk about. There were love affairs and scandals, arguments and fist-fights, accidents and illnesses. Wolf was a good listener in the conventional sense. He said little, and was neutral to all factions. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to recognise and defuse potentially critical situations. He did not become popular, but he did become part of the company. Of all things he was reliable. He was easy to instruct, and what he undertook to do, he did without fail. The crew found him useful, and the passengers used him to make up numbers in card games and other pastimes. Life became bearable on the Star-bird when he could forget the pending doom of landfall.
He tried to find out what happened to the sensitives on High America. No one knew. If they were free, they eventually disappeared into the jungles, mostly taking nothing with them, not even weapons or food supplies. They never returned. It was unlikely they survived more than a couple of days though their bodies were never found. If they were confined, they simply stopped eating, turned their faces to the jungle and died. None, not even they, could say why.
Only one fact seemed to have a bearing on the mystery. There were places on High America where not even common men could safely venture. That seemed to point to some sort of animal. In Wolf had grown one small hope. At no time had there been a sensitive who was also a highly trained hunter. At no time had there been a shielded one. The elusive killer might find him harder to slay—might find the hunted, hunter.
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Chapter 5
Planet-fall: The Star-bird stood on its tail, and rode down its own gush of fire, blasting cloud and night into an inferno of flickering light over a bizarre, and sodden landscape of plateau and gorges clothed in forest and jungle. Space Port was a mere square of blackened concrete with a huddle of low grey buildings at one side, and a high fence that seemed to lean against the encroaching jungle about the others. Lights hung forlornly from moss-dark, dripping posts, encircled by drifting mists, and gleaming palely each on its own small patch of wet concrete. No one moved. It was like a place where man had been, and left through sheer depression.
On the Star-bird, all became quiet. There was a disorienting lack of vibration, a stillness in ship and passengers. About the portholes the steam of their descent condensed into twisting mists that suddenly hid even the night. There came the faint clicks of cooling metal, and a long soft hiss. Throughout the ship there rose a universal sigh, and the sharp snap of belts unclasping. Then came a general movement towards the elevators.
Wolf watched from a quiet corner of the passenger lounge. He was forgotten as the passengers fell once more into the strata and concerns of land society. First went the business men, the seasoned travellers, knowing what to expect, eyeing each other differently now, friends of the journey, now suddenly rivals once more, suddenly afraid that there might be attempts to exploit friendships. Then went a number of men, and even a couple of women whose faces were closed, and who had given only vague answers to questions concerning their employment, and who would have been dismayed indeed to know they travelled with a sensitive. They too had made ship-board friends, but now they walked in severe isolation. After them went those who expected to be met by friends or family. They included four rather obnoxious young men who had been Earth-side to complete university study, and who had criticised everything, and praised nothing but each other, a not so young woman who had come to marry someone, and who was having desperate second thoughts, and mourning a child left behind, a child she could never see again or even acknowledge, a young man returning from hospital on Earth, and desperately worried about how his family had fared without him, and a couple returning from a honeymoon—four years of travel, two months on Earth, total cost in excess of a million creds, and each privately wondering if it had been worth it.
Still the lounge was full. Immigrant families milled about a scattering of hand luggage waiting to be told where to go, when to go. The convicts stood in severe lines under the weapons of the guard, waiting, watching even the immigrants with resentful eyes. Over at the bar a group of rich tourists sat about and drank, and talked, and pretended that planetfall after two years was just another trifle in their illustrious lives. Through them all stewards scuttled with petty, last-minute sheets of paper, and accusing pens.
Everyone belonged to some group or other except Wolf. He waited. He was in no hurry to disembark. Slowly the lounge emptied. At last the convicts were marched away, and the tourists left. The steward closed the bar, and came over with a ‘raised eyebrows, thank God that's over', look. “Well that's that, then,” he said. “What are you going to do, Mr. Carthar?”
Wolf shrugged. “What would you suggest?”
“Beats me. We don't get many of your kind, and that's the truth. No money, no luggage, not even a set of clothes that a man could wear down the street, and not have every free settler snatching for his blaster. I'll tell you what. I'll fit you out with a decent set of gear from the crew store—after all, I suppose the world owes you something—and you can stay on until the governor gets round to reading your papers, and looking you up. The captain will be dirt-side any moment now, I reckon. Just stay out of his way. If you wander down to the crew's mess later, I'll see you get a decent meal.”
When Wolf thanked him, he merely grinned. “Don't mention it, Mate. I reckon I'd hate to be dumped on Hi’ in the middle of the bloody night with it raining and all. I'll send those clothes to your cabin.”
It was late afternoon on the following day that a crewman found Wolf to tell him that he was wanted at Government House, and that, if he hurried, he'd catch a truck carrying cargo in.
The driver looked at Wolf curiously. He was a skinny little man, the colour of old tar, dressed in a greasy cap, a well oiled blaster belt, and a brief pair of short trousers of some local fibre. His chest, but not his chin, was thick with curly black hair, and his feet that shoved at the pedals of the old type steam truck were bare, and wrinkled, and brown. “You're late getting off that bird aren't ya, Mate? I'd have thought, after sitting in it that long, you'd be out, and gone like a tiker. Where can I dump ya?”
“Government House, or as close to it as you go, thanks,” Wolf answered.
“Jakes! One of those are you! Well I can drop you at the door, unless you'd like to get off a bit early like, and slip around the back?”
“No thank you. The front door will do.” Wolf said with a momentary wonder what the driver took him for.
“Yar. Not many likely to be around this time of day.” He looked up as though to check the sun, but managed to watch for a reaction just the same.
Wolf merely smiled, and turned to gaze at the strange walls of jungle that bordered the narrow, pot-holed road. The truck wound slowly, with great hissings of steam and creak of load or brakes, down into a valley, crossed a bridge that was in the same patched-up condition as the road. Wolf looked down into a yellow stream whose banks were thick with a vine that matted the trees, and had even killed great patches of them. Small, shiny, intensely green leaves were flecked with pale drooping flowers, but he could see no insects at work in them.
The truck crossed the narrow floor of the valley, and laboured up a series of hair-pin bends towards the rim of a plateau that stood stark against the lowering sun. As they mounted, the trees rapidly thinned, and, by the time they neared the top, a kind of grass grew between them. Even to Wolf's experienced eye there were few animals to be seen, or signs of them. Yet, here too, there were flowers, profusions of them, and fruit. On Earth the trees would be haloed with insects, and loud with the calls of birds. Here they were still, silent. It left Wolf with a deep sense of wrongness.
Government House could hardly be called imposing. It was made of local stone, whose hardness had b
ecome a by-word on two worlds, and there had been an attempt at grandeur in the wide steps and columned patio, but the building was only two stories high, and the paint needed washing, the gardens held mostly shrubs struggling in soil packed hard and smooth by rains, and a fountain was dry, and leaf-choked. The settlement stretched as far as he could see across the slightly dished surface of the plateau, but the city was surprisingly small for its two hundred years of history, and only a score or so of buildings rose over two stories. There was stone construction, but the main building material appeared to be timber. The streets were wide and geometrically exact, but, for much of the way in to the centre, had been neglected. Many of the buildings were in poor repair. The whole place had the appearance of being in harmony with the forest—both gave the impression of unfulfilled dreams.
The driver had been right about there not being many people about. The street, even in front of Government House, was almost deserted. Wolf climbed down from the truck, waved briefly to the driver, then climbed the wide stairs to the man who stood silently watching his arrival. “Wolf Carthar?” He was asked curtly. Wolf nodded. “This way.”
The man made no attempt to introduce himself, nor to walk beside him, but swung on his heel, and led the way briskly inside. Wolf followed, looking down with faint amusement on the round, bald patch at the back of the man's head. There were few bald men on Earth. Baldness, together with large noses, fat lips, buck teeth, and black skins, had given way to the science of gene manipulation. They passed a couple of small groups of men who were obviously finished work for the day, and on their way home. Then they mounted a polished set of stairs, and entered a less austere area where there was carpet to deaden their footfalls, and paintings on the wall, depicting past governors, and scenes of Earth more striking for their nostalgia than their accuracy. The guide thrust open a door without knocking, announced, “Mr. Carthar,” nodded Wolf through, and closed the door behind him.
Across the room, by a large window that gave a view over the plateau, was a desk at which a man sat gazing steadily at Wolf. He stood up slowly as Wolf crossed towards him, and glanced down at a couple of papers he held in his hand in a gesture that was both unnecessary and theatrical. “Mr. Wolf Carthar?” he asked.
“Yes.” Wolf studied him in the pause that followed. He was not a big man even for a common man, and he was forced to look further and further up as Wolf approached. Despite the heat, he was dressed in a conservative two-piece suit that had been worn long enough to have a comfortable look about it. Under the suit, his body was trim and still hard looking, though his face was seamed and dull-skinned, and his hair was almost all grey. It was a face that had weathered storms, both physical and mental, and had come out the stronger for them. It belonged to a man who had become governor more by hard work and strength than by craft and influence, Wolf decided, and wondered a little at himself. Such a thought would never have crossed his mind before he had read his fellow passengers of the Star-bird.
“Sit down, Mr. Carthar.” The governor said, indicating a high backed chair to one side of the desk. “My name is Courteau,” he continued, as Wolf sat awkwardly with his legs suddenly seeming too long, “I am the elected governor of High America, or, at least, of that part of it that you can see from this window, and a little more.” He eyed Wolf's great frame perched on the inadequate chair, with mild amusement, and sat down again on his own. “I have read your papers, and they interest me. You were convicted of desertion from your country's armed forces. Then you were given a retrial on board ship, and found not guilty. The captain tells me you insisted on a retrial when he was capable, and ready to grant you a full pardon. Why did you do that?”
“I did not desert from any army. It was important to me that that be recognised. To accept a pardon for a crime seems to me to admit to the crime in the first place.”
“I see. A fine point, but one that would be important to a proud man. Are you a proud man, Mr. Carthar?”
“Of some things, I am proud.”
“You give your occupation as a hunter. Is your skill in hunting one of those things?”
“I was the best hunter of my people. I was proud of that.”
“Tell me about this hunting. Did you work in some sort of place where tourists went to hunt?”
“No. My people hunted for food. Our animals were far too important to us to have them killed for amusement.”
“I'm afraid I don't understand: Surely there's not still sav—er primitive people on Earth.”
“I come from a people called the Out-People. We lived in the forest country of Central Australia. My people shunned the possession of goods except the very simple weapons and cooking utensils necessary to give us an existence above that of animals. We hunted, gathered the fruit of the forest, and grew some crops. I was a hunter because that was what I was good at.”
“I see,” the Governor said without much conviction in his voice. “Was the stuff you hunted in the same as our forests and jungles? Could you hunt here, in other words?”
“I know little of your country. We have mainly open forests, in what was once desert lands, but there is jungle on the flood plains of the rivers. I have hunted in it.”
“Successfully?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” The governor rubbed his chin, then rapped with a finger on the desk top. “What kind of animals did you hunt? Were they dangerous?”
“They were mostly wild cattle, pigs, buffalo, kangaroos, and lesser animals. None were dangerous to a trained hunter.”
“What did you hunt with?”
“Spears.”
“Spears?”
“Yes. They were simple to make from the material at hand, and adequate. We did have a few lasers, and some hand blasters, but we did not use them to hunt.”
“You can use a laser?”
“Of course. We were taught to use them for warfare.”
“What warfare?”
“We lived in small tribes, Governor. We had our areas of land. If a tribe grew too large for its land, it tried to hunt on that of its neighbours. Then there was war.”
“You ever go to war?”
“Twice. Though they were very small affairs.”
“You use a laser then?”
“No. I kept to the spears. They make no noise, and show no light.”
“I see.” Courteau let his eyes travel over the long lean frame bent awkwardly by the chair, and took note of the tautness of the shirt about the shoulders, and got a sudden vision of a long barbed shaft flashing silently from ambush, and shivered. “Tell me,” he continued, “how do you think you would get on in our jungles?”
“You want me to hunt, Governor?” Surprise coloured Wolf's voice.
“Yes. A very special hunt—with lasers, of course. I don't think your spears would do you any good here, silent, or otherwise.”
“What do you want me to hunt?”
“The thing that gets our sensies, and cattle, and horses, and damn near everything else we need around here.”
“You can't keep cattle either?” Wolf was again surprised. No one, not even crew members, on the Star-ship had had that knowledge in their memories.
“We don't advertise it. This place desperately needs settlers. You don't get them by broadcasting stories of monsters. Actually, we can't keep any sort of large animal. Kerries seem to be the only decent sized things that can survive in the place.”
“Kerries?” Wolf echoed though he had got a mental picture of the creature from more than one mind on the Star-bird.
“Something like a big cat, close enough to a tiger, I suppose, though there seems to be no other cat-like things about. They have a nasty habit of dropping out of a tree onto your head, and that's that. Never heard of anyone ever coming through that alive. Come right into the town sometimes when they're hungry. Been known to pick people off the main street just outside. Nobody goes out of the house without a blaster.”
“If they're carnivores, what do they live on naturally?”
“That's the point. There used to be a dozen different types of large animals here. Inland a bit there's a series of plains separated by lines of mountains or hills. Most of them are covered in grass. You've only got to dig down a few feet, and there's bones in plenty. Prospectors are always bringing them in, but the only things in the country now are about the size of one of your rabbits. Good enough eating I suppose, but you can't really feed a city on them.”
“What about other continents? There are others?”
“Much the same, or worse. Death Island is only a couple of thousand kilometres to the east. Not even ordinary people seem to be able to live there.”
“What happens to them?”
“The same as happens to the sensies here. They disappear.”
“Just disappear?”
“Not into thin air. They just seem to lose all control of their minds, and wander off towards the centre of the island. We've sent some good stable men over there. The place is a treasure house of minerals. They've been reporting back by radio every hour on the hour, and within two days the radio had gone dead, and fly-overs have found nothing. Vehicles were driven to the first obstacle and abandoned, even when a bit of effort would have got them across. They don't even take their weapons—sometimes not even their clothes.”
“The rescue parties?”
“We lost one of those. They had orders not to stay in the area more than a couple of hours. We never saw them again.”
“What about other places?”
“None of them seem to be as bad as Death Island, but as far as we know, sensies can't live on any of them. As you can imagine no one is too anxious to test places.”
“What is wrong here, Governor? This place has had two hundred years to develop. It's supposed to be rich in resources. The crew of the Star-bird think of it as a paradise. It still looks like a frontier town, from what I've seen.”