More men were coming out of the ship. They walked toward the hoppers and began to check them out.
Ashton gave a sigh of relief. "They're leaving, then."
The men completed their ground inspection. Four climbed into each of the hoppers. The rest sauntered back toward the ship. Motors woke to life. One by one the hoppers lifted, droning into the sky.
"Good," said Stark. "Now we wait a while."
"Wait?" said Halk. "What for?"
"For the hoppers to get so far away that they can't come whipping back in five minutes when somebody yells to them on the radio."
"Radio!" Halk growled. "These off-world toys are a pest."
"No doubt," said Stark, "but think how many times, on our journey north and back again, you would have given all you possessed to know what was going on at Irnan."
Stark settled himself for the wait, drowsing like a cat in the growing heat.
Pedrallon and Simon Ashton discussed between them what radio message would be sent to Galactic Center if they did actually gain their objective. The discussion was not entirely amicable.
Finally Ashton got the official steel in his voice and eye, and said, "The message must be brief and readily understood. I can't give the history of Skaith in ten words. There is no guarantee that any message is going to be received at Pax in time to do any of us any good; but I can tell you that if they receive a request for an armada to interfere in a civil war on a non-member planet, they'll pretend they never heard it. I will identify myself and ask for a rescue ship. I will also state that Penkawr-Che and two other captains are up to no good here—and they can do what they want to about that. For us, one ship is enough and all we can hope for. You'll still have to go to Pax to plead your case."
Pedrallon gave in, without enthusiasm. "Where will you rendezvous? If the ship comes at all."
Ashton scowled. That point had been a major problem between himself and Stark. The fact was that they could not guarantee to be in any particular place for any length of time. They could not even guarantee to be alive.
Ashton answered, "There must be a portable transceiver aboard the ship."
"And if there isn't?"
"We'll make an alternative arrangement." And hope, Ashton thought, remembering the inhospitable vastness of the planet.
Old Sun rose higher. The heat became a physical thing, a weight that dragged down drooping branches and pressed on the bodies of men so that breathing became a conscious labor and hardly worth the effort. The gravel plain shimmered. The starship seemed to float above it The gun crew dozed under their awnings.
All but one man.
He was short and round and his skin was grayish-green like the skin of a lizard. His head was naked and quite broad, with a ridiculously small face set in the middle of it. His birthworld circled a lusty young primary, so he was used to heat. He had not even bothered to open the collar of his tunic. He walked toward the stream, thinking of home and friends and calculating how much his share of the loot would come to.
The jungle stood like a green wall across the stream. It was very still. All the morning noises had died under the weight of approaching noon. The lizard man picked up a flat pebble and sent it skipping across the shallow water.
Inside the hatch, in the ship, it was cooler. Ventilators sucked and roared. The two men sitting in the open airlock were enjoying the breeze. They were relaxed and somnolent, eyes half closed against the swimming glare outside. They heard nothing but the ventilators; they did not expect to hear anything. They had heard nothing on any of the other days when they had been on guard here in this remote place. In any case, they were not worried. The people of Skaith had nothing with which to fight them.
Each of the two men had beside him a heavy automatic weapon. The hatch control was on the wall beside the opening. Their duty was to defend the hatch, activating the control if that should become necessary. They did not expect it to become necessary, and in fact they considered the duty superfluous, though they did not say so. At least it was comfortable. They could see the emplacements outside, baking in the sun, and were glad they were not in them.
They could see, also, that one of the men had gone down to the stream to skip stones. They thought he was crazy. But they did not understand it when he began suddenly to scream.
They saw him fall down, writhing in the water. Great white animals burst from the edge of the jungle and hurtled across the stream, jetting bright drops from under their paws.
Men came after them, running.
17
Water splashed on Stark's bare skin, hot from the sun. The rocks were warm and slippery beneath his feet He watched the cannon through the flying spray, waiting for a lightning bolt that would sear them all into lumps of blackened flesh like the priests of the temple by the sacred grove.
Kill! he shouted to the hounds. Kill!
They were already doing that. The gun crews died very quickly in their pits, without touching the firing studs.
The hounds ran fast toward the open hatch.
A man fell outward from it, onto the ramp. He lay there, curled in a fetal ball with his arms over his head.
Other man, N'Chaka. Think harm.
Kill!
Not easy like others . . .
Stark ran across hot, dry gravel. He had forgotten the cannon. His gaze was fixed now on the open hatch. If it should be closed against them, they would have to try and blast it open with the cannon, but even if that were possible it would take too much time. If the remaining man in the lock should be an immune—
Kill!
The sound of a man screaming mingled with the sudden hammering of shots from the lock. Gravel flew in little spurts. Two of the hounds went awkwardly over their own heads and did not get up again.
The hatch remained open and there was no more sound.
Eleven hounds dashed up the ramp, spurning the dead man with their cat-clawed feet.
Kill!
Hound-minds sought through steel bulkheads, through strange distances reeking with the unfamiliar stinks of oil and metal. They sought man-minds. They sent fear.
Stark ran, and his breath was harsh in his throat. The sun beat down and the two white hounds lay bloody on the ground. Behind him, Halk and the tribesmen and the Irnanese were busy with the cannon. Gerrith, Pedrallon, and Simon Ashton followed Stark. Tuchvar had stopped by the dead hounds.
Stark ran up the ramp.
Inside the lock he heard no sound except the panting of the hounds. The second man, who had not been as easy to kill as the others—an alien with butter-colored skin and a very massive skull—lay contorted in death. He was still holding his weapon in short-fingered hands that looked more like paws. Stark took it from him.
The inner hatch was open. The short corridor beyond it was empty.
Men?
Yes. Gerd growled and the metal walls echoed menace.
Not kill?
Like Tarf. Not hear us.
Many?
One and one.
Where?
There.
"There" was up.
Gerd's mind pictured gray, hard, not friendly, not understand, dark things, bright things; the place where the men were, the place he could see through their eyes.
Men think harm, N'Chaka.
Watch.
Ashton came up the ramp, breathing hard. He paused to pick up the other automatic weapon. Gerrith came behind him. Her face gleamed with moisture. Pedrallon, at her side, was barely sweated. His eyes were bright, almost as savage as the hounds'.
"Two men are still living," Stark said. "The hounds can't touch them."
"Only two men?" Pedrallon said.
"Armed." Stark lifted the automatic. "There's no need for you to come."
Pedrallon shook his head. "I must come. This is my world."
Stark shrugged. He looked at Gerrith. "Stay here."
"As you wish," she said. "But this is not my death day, nor yours."
Outside, one of the cannon had been di
sabled by shearing the cable from its power cell with a battle ax. The tribesmen were struggling back across the stream with a second one. They would set it up under cover at the edge of the jungle, where they could rake the landing area in case the hoppers returned. The Irnanese were bringing the third one, to set it up inside the airlock. Both Halk and Sabak had learned the rudiments of handling a laser cannon during the time Stark had had the armed hopper at Irnan. Stark left them to it, and sent nine of the hounds back out to Tuchvar, keeping Gerd and Grith with him. He nodded to Ashton and Pedrallon, then they proceeded into the short corridor.
It was no use taking any more troops with them. They had only the two automatic weapons. Swordsmen in the narrow passages of the ship would be an encumbrance rather than a help. Stark wished that Pedrallon had stayed behind, but he could not deny the man's right to accompany them.
At the end of the corridor a round hatch gave onto the central well of the ship.
A small ship, as starships went. Yet from this angle it seemed enormous. Stark looked up and still up, past the various levels that contained the drive rooms, both conventional and hyperdrive; the heavy reactors that powered them; the cargo holds and life-support systems and storage rooms. The cylindrical walls tapered toward the nose, to living quarters and the bridge.
Up there, at the very top—along with the control systems, the computers, and the navigation tank—was the communications room.
The ventilators roared. The ringing walls were like a trap. The hounds held their heads low, rumbling.
In flight, in null gravity, this well would be the fore-and-aft axis of the ship. A metal pole, shiny with use, stretched up the center, affording handholds for men to pull themselves along in free fall, graceful as darting fish. Now, in the vertical position, with the solid pull of a planet underfoot, there were lifts to transport men and supplies to platforms that jutted out beside access hatches at each level.
Stark had no desire to commit himself to one of those lifts, but he could see no other way. He climbed onto the nearest one, with Ashton and Pedrallon and the two hounds. The platform was wide and it had a rail around it. Gerd and Grith crowded close against Stark and trembled; and when he pressed the button on the panel and the platform shot up smoothly on its steel channels, their minds were filled with the fear of unknown things and the emptiness that yawned beneath their feet.
Watch!
We watch, N'Chaka.
The lift went up swiftly, past the lower levels.
N'Chaka! There!
"There" was an access hatch on the opposite side of the well. It was open. The platform it served was above the lift, which was rising toward it. It was below the next platform on the near side of the well, so that the lift would have to pass it in order for the occupants to gain access to the top levels. An old Earth saying flashed across Stark's mind, not a comforting one. Something about shooting fish in a barrel. "I heard," Ashton said.
"Fire!"
They fired together at the opening. Harsh thunder crashed in the well. The metal surrounding the hatch became pocked and scarred.
The opening was a black throat swallowing death. The lift drew level, rose above it. No face appeared in the hatch. No shots came out of it.
Stark and Ashton stopped firing.
Dead?
No. Run. Think harm later.
Two men, unhurt, armed, were waiting to try again.
Stark punched a red button on the control panel. The lift came up to the platform and stopped.
Beyond the access hatch, in the crew's quarters, they found bodies. Two were in a corridor, where they had tried to run. Three others were inside a small wardroom, where death had interrupted them at lunch.
Stark located a vertical hatchway with a ladder fixed to the wall. The hounds would not be able to climb it, but that seemed to be the only way up.
Where men?
Close!
Stark pulled himself up the ladder.
He emerged on the flight deck. The primary control banks took up most of the central portion of this level, with computer linkages and the navigation tank. At his left, on the far side of the bridge, was the communications center. Two more bodies were huddled there. One of them had fallen from the radioman's chair.
N'Chaka! Danger! There!
"There" was behind him.
He dropped, rolling. The first burst went over him. He heard shattering noises and thought, Oh God, if they've wrecked the radio . . . !
Ashton had come up the ladder behind Stark. He fired from the level of the deck. Something blew up with a tremendous bang. Then Stark was firing from where he lay, at two figures indistinct in the sudden smoke.
Abruptly it was quiet. The smoke dissipated. The men lay on the deck and Gerd was saying, Dead.
Stark got up and went over to the radio.
Ashton climbed the rest of the way up the ladder and joined him. "It's all right? They didn't hit it?"
"They didn't hit it." Stark dragged the radioman's body away from the chair.
Simon Ashton sat down. He switched power into the hyperbeam transmitter and turned on the recorder. He began to send. Pedrallon came in and stood beside him. The Skaithian watched intently, though Ashton was speaking Universal and he could not understand what was said.
Ashton had chosen his words carefully. He kept the message short, accenting the urgency of his request for a rescue ship. He mentioned Penkawr-Che and his reavers. "I am sending from one of their transmitters, which we shall have to abandon. We will try to make radio contact with any incoming ship. Failing that, the ship will please make a landing on the high heath southwest of Skeg and wait there as long as it reasonably can." He used a code signal for "Top Priority," making it mandatory that anyone receiving the message should relay it immediately to Pax. Then he set the switch on automatic send and left the recorder on at repeat. The message would continue to be transmitted until someone came to shut it off.
"That's all we can do," he said. "That, and pray that somebody hears it."
Pedrallon pictured the terrible black emptiness of space, and was not cheered.
Stark fired a sustained burst into the control banks, making a satisfying mess. A disabled ship and a message sent would give the looters something to think about. Penkawr-Che might even abandon his planned foray against the House of the Mother.
He went over and looked at the bodies of the two men who had not "heard" the Northhounds. They did not in any way resemble each other. Stark nudged one of them with his foot.
"He was in the pit by the middle cannon this morning. If he hadn't been relieved . . ."
He turned to Ashton, thinking of the hoppers that must be well on their way back to the ship by now, unless the radioman had died before he could send off a call, and thinking also that there might be more like these two aboard them.
"Ten minutes to search for a portable radio. Then we go."
They found it in five, in a stores room on the level below, where the men apparently outfitted themselves for shoregoing expeditions. They also found arms racks, empty because the weapons were all in use, oxygen packs and protective clothing for climates not quite unfriendly enough to require full-dress armor, and several different types of portable communicators. Stark chose two powerful miniaturized radios in high-impact cases, easily carried and suitable for ground-to-ground or ground-to-orbit use. They also took as much ammunition as they could carry for the automatic weapons.
Going down on the lift, the silent ship was an iron tomb around them. Gerrith touched Stark's arm and smiled, then accompanied him out into the sunshine. There was still no sound of motors in the sky. Halk disabled the cannon. He and the Irnanese hurried with Stark and the others across the gravel plain. The dead hounds were gone; Tuchvar had carried them into the jungle for burial. In the fringe of trees beyond the stream the tribesmen stood by their cannon, waiting.
Sabak said longingly, "Can't we take it with us?"
Stark shook his head. "Too heavy, and we're in a hurry.
"
Somebody hacked the cable. Tuchvar came up with red eyes and his surviving hounds. The line formed, and Larg led the party swiftly away into the jungle.
The journey back to the sea took them longer than the journey inland, because they must needs spend hours motionless under the trees, lest the furiously questing hoppers find them. At length they no longer heard the snarling of motors overhead, and Stark concluded that the search had been dropped in favor of more pressing work, such as repairing the ship or making arrangements to shift their loot to one of the other craft.
Larg went quietly back to his village, and the rest of the party returned to the inlet very late in the second night. The Tarf were on guard, undisturbed. Stark and the others clambered aboard the boat.
The Fallarin, their dark fur patched with sweat, listened to the news, and Alderyk said impatiently, "So, then, it was worth the effort. Now let us be gone from this place. The jungle winds are slow and stupid, and they bring us no comfort."
He spread his wings and gave the sluggish air a spiteful slap.
Under oars, the boat crept out into open water, and when the sail went up the winged men filled it with a whistling breeze.
They headed southward, partly because of Gerrith's vision and partly because there was no other place to go. Northward were only enemies. In the south, Gerrith told them, were help and hope, though the white mists still clung heavily about the shape of them, so that she could not discern them clearly, and in that whiteness there was still the spreading stain of blood.
Stark said, "We'll make for Iubar. The Lady Sanghalain can give us news of the White South, if nothing else."
It was in his mind that the Lady Sanghalain might not be overjoyed to receive him, since it was by his urging that she had taken passage in Arkeshti and so the treasure of Iubar had found its way into Penkawr-Che's pocket. Still, it was the only place to start.
So they moved into strange waters, under strange skies, as foreign to these northern folk of Skaith as to the off-worlders.
They moved as Old Sun moved, with the winter at their backs, toward the austral spring.
But there was no spring.
The Reavers of Skaith-Volume III of The Book of Skaith Page 11