13
He lay against a rock, and it was quiet again, except for a smallwhimpering sound which hurt, joined with the eating pain in his side.Vye turned his head, smelled burned cloth and flesh. Cautiously hetried to move, bring his hand across his body to the belt at hiswaist. One small part of his mind was very clear--if he could get hisfingers to the packet there, and the contents of that packet to hismouth, the pain would go away, and maybe he could slip back into thedarkness again.
Somehow he did it, pulled the packet out of its container pouch,worked the fingers of his one usable hand until he shredded open theend of the covering. The tablets inside, spilled out. But he had threeor four of them in his grasp. Laboriously he brought his hand up,mouthed them all together, chewing their bitterness, swallowing themas best he could without water.
Water--the lake! For a moment he was back in time, feeling for thewater bulbs he should be carrying. Then the incautious movement of hisquesting fingers brought a sudden stab of raw, red agony and hemoaned.
The tablets worked. But he did not slide back into unconsciousnessagain as the throbbing torture became something remote anduntroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff,managed to sit up.
Sun flashed on the metal barrel of a needler which lay in the trampleddust between him and another figure, still very still, with a pool ofblood about the head. Vye waited for a steadying breath or two, thenstarted the infinitely long journey of several feet which separatedhim from Hume.
He was panting heavily when he crawled close enough to touch theHunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbledwith congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolledlimply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick toafford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. But he wasstill alive.
With his good hand Vye thrust his numb and useless left one into thefront of his belt. Then, awkwardly he tried to tend Hume. After aclose inspection he thought that the mass of blood had come from aragged tear in the scalp above the temple and the bone beneath hadescaped damage. From Hume's own first-aid pack he crushed tablets intothe other's slack mouth, hoping they would dissolve if the Huntercould not swallow. Then he relaxed against the cliff to wait--for whathe could not have said.
Wass' party had gone on into the valley. When Vye turned his head tolook down the slope he could see nothing of them. They must have triedto push on to the lake. The flitter was at the top of the cliff, asfar out of his reach now as if it were in planetary orbit. There wasonly the hope that a rescue party from the safari camp might come.Hume had set the directional beam on the flyer, when he had broughther down, to serve as a beacon for the Patrol, if and when Starns waslucky enough to contact a cruiser.
"Hmmm...." Hume's mouth moved, cracked the drying bloody mask on hislips and chin. His eyes blinked open and he lay staring up at the sky.
"Hume--" Vye was startled at the sound of his own voice, so threadyand weak, and by the fact that he found it difficult to speak at all.
The other's head turned; now the eyes were on him and there was aspark of awareness in them.
"Wass?" The whisper was as strained as his own had been.
"In there." Vye's hand lifted from Hume's chest indicating thevalley.
"Not good." Hume blinked again. "How bad?" His attention was not forhis own hurt; his eyes searched Vye. And the latter glanced down athis side.
By some chance, perhaps because of his struggle with Peake, Wass' beamhad not struck true, the main core of the bolt passing between his armand his side, burning both. How deeply he could not tell, in fact hedid not want to find out. It was enough that the tablets had banishedthe pain now.
"Seared a little," he said. "You've a bad cut on your head."
Hume frowned. "Can we make the flitter?"
Vye moved, then relaxed quickly into his former position. "Not now,"he evaded, knowing that neither of them would be able to take thatclimb.
"Beam on?" Hume repeated Vye's thoughts of moments before. "Patrolcoming?"
Yes, eventually the Patrol would come--but when? Hours--days? Time wastheir enemy now. He did not have to say any of that, they both knew.
"Needler--" Hume's head had turned in the other direction; now hishand pointed waveringly to the weapon in the dust.
"They won't be back," Vye stated the obvious. Those others had beencaught in the trap, the odds on their return without aid were veryhigh.
"Needler!" Hume repeated more firmly, and tried to sit up, fallingback with a sharp intake of breath.
Vye edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of hisboot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up towhere he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his kneeHume spoke again:
"Watch for trouble!"
"They all went in," Vye protested.
But Hume's eyes had closed again. "Trouble--maybe...." His voicetrailed off. Vye rested his hand on the stock of the needler.
"Hoooooo!"
That beast wail--as they had heard it in the valley! Somewhere fromthe wood. Vye brought the needler around, so that the sights pointedin that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothinghe could do.
A scream, filled with all the agony of a man in torment, caught up onthe echoes of that other cry. Vye sighted a wild waving of bushes. Afigure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands andknees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Againthe beast's cry, and a shouting!
Vye watched a second man back out of the trees, still facing whateverpursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube.Leaves crisped into a black hole, curls of smoke arose along the pathof that blast.
The man kept on backing, passed the inert body of his companion,glancing now and then over his shoulder at the slope up which he wasmaking a slow but steady way. He no longer rayed the bush, but therewas the crackle of a small fire outlining the ragged hole his beam hadcut.
Back two strides, three. Then he turned, made a quick dash, againfacing around after he had gained some yards in the open. Vye saw nowit was Wass.
Another dash and an about face. But this time to confront the enemy.There were three of them, as monstrous as those Vye and Hume hadfought in the same place. And one of them was wounded, swinging acharred forepaw before it, and giving voice to a wild frenzy of roars.
Wass leveled the ray tube, centered sights on the beast nearest tohim. The man hammered at the firing button with the flat of his otherhand, and almost paid for that second of distraction with his life,for the creature made one of those lightning swift dashes Vye had soluckily escaped. The clawed forepaw tore a strip from the shoulder ofWass' tunic, left sprouting red furrows behind. But the man had thrownthe useless tube into its face, was now running for the gap.
Vye held the needler braced against his knee to fire. He saw the dartquiver in the upper arm of the beast, and it halted to pull out thatsliver of dangerously poisoned metal, crumpled it into a tight twist.Vye continued to fire, never sure of his aim, but seeing those sliversgo home in thick legs, in outstretched forelimbs, in wide, pendulousbellies. Then there were three blue shapes lying on the slope behindthe man running straight for the gap.
Wass hit the invisible barrier full force, was hurled back, to liegasping on the turf, but already raising himself to crawl again to thegateway he saw and could not believe was barred. Vye closed his eyes.He was very tired now--tired and sleepy--maybe the pain pills werebringing the secondary form of relief. But he could hear, just beyond,the man who beat at that unseen curtain, first in anger and fear, andthen just in fear, until the fear was a lonesome crying that went onand on until even that last feeble assault on the barrier failed.
* * * * *
"We have here the tape report of Ras Hume, Out-Hunter of the Guild."
Vye watched the officer in the black and silver of the Patrol, a blackand silver modified with the small, green, eye badge of X-Tee, withlevel and hos
tile gaze.
"Then you know the story." He was going to make no additions norexplanations. Maybe Hume had cleared him. All right, that was all hewould ask, to be free to go his way and forget about Jumala--and RasHume.
He had not seen the Hunter since they had both been loaded into thePatrol flitter in the gap. Wass had come out of the valley a witless,dazed creature, still under the mental influence of whoever, orwhatever, had set that trap. As far as Vye knew the Veep had not yetrecovered his full senses, he might never do so. And if Hume had notdictated that confession to damn himself before the Patrol, he mighthave escaped. They could suspect--but they would have had no proof.
"You continue to refuse to tape?" The officer favored him with one ofthe closed-jaw looks Vye had often seen on the face of authority.
"I have my rights."
"You have the right to claim victim compensation--a good compensation,Lansor."
Vye shrugged and then winced at a warning from the tender skin overribs.
"I make no claim, and no tape," he repeated. And he intended to go onsaying that as long as they asked him. This was the second visit intwo days and he was getting a little tired of it all. Perhaps heshould do as prudence dictated and demand to be returned to Nahuatl.Only his odd, unexplainable desire to at least see Hume kept him frommaking the request they would have to honor.
"You had better reconsider." Authority resumed.
"Rights of person--" Vye almost grinned as he recited that. For thefirst time in his pushed-around life he could use that particularphrase and make it stick. He thought there was a sour twist to theofficer's mouth, but the other still retained his impersonal tone ashe spoke into the intership com:
"He refused to make a tape."
Vye waited for the other's next move. This should mark the end oftheir interview. But instead the officer appeared to relax therestraint of his official manner. He brought a viv-root case from aninner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vye, who gave an instantand suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one ofthe small tubes, snapped off the protecto-nib, and set it between hislips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabindoor pushed open, and Vye sat up with a jerk as Ras Hume, his headbanded with a skin-core covering, entered.
The officer waved his hand at Vye with the air of one turning over aproblem. "You were entirely right. And he's all yours, Hume."
Vye looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official handswhy wasn't the Hunter under restraint? Unless, because they wereaboard the Patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closerconfinement was necessary. Yet the Hunter wasn't acting the role ofprisoner very well. In fact he perched on a wall-flip seat with theease of one completely at home, accepted the viv-root Vye had refused.
"So you won't make a tape," he asked cheerfully.
"You act as if you want me to!" Vye was so completely baffled by thisodd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively.
"Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing youin the position where you _could_ give us that tape, I must admit somedisappointment."
"Give _us_?" Vye echoed.
The officer removed the viv-root from between his lips. "Tell him thewhole sad story, Hume."
But Vye began to guess. Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, eithersharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishingprocess. "A set-up?"
"A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer alittle defensively. "I might as well tell the whole truth--thisdidn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons forwanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of thecredits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found thatL-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little daydreaming--I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as ithappens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the Masters andtold him the whole story--why I hadn't taped on the records mydiscovery on Jumala.
"When he passed along the news of the L-B to the Patrol, he alsosuggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I hadthought it out. That started a chain reaction. It happened that thePatrol wanted Wass. But he was too big and slick to be caught in acase which couldn't be broken in court. They thought that here wasjust the bait he might snap at, and I was the one to offer it to him.He could check on me, learn that I had excellent reason to do what Isaid I was doing. So I went to him with my story and he liked it. Wemade the plan work just as I had outlined it. And he planted Rovald onme as a check. But I didn't know Yactisi was a plant, also."
The Patrol officer smiled. "Insurance," he waved the viv-root, "justinsurance."
"What we didn't foresee was this complicating alien trouble. You wereto be collected as the castaway, brought back to the Center and then,once Wass was firmly enmeshed, the Patrol would blow the thing wideopen. Now we do have Wass, with your tape we'll have him for good,subject to complete reconditioning. But we also have an X-Tee puzzlewhich will keep the services busy for some time. And we would likeyour tape."
Vye watched Hume narrowly. "Then you're an agent?"
Hume shook his head. "No, just what I said I am, an Out-Hunter whohappened to come into some knowledge that will assist in straighteningout a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for theKogan clan, but to help bring down a Veep of Wass' measure does aid inreinstating one's self-esteem."
"This victim compensation--I _could_ claim it, even though the dealwas a set-up?"
"You'll have first call on Wass' assets. He has plenty invested inlegitimate enterprises, though we'll probably never locate all hishidden funds. But everything we can get open title to will beimpounded. Have something to do with your share?" inquired theofficer.
"Yes."
Hume was smiling subtly. He was a different man from the one Vye hadknown on Jumala. "Premium for the Guild is one thousand credits down,two thousand for training and say another for about the best fieldoutfit you can buy. That'll give you maybe another two or threethousand to save for your honorable retirement."
"How did you know?" Vye began and then had to laugh in spite ofhimself as Hume replied:
"I didn't. Good guess, eh? Well, zoom out your recorder, Commander. Ithink you are going to have some very free speech now." He got to hisfeet. "You know, the Guild has a stake in this alien discovery. We mayjust find that we haven't seen the last of that valley after all,recruit."
He was gone and Vye, eager to have the past done with, and the futurebeginning, reached for the dictation mike.
* * * * *
TWO COMPLETE SPACE ADVENTURE NOVELS
PLANET OF ALIEN MONSTERS....
Somewheres on the jungle world of Jumala, there was a man in hiding--a man whose mind had been reconditioned with another's brain pattern and for whom there was a fabulous reward. STAR HUNTER is a thrill-packed account of that other-worldly game of hide-and-seek between a man who did not know all his own powers and an interstellar safari that sought something no man had a right to find....
PLANET OF MIND MAGICIANS....
Dane Thorson of the space-trader Solar Queen found himself embroiled in a desperate battle of minds between the rational science of the spaceways and the hypnotic witchcraft of the mental wizard that ruled the VOODOO PLANET.
_Here is a double prize-package of Andre Norton space treasures!_
* * * * *
Andre Norton novels available from Ace Books include:
THE LAST PLANET (M-151)SEA SIEGE (F-147)CATSEYE (G-654)THE DEFIANT AGENTS (M-150)STAR BORN (M-148)THE STARS ARE OURS! (M-147)WITCH WORLD (G-655)HUON OF THE HORN (F-226)STAR GATE (M-157)THE TIME TRADERS (F-386)LORD OF THUNDER (F-243)WEB OF THE WITCH WORLD (F-263)SHADOW HAWK (G-538)SARGASSO OF SPACE (F-279)JUDGMENT ON JANUS (F-308)PLAGUE SHIP (F-291)KEY OUT OF TIME (F-287)ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE (F-325)NIGHT OF MASKS (F-365)QUEST CROSSTIME (G-595)STAR GUARD (G-599)YEAR OF THE UNICORN (F-357)THR
EE AGAINST THE WITCH WORLD (F-332)THE SIOUX SPACEMAN (F-408)WARLOCK OF THE WITCH WORLD (G-630)MOON OF THREE RINGS (H-33)DAYBREAK--2250 A.D. (G-717)THE X FACTOR (G-646)VICTORY ON JANUS (G-703)
F-books are 40cG-books are 50cM-books are 45cH-books are 60c
* * * * *
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