6
"Brodie?" Rynch squatted on his heels.
Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowedthe smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph.
"Were you looking for me?" he added.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"We found an L-B--we wondered if there were survivors."
Slowly Rynch shook his head. "No--you knew I was here. Because youbrought me!" He fashioned his suspicions into one quick thrust.
This time there was not the slightest hint of self-betrayal from theother.
"You see," Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from thecaptive, "I remember!"
Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man's eyes. He askedquietly:
"What do you remember, Brodie?"
"Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on theL-B, did not build that camp."
He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive laybehind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced,he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.
"You have no cup this time."
"So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. Thatneed not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to onNahuatl--unless you _liked_ the Starfall." His voice was icy withcontempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." Hepaused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willingthe desired answer out of his inferior.
Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl--a planet?a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everythingclearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did....
"You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makesRynch Brodie so important?"
"Close to a billion credits!" The man from the spacer leaned well backin the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his bodyfrom sinking deeper. "A billion credits," he repeated softly.
Rynch laughed. "You'll have to think of a better one than that,fly-boy."
"The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to allthis staging? You've been conditioned, Brodie, illegallybrain-channeled!"
To Rynch the words meant nothing. If they ever had, that was gone,lost in the maze of other things which had been blotted out of hismind by the Brodie past. But he would not give the other the advantageof knowing his uncertainty.
"You need a Brodie for a billion credits. But you don't have a Brodienow!"
To his surprise the prisoner in the earth trap laughed. "I'll have aBrodie when he's needed. Think about a good share of a billioncredits, boy, keep thinking of that hard."
"I will."
"Thoughts alone won't work it, you know." For the first time there wasa hint of some emotion in the man's voice.
"You mean I need you? I don't think so. I've stopped being a plaquefor someone to play across the board." That expression brought anothermomentary flash of hazy memory--a smoky, crowded room where men slidcounters back and forth across tables--not one of Brodie's editedrecalls, but his own.
Rynch stood up, started for the rise of the slope, but before hetopped that he glanced back. The damaged com box still smoked whereits wearer had flung it. Now the man was already straining forwardwith both arms, trying to reach a rock just a finger space beyond.Lucky for him the burrow was an old one, uninhabited. In time heshould be able to work his way out. Meanwhile there was the whole of awide countryside in which Rynch could discover a hideout--no one wouldfind him now against his will.
He tried, as he strode along, to piece together more of his memoriesand the scanty information he had had from the Nahuatl man. So he hadbeen "brain-channeled," given a set of false memories to fit a RynchBrodie whose presence on this world meant a billion credits forsomeone. He could not believe that this was the spaceman's game alone,for hadn't he spoken of "we"?
A billion credits! The sum was fantastic, the whole storyunbelievable.
There was a hot stab of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stampedhard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back intime to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work onsome unidentifiable carrion. Staring down at the welter of scaled,segmented bodies and busy claws, he gasped.
Three dead water-cats were near the man trapped in the pit. Bait todraw these voracious eaters straight to the prisoner. Rynch's emptystomach heaved. He swung around, ran across the grassy verge of theupper bank, hoping he was not too late.
As he half fell, half slid down to the water, he saw that the man hadmanaged to hook the webbing of the smouldering box to him, was castingit out and dragging it back patiently, aiming at the nearest rock ofsize, fruitlessly attempting to hitch its straps over the round ofstone.
Rynch dashed on, caught at that loop of webbing, and dug his heelsinto the loose gravel as he began a steady pull. With his aid theother crawled out, lay panting. Rynch grabbed the man's shoulder,jerked him away from the body of the female water-cat. He was sure hehad seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs.
The man straightened, glanced toward Rynch who was backing off, theneedler up and ready between them.
"My turn to ask why?"
Then his gaze followed Rynch's. The smallest cub twitched from side toside. Not with any faint trace of life, but under the attack of thescavengers. More scuttled towards the second cub.
"Thanks!" The stranger was on his feet. "My name is Ras Hume. I don'tthink I told you that when we last met."
"This doesn't make any difference. I'm not your man, not Brodie!"
Hume shrugged. "You think about it, Brodie, think about it with care.Come back to camp with me and--"
"No!" Rynch interrupted. "You go your way, I go mine from here on."
Again the other laughed. "Not so simple as all that, boy. We'vestarted something which can't just be turned off as easily as you snapdown a switch." He took a step or two in Rynch's direction.
The younger man brought up the needler. "Stay right where you are!Your game, Hume? All right, you play it--but not with me."
"And what are you going to do, take to the woods?"
"What I do is my business, Hume."
"No, my business, too, very much so. I'm giving you a warning, boy, inreturn for your help here." He nodded at the pit. "There's somethingin that woods--something which didn't show up when the Guild had theirsurvey exploration here."
"The watchers." Rynch retreated step by step, keeping the needlerready. "I saw them."
"You've seen them!" Hume was eager. "What do they look like?"
In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himselfanswering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recallminutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one whohad waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in aboutthe L-B clearing.
"No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood."The verifier reported no intelligence."
"These watchers--you don't know them?"
"No. Nor do I like what you've seen of them, Brodie. So I'm willing tocall a truce. The Guild believed Jumala an open planet, our recordsaccredited it so. If that is not true we may be in for bad trouble. Asan Out-Hunter I am responsible for the safety of three civs back therein the safari camp."
Hume made sense, much as Rynch disliked admitting it. And the Huntermust have read something of his agreement in his face for now henodded and added briskly:
"Best place now is the safari camp. We'll head back at once."
Only time had run out. A noise sounded with a metallic ring. Rynchwhirled, needler cocked. A glittering ball about the size of his fistrolled away from contact with a boulder, came to rest in the deepdepression of one of Hume's boot tracks. Then another flash throughthe air, a clatter as a second ball spun across a patch of gravel.
The balls seemed to appear out of the air. Displaying rainbow glintsthey rolled in a semicircle about the two
men. Rynch stooped, thenHume's fingers latched about his wrist, dragging his hand away fromthe globe. It was only then that he realized that sharp action haddetached his attention from that ball he had wanted to take up.
"Don't touch!" Hume barked. "And don't look at that too closely! Comealong!" He pulled Rynch forward through the yet unclosed arc of theglobe circle.
Hume detoured around the feasting scavengers and brought Rynch withhim at a trot. They could hear behind them the plop and tinkle of moreglobes. Glancing back Rynch saw one fall close to the bodies of thewater-cats.
"Wait a minute!" He pulled back against Hume's hold. Here was a chanceto see what effect that crystal had on the clawed carrion eater.
There was a change in the crystal: Yellow now, then red--red as thefew scraps of fur remaining on the rapidly disappearing body.
"Look!"
The pulsating carpet which had covered the dead feline ceased to move.But towards that spot rolled two more of the globes, approaching thescavengers. Now the clawed things were stirring, dropping away fromtheir prey. They spread out in a patch, moved purposefully forward.Behind them, as guardians might head a flock, rolled three globes,flushing scarlet, then more.
Hume's hand came up. From the cone tip of the ray tube spat a lance offire, to strike the middle crystal. The beam was reflected into theblock of scavengers. Scaled bodies, twisted, crisped, were ash. Butthe crystal continued to roll at the same pace.
"Move!" Hume's other hand hit Rynch's shoulder, knocked him forward inan impetuous shove which nearly took him off his feet. Both men beganto run.
"What--what are those things?" Rynch appealed between panting breaths.
"I don't know--and I don't like their looks. They're between us andthe safari camp if we keep to the river--"
"Between us and the river now." Rynch saw that glittering swoopthrough the air, marked the landing of a ball near the water's edge.
"Might be trying to box us in. But that's not going to work.See--ahead there where that log's caught between two rocks? Run out onthat when we reach there and take to the water. I don't think thosethings can float and if they sink to the bottom that ought to fix themas far as we are concerned."
Rynch ran, still holding the needler. He balanced along the drift logHume had pointed out and a jump sent him floundering in the brownstream thigh deep. Hume joined him, his face grim.
"Downstream--"
Rynch looked. One shape--two--three--Clearly detailed where matchingvegetation gave them no covering camouflage, the watchers had come outof the woods at last. A line of them were walking quietly and uprighttowards the humans, their blue-green fuzz covering like a mist underthe direct rays of the sun. Quiet as they seemed at present, thethings out of the Jumalan forest were a picture of sheer brutestrength as they moved.
"Let's get out of here--fast!"
The men kept moving, and always after them padded that silent line ofgreen-blue, pushing them farther and farther away from the safaricamp, on towards the rising mountain peaks. Just as the globes hadshaken the scavengers loose from their meal and sent them marching on,so were the humans being herded for some unknown purpose.
At least, once the march of the beasts began, they saw and heard nomore of the globes. And as they reached a curve in the river, Humestopped, swung around, stood studying the line of decorously pacinganimals.
"We can pick them off with the needler or the ray."
The Hunter shook his head. "You don't kill," he recited the credo ofhis Guild, "not until you are sure. There is a method behind this, andmethod means intelligence."
Handling of X-tee creatures and peoples was a part of Guild training.In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was Guild educatedand Rynch was willing to leave such decisions to him.
The other held out the ray tube. "Take this, cover me, but don't useit until I say so. Understand?"
He waited only for Rynch's nod before he started, at a deliberate pacewhich matched that of the beasts, back through the river shallows tomeet them. But that advancing line halted, stood waiting in silence.Hume's hands went up, palm out, he spoke slowly in Basic-X-Tee clicks:
"Friend." This was all Rynch could make out of that sing-song ofsyllables Rynch knew to be a contact pattern.
The dark eye pits continued to stare. A light breeze ruffled the fuzzcovering of wide shoulders, long muscular arms. Not a head moved, notone of those heavy, rounded jaws opened to emit any answering sound.Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a portending atmospherespread from the alien things as might a tangible wave.
For perhaps two breaths they stood so, man facing alien. Then Humeturned, walked back, his face set. Rynch offered him the ray tube.
"Fight our way out?"
"Too late. Look!"
Moving lines of blue-green coming down to the river. Not five or sixnow--a dozen--twenty. There was a small trickle of moisture down theside of the Hunter's brown face.
"We're penned--except straight ahead."
"But we're going to fight!" Rynch protested.
"No. Move on!"