A murmur of sound filtered up, and with the noise a haze of dust thick as fog, not yet close enough to torment throats and eyes, hanging in a murky wave about a hundred feet below. Now and then the curtain wavered and Kade could see the bobbing, dust-grayed backs of the kwitu still headed north, filling the slit below from wall to wall, the constant complaint of their bellows echoed and rechoed into a sullen roaring.
From here on their path followed ridge and ledge, gradually descending until the dust hid the road ahead. But Lik did not question Iskug, probably believing that with Lik’s control of the collar, the native would not dare to lead them into danger.
They found it easy enough to thread along until they hit the level of the dust. There Lik called a halt, stationing himself behind Iskug, his fingers on the control buttons in warning. Linked hand to hand in a line, water soaked strips of cloth tied over nose and mouth, they shuffled on, the sound of the kwitu loud enough to drown out all other noises. Now and then Kade caught a glimpse of a bull’s head tossed high, heard the squall of an out of season calf, louder and more shrill than the plaint of its elders. But for the most part there was no individuality in that live ribbon.
Escape into a side pocket came before sundown. But the dull murmur of the herd continued to be heard as the hunting party made their way back into the mountains. Kade knew that the thousands of migrating kwitu would not halt because of the end of daylight. The animal trek took on awesome proportions and the Terran was duly impressed.
Iskug led them into a basin where there were trees of respectable size and the grass was as lush as on the outer plains. Before the light had quite faded, Kade noted movement to the far end of the valley and turned to Dokital, patiently waiting behind him, for an explanation.
"That is?"
"The kwitu bulls, Old. Bad. Bad here,” the Ikkinni tapped his hairy forehead. "No more want female, no want clan brothers. Only want In fight. Bad.”
Bulls outcast from the herd, dangerous, right enough. But Lik must have noted them too for the Overman placed the cube of a sonic in the middle of their improvised camp, setting its dial. That guardian devised by the Styor had been adjusted to those it would, protect, but any newcomer would be met by sonic blast which would be wall-like in its defense of their party.
Kade awoke in the first pale suggestion of dawn, awoke to instant consciousness. And that act in itself was a warning. Under the flap of his bedroll, he drew his stunner. Then, turning his head slowly, he tried to evaluate the sound which must have alerted him.
There was a crash in the brush, followed by the enraged bellow of a kwitu bull that must have tangled with the sonic shield. Yet Kade could not accept that as what had awakened him. Something more stealthy and from a closer point— He rolled on his side as might a disturbed sleeper. Then his knees were under him and he made his feet, stunner ready.
A flick from the brush cover, and the curl of a lash caught his wrist with force enough to jerk the weapon half out of his grasp. Had Kade not been alert he might easily have been disarmed. Jerking away from that clutch, he caught his heel in the tangle of his recently quitted bag and staggered back, out of the path of sudden and certain death.
For the bellow which he had thought marked the meeting of the kwitu with the sonic protector was not that at all. A horned head thrust through a bush, small eyes red with rage and pain centered on the campsite. A horn dug turf, threw clods over humped shoulders, and a ton of mad anger on four feet plowed directly across the ashes of last night’s fire toward the Terran.
Kade threw himself to the left to avoid that rush. He was enmeshed in a tangle of grass and vines and held long enough to see the kwitu stop again to paw and horn the ground. There was not an Ikkinni in sight. And Lik—where was Lik?
The chill of premonition fathered a guess. Steel had died in this wilderness. Now his successor in turn threatened. By chance, or by careful arrangement?
Kade tore his arm free of a vine, snapped a beam-shot at the kwitu. The bull had wheeled for a second charge, moving with an agility which belied its bulk. The invisible ray of force caught it across the top of the domed skull. The result was not unconsciousness for the animal, but a complete break with sanity. At a dead run the kwitu tore straight ahead.
A small tree gave under that blind attack and Kade looked as through a window at the next act of the drama.
Lik stood in the open, a queer expression of surprise and horror distorting his handsome face. He could see the bull coming, but he made no move to avoid the headlong charge of the insane beast.
CHAPTER 4
KADE SHOUTED, swung the stunner up for a second shot at the bull. But an amazing burst of speed by the heavy animal defeated his hasty aim. The head scooped, tossed. And Lik, big as he was, arose in the air, his agonized cry shrilling above the bellow of the kwitu.
The bull whirled as the Overman hit the ground and lunged again at the feebly struggling man, its hooves tearing though the plains grass. Kade steadied on one knee, the barrel of his stunner resting on his forearm, the strength of the beam pushed to “full" as he fired.
That blast of energy must have caught the kwitu between the small eyes, and the result was the same as if an axe had cracked open its thick skull. It went to its knees, round head plowing forward so that the under jaw scrapped along the earth. Then the body struck Lik, bore him along with the impetus of that now undirected charge.
The Overman screamed once again. And his thin cry was echoed from the bushes. Out of one rusty clump an Ikkinni burst free, staggering, his hands tearing at the slave band about his throat, while the violent shaking of other bits of brush told of the agony of his fellows still governed by the control box on their injured driver.
With a groan the Ikkinni fell to his hands and knees, began to crawl painfully toward the tangle of kwitu and Overman. Kade tore at the twisted branches and vines which held him. Before he had kicked loose from that mesh the crawling native had reached the bodies, was pulling feebly at Lik.
Kade ran across the trampled ground and the Ikkinni looked up. It was Iskug, his lips drawn tight against his teeth, his eyes holding something of madness in their depths as he fought the pressure about his throat. Kade shifted the limp body of the Overman, was answered by a moan, a faint stir. The broad head of the kwitu rested on the man’s middle, the weight of the heavy skull must be pressing directly on the control box.
The Terran wrestled with the bull’s head, using the nose horn for a grip. At last he was able to lift it away from Lik. Blood welled from a ragged tear in the alien’s thigh. Kade made an examination, using the materials from his aid pack to tend the gore. Lik might also have suffered broken bones or internal injuries, but this was his only visible wound.
Kade heard a whistling gasp of breath. Less than a foot away Iskug lay spent, a dabble of pale, pinkish blood flowing from nostrils and the comers of his now slack mouth. Beneath the down on his cheeks his naturally white skin was flushed to a purple dusk.
The Terran tightened the temporary packing on Lik’s wound. The Overman was still unconscious but his breathing seemed better than Iskug’s and the off-worlder sat back on his heels, making no move to touch the control box. With a laborous effort the native levered himself up. His ribs heaving as he sucked in great gasps of air. He crawled to the Overman, watching the Terran warily.
Obviously he expected opposition from Kade, but still he was going to make an effort to secure the box. What the off-worlder did then must have surprised the Ikkinni. For he moved, not to defend Lik, but to slide his arm about the hunter’s shoulders, putting one hand over Iskug’s to guide those hairy fingers to the belt about Lik’s middle.
“Take!” he urged.
Iskug’s fingers moved, fastened on that belt in a convulsive grip as a shadow struck them both. Dokital knelt on the other side of the prone Overman, went to work on the belt buckle.
As he did so Kade saw a loop of rope hanging from the native’s wrist, saw, also, the patch of raw skin where too tight bo
nds had chafed.
“What chanced?”
Dokital pulled the loop off, flung it into the grass.
“It was tied.”
“Why?”
“There was a plan. It would not aid that plan.”
“A plan for a killing?”
“For a killing,” Dokital agreed. “There were two plans. One different from the other.”
“And one was made by this one,” Kade pointed to Lik. “The other by these.” The Terran nodded at the natives.
“That is so. This collar master had the saying of one plan. To kill the starwalker with a bull.”
“And the other plan?”
“To let the Planner—” Dokital nodded toward the distant triple peak still visible, “decide who died.”
“True spoken.” Iskug’s voice was a croaking whisper. He sat with the control box tight within the circle of his arm. From the bushes the rest of the hunters crawled or staggered.
Kade watched them warily. He had the stunner, a cross blast of that weapon could bring them all down before they reached him, weak as they now were.
“The Planner decided, the Spearman thrust,” Dokital said. He went down on one knee again, slid Lik’s knife from its sheath, his purpose very evident.
Kade deflected that blow, sending the blade home in the trampled earth a good six inches from the chest which had been the target. Red eyes smoldered as they met his.
“Will the Starwalker take on a blood feud for this one?”
“It does not. But also it would know why a killing was planned.”
Dokital pulled the knife from the ground, ran his finger along the clean sweep of the blade. Then from that length of perma-steel he looked to Iskug.
“It has said that these two are not as one,” the native from the post remarked.
Iskug fondled the control box. “Let the starwalker break this thing so it and it and it,” he pointed to his men, “no longer must crawl at a lifted finger, but may once again walk straight in the sun as warriors.”
Regretfully Kade shook his head. To meddle with the intricate control box might mean death for all those so tragically linked with that diabolical thing. He said as much, trying to to make it clear.
“This still lives.” He stooped to adjust the bandage about Lik’s thigh. “It may have an answer to the box.”
“Not to go back!” Iskug cried, was echoed by an affirmative chorus from the hunters.
Dokital fingered his own collar. The capture of this control meant no freedom for him. But he did not question Iskug’s decision.
Kade asked another question as the Overman moaned.
“And for these?” He pointed to Lik, himself, Dokital.
Iskug hesitated. It was plain that at least two of the three offered a problem for which he had no quick solution. Yet it was also apparent he had no ill will for either Kade or the post native.
“For this,” he turned almost with relief to Lik and drew his finger down his chest in a motion which needed no clearer translation.
“Not so. Perhaps it can break the magic of the collar,” Kade countered. “The kill was mine,” he slapped one hand on the dusty head of the kwitu. “It is mine,” he nodded at the Overman whose life he had saved, at least for a space, by that same lucky shot. Whether such reasoning would hold with the Ikkinni he had yet to learn.
Dokital struck in. “It is now slave to the starwalker, taken as in a net.”
The justice of that appeared to appeal to Iskug.
“It is broken,” he observed without any concern. “So it can not serve.”
“But it can talk, as the starwalker has said. Now come wet winds.” Dokital gestured at the mountains about them. “We must have fire, cover.”
There were clouds massing about the peaks, a fog creeping down to blot out the heights. Even Kade, knowing little of Klorian weather, saw there was a change for the worse in the making. Iskug studied Lik. With very obvious reluctance he gave orders for a litter to be fashioned out of the alien’s sleeping bag and saplings from the grove. Hoping that the Overman could survive the handling, Kade got the inert body on the litter with Dokital’s aid, and together they were left to carry on at the end of the procession heading for the nearest mountain wall.
By the time the rock escarpment was just before them the hesitant sunshine of the morning had gone and a murk close to twilight settled in. Iskug appeared to have some goal in view. He turned northwest at the edge of the slope and his pace became a trot Kade and Dokital, the litter between them, could not equal. As they lagged behind the Ikkinni dropped back, his impatience plain, to order the hunters to help at the litter poles.
Kade trotted beside Lik. He was sure that he had seen the Overman’s eyes open and close again quickly, and he had not missed the movement of the hand groping for the control no longer there. Lik was not only conscious again, but enough in command of his faculties to want to assume leadership of his slaves once more. Yet now he lay once more with closed eyes, the more dangerous for that ability in his present condition to act a role.
The litter bearers passed between two pillars of rock and Kade dropped back. Then the storm broke in great pelting drops of rain, stinging as might pellets of ice against their skins. With a burst of speed they came into the shelter Iskug had sought where an overhand of rock shielded a hollow in the mountain side. The place was not a cave but the roof arched well over their heads and kept out a good measure of the rain.
Kade watched Iskug dig into the gravel at the rear of the hollow, bringing out of hiding an armload of the greasy, long-burning river reed stalks which were the best fire material on Klor. Since there was no reed-bearing river within miles as far as the Terran knew, such a cache meant that there must often be occupation of this shelter.
His own problem was Lik. The Ikkinni had set the litter well to the back of the half cave and left its occupant strictly alone. Iskug still hugged the control box to himself, having rigged it in an improvised belt of trap net against his middle. As far as Kade could see there was no chance of the injured Overman regaining his power. But he was also certain that Lik would try just that. Now the Terran squatted down beside the litter, ostensibly to inspect the other’s bandages.
There came a crack of light and sound mingled, slashing down just outside the overhang. Kade started. Then his hand swept around to strike at the wrist above those fingers closing on his stunner. His gaze met that of the alien on the litter with a grim warning.
“Do not try that now.”
Knowing that Lik would never accept him as an ally after this small defeat, Kade counterattacked swiftly, hoping to surprise some morsel of information out of the other.
“I am not meat for your killing, Overman!”
Lik’s hatred was plain, and now nakedly open in the glare of his yellow eyes. The lips, feline flat against his teeth, were in a snarl of rage. Kade pushed his point.
“Why? Because I am Terran, or because I am I?” He could conceive of no reason for a personal feud between them, though he had disliked the other from their first meeting. Perhaps that instinctive revulsion had been mutual, and carried to an extreme by the alien’s temperament.
Lik did not answer. His hands now lay clenched upon his middle where once they had played over the keys of the control and he closed his eyes, his whole body expressing his stubborn refusal to reply.
Iskug’s fire blazed, driving out a portion of the damp storm chill with welcome heat. As the hunters gathered about it, their leader placed the control box between his knees, turning it this way and that in the light of the flames. Once he raised it in his two hands as if to cast it into the heart of the fire and from behind Kade heard Lik’s small, evil chuckle.
Spurred by that sound the Terran shouted, “No!” Ikkinni heads turned. He added swiftly, “The Overman wishes that!”
Iskug stood up, tucked the control box back in his net sling, came to stand over Lik. Kade saw the alien did not flinch even when a spear pricked his flesh at heart level.<
br />
“Strike, dirt eater,” Lik’s lips shaped a grimace which might have been meant for a smile. “Strike and then guard that box, for it will bind every one of you!”
One of the other hunters came hurrying across, loomed over the wounded alien.
“Make that not so!” He ordered.
Again Lik laughed. “It could not if it would,” he retorted, spirit undiminished. “The secret is not its—”
“It may be right,” Kade pointed out. This is a Styor thing. And Lik is not Styor.”
The Overman’s reaction to that was unexpected. Kade might have struck purposefully at a half-healed wound, bringing again agonizing pain. Lik jerked up on the litter, his fist striking the Terran on the shoulder, knocking Kade off balance so that he sprawled back. Again those fingers snatched at his holstered weapon, and this time the off-worlder was too late to prevent loss. But he was leaping again for Lik as the alien snapped the beam button. There was no visible answer to that half aimed shot. And a moment later Kade’s hold was on the other’s wrist, twisting.
As suddenly as he had attacked the other, Lik surrendered, panting under the Terran’s weight. And Kade had freedom to see what the stunner had done.
Iskug rolled on the gravel, his face again dusky, his hands tearing at the collar. Beyond him the rest of his fellows were down in the same torture. Then the head tracker gasped, half leaped, to fall back, but he was still breathing. The hands at his throat tugged again at the collar. And under that grip, feeble, as it must have been, the band of silvery stuff broke.
He dropped the broken circlet, rubbed his throat with his fingers. Two of the other hunters lay still, one with his knees drawn up to his chest in a silent expression of his death pain. But the others moved sluggishly, almost as if they could not believe they were still living. Each, witnessing Iskug’s luck, put hands to their own collars, snapped the bands easily.
Iskug cradled the control box between his hands once again. Cautiously he raised the cube to the level of his ear, shook it with increasing vigor. Then, in his fingers, the thing came apart, showered a rain of crumbled container and small, unidentifiable interior parts. Kade began to deduct what had happened.