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STORM OVER WARLOCK
by
ANDRE NORTON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
STORM OVER WARLOCK
Copyright (C), 1960, by Andre Norton
An Ace Book, by arrangement with The World Publishing Co.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U.S.A.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+| Transcriber's Note || || Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the || U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. || || Front matter consisting of a blurb and a list of other || publications by the author has been moved to the end of the || text. |+--------------------------------------------------------------+
1. DISASTER
The Throg task force struck the Terran Survey camp a few minutes afterdawn, without warning, and with a deadly precision which argued that thealiens had fully reconnoitered and prepared that attack. Eye-searinglances of energy lashed back and forth across the base with methodicalaccuracy. And a single cowering witness, flattened on a ledge in theheights above, knew that when the last of those yellow-red bolts fell,nothing human would be left alive down there. His teeth closed hard uponthe thick stuff of the sleeve covering his thin forearm, and in histhroat a scream of terror and rage was stillborn.
More than caution kept him pinned on that narrow shelf of rock. Watchingthat holocaust below, Shann Lantee could not force himself to move. Thesheer ruthlessness of the Throg move-in left him momentarily weak. Tolisten to a tale of Throgs in action, and to be an eye-witness to suchaction, were two vastly different things. He shivered in spite of thewarmth of the Survey Corps uniform.
As yet he had sighted none of the aliens, only their plate-shapedflyers. They would stay aloft until their long-range weapon cleared outall opposition. But how had they been able to make such a completeannihilation of the Terran force? The last report had placed the nearestThrog nest at least two systems away from Warlock. And a patrol lane hadbeen drawn about the Circe system the minute that Survey had marked itssecond planet ready for colonization. Somehow the beetles had slippedthrough that supposedly tight cordon and would now consolidate theirgains with their usual speed at rooting. First an energy attack tofinish the small Terran force; then they would simply take over.
A month later, or maybe two months, and they could not have done it. Thegrids would have been up, and any Throg ship venturing into Warlock'samber-tinted sky would abruptly cease to be. In the race for survival asa galactic power, Terra had that one small edge over the swarms of theenemy. They need only stake out their new-found world and get the gridsassembled on its surface; then that planet would be locked to thebeetles. The critical period was between the first discovery of asuitable colony world and the erection of grid control. Planets in thepast had been lost during that time lag, just as Warlock was lost now.
Throgs and Terrans ... For more than a century now, planet time, theyhad been fighting their queer, twisted war among the stars. Terranshunted worlds for colonization, the old hunger for land of their owndriving men from the over-populated worlds, out of Sol's system to thefar stars. And those worlds barren of intelligent native life, open tosettlers, were none too many and widely scattered. Perhaps half a dozenwere found in a quarter century, and of that six maybe only one wassuitable for human life without any costly and lengthy adaption of manor world. Warlock was one of the lucky finds which came so seldom.
Throgs were predators, living on the loot they garnered. As yet, mankindhad not been able to discover whether they did indeed swarm from anyhome world. Perhaps they lived eternally on board their plate ships withno permanent base, forced into a wandering life by the destruction ofthe planet on which they had originally been spawned. But they wereraiders now, laying waste defenseless worlds, picking up the wealth ofshattered cities in which no native life remained. And their hiddentemporary bases were looped about the galaxy, their need for worlds withan atmosphere similar to Terra's as necessary as that of man. For inspite of their grotesque insectile bodies, their wholly alien minds, theThrogs were warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing creatures.
After the first few clashes the early Terran explorers had endeavored topromote a truce between the species, only to discover that between Throgand man there appeared to be no meeting ground at all--total differencesof mental processes producing insurmountable misunderstanding. There wassimply no point of communication. So the Terrans had suffered onesmarting defeat after another until they perfected the grid. And nowtheir colonies were safe, at least when time worked in their favor.
It had not on Warlock.
A last vivid lash of red cracked over the huddle of domes in the valley.Shann blinked, half blinded by that glare. His jaws ached as heunclenched his teeth. That was the finish. Breathing raggedly, he raisedhis head, beginning to realize that he was the only one of his kind leftalive on a none-too-hospitable world controlled by enemies--withoutshelter or supplies.
He edged back into the narrow cleft which was the entrance to the ledge.As a representative of his species he was not impressive, and now withthose shudders he could not master, shaking his thin body, he lookedeven smaller and more vulnerable. Shann drew his knees up close underhis chin. The hood of his woodsman's jacket was pushed back in spite ofthe chill of the morning, and he wiped the back of his hand across hislips and chin in an oddly childish gesture.
None of the men below who had been alive only minutes earlier had beenclose friends of his; Shann had never known anyone but acquaintances inhis short, roving life. Most people had ignored him completely except togive orders, and one or two had been actively malicious--like GarthThorvald. Shann grimaced at a certain recent memory, and then thatgrimace faded into wonder. If young Thorvald hadn't purposefully triedto get Shann into trouble by opening the wolverines' cage, Shannwouldn't be here now--alive and safe for a time--he'd have been downthere with the others.
The wolverines! For the first time since Shann had heard the crackle ofthe Throg attack he remembered the reason he had been heading into thehills. Of all the men on the Survey team, Shann Lantee had been theleast important. The dirty, tedious clean-up jobs, the dull routineswhich required no technical training but which had to be performed tokeep the camp functioning comfortably, those had been his portion. Andhe had accepted that status willingly, just to have a chance to beincluded among Survey personnel. Not that he had the slightest hope ofclimbing up to even an S-E-Three rating in the service.
Part of those menial activities had been to clean the animal cages. Andthere Shann Lantee had found something new, something so absorbing thatmost of the tiring dull labor had ceased to exist except as tasks tofinish before he could return to the fascination of the animal runs.
Survey teams had early discovered the advantage of using mutated andhighly trained Terran animals as assistants in the exploration ofstrange worlds. From the biological laboratories and breeding farms onTerra came a trickle of specialized aides-de-camp to accompany man intospace. Some were fighters, silent, more deadly than weapons a man woreat his belt or carried in his hands. Some were keener eyes, keenernoses, keener scouts than the human kind could produce. Bred forintelligence, for size, for adaptability to alien conditions, the animalexplorers from Terra were prized.
Wolverines, the ancient "devils" of the northlands on Terra, were beingtried for the first time on Warlock. Their caution, a quality highlyde
veloped in their breed, made them testers for new territory. Able totackle in battle an animal three times their size, they should be addedprotection for the man they accompanied into the wilderness, and theirwide ranging, their ability to climb and swim, and above all, theircuriosity were assets.
Shann had begun contact by cleaning their cages; he ended captivated bythese miniature bears with long bushy tails. And to his unboundeddelight the attraction was mutual. Alone to Taggi and Togi he was aperson, an important person. Those teeth, which could tear flesh intoragged strips, nipped gently at his fingers, closed without any pressureon arm, even on nose and chin in what was the ultimate caress of theirkind. Since they were escape artists of no mean ability, twice he hadhad to track and lead them back to camp from forays of their owndevising.
But the second time he had been caught by Fadakar, the chief of animalcontrol, before he could lock up the delinquents. And the memory of theresulting interview still had the power to make him flush with impotentanger. Shann's explanation had been contemptuously brushed aside, and hehad been delivered an ultimatum. If his carelessness occurred again, hewould be sent back on the next supply ship, to be dismissed without anofficial sign-off on his work record, thus locked out of even the lowestlevel of Survey for the rest of his life.
That was why Garth Thorvald's act of the night before had made Shannbrave the unknown darkness of Warlock alone when he had discovered thatthe test animals were gone. He had to locate and return them beforeFadakar made his morning inspection; Garth Thorvald's attempt to get himinto bad trouble had saved his life.
Shann cowered back, striving to make his huddled body as small aspossible. One of the Throg flyers appeared silently out of the mistyamber of the morning sky, hovering over the silent camp. The aliens werecoming in to inspect the site of their victory. And the safest place forany Terran now was as far from the vicinity of those silent domes as hecould get. Shann's slight body was an asset as he wedged through thenarrow mouth of a cleft and so back into the cliff wall. The climbbefore him he knew in part, for this was the path the wolverines hadfollowed on their two other escapes. A few moments of tricky scramblingand he was out in a cuplike depression choked with brush covered withthe purplish foliage of Warlock. On the other side of that was a smallcut to a sloping hillside, giving on another valley, not as wide as thatin which the camp stood, but one well provided with cover in the way oftrees and high-growing bushes.
A light wind pushed among the trees, and twice Shann heard the harsh,rasping call of a clak-clak--one of the bat-like leather-winged flyersthat laired in pits along the cliff walls. That present snap of two-tonecomplaint suggested that the land was empty of strangers. For theclak-claks vociferously and loudly resented encroachment on their chosenhunting territory.
Shann hesitated. He was driven by the urge to put as much distancebetween him and the landing Throg ship as he could. But to arouse theattention of inquisitive clak-claks was asking for trouble. Perhaps itwould be best to keep on along the top of the cliff, rather than risk adescent to take cover in the valley the flyers patrolled.
A patch of dust, sheltered by a tooth-shaped projection of rock, gavethe Terran his first proof that Taggi and his mate had preceded him, forprinted firmly there was the familiar paw mark of a wolverine. Shannbegan to hope that both animals had taken to cover in the wildernessahead.
He licked dry lips. Having left secretly without any emergency pack, hehad no canteen, and now Shann inventoried his scant possessions--a fieldkit, heavy-duty clothing, a short hooded jacket with attached mittens,the breast marked with the Survey insignia. His belt supported asheathed stunner and bush knife, and seam pockets held three credittokens, a twist of wire intended to reinforce the latch of the wolverinecage, a packet of bravo tablets, two identity and work cards, and alength of cord. No rations--save the bravos--no extra charge for hisstunner. But he did have, weighing down a loop on the jacket, a smallatomic torch.
The path he followed ended abruptly in a cliff drop, and Shann made aface at the odor rising from below, even though that scent meant hecould climb down to the valley floor here without fearing any clak-clakattention. Chemical fumes from a mineral spring funneled against thewall, warding off any nesting in this section.
Shann drew up the hood of his jacket and snapped the transparent facemask into place. He must get away--then find food, water, a hidingplace. That will to live which had made Shann Lantee fight innumerablebattles in the past was in command, bracing him with a stubborndetermination.
The fumes swirled up in a smoke haze about his waist, but he strode on,heading for the open valley and cleaner air. That sickly lavendervegetation bordering the spring deepened in color to the normalpurple-green, and then he was in a grove of trees, their branchespointed skyward at sharp angles to the rust-red trunks.
A small skitterer burst from moss-spotted ground covering, giving analarmed squeak, skimming out of sight as suddenly as it had appeared.Shann squeezed between two trees and then paused. The trunk of thelarger was deeply scored with scratches dripping viscid gobs of sap, asap which was a bright froth of scarlet. Taggi had left his mark here,and not too long ago.
The soft carpet of moss showed no paw marks, but he thought he knew thegoal of the animals--a lake down-valley. Shann was beginning to plannow. The Throgs had not blasted the Terran camp out of existence; theyhad only made sure of the death of its occupiers. Which meant they musthave some use for the installations. For the general loot of a Surveyfield camp would be relatively worthless to those who picked over thetreasure of entire cities elsewhere. Why? What did the Throgs want? Andwould the alien invaders continue to occupy the domes for long?
Shann did not realize what had happened to him since that shock ofruthless attack. From early childhood, when he had been thrown on hisown to scratch a living--a borderline existence of a living--on theDumps of Tyr, he had had to use his wits to keep life in a scrawny andundersized body. However, since he had been eating regularly from Surveyrations, he was not quite so scrawny any more.
His formal education was close to zero, his informal and off-centerschooling vast. And that particular toughening process which had beenworking on him for years now aided in his speedy adaption to a new setof facts, formidable ones. He was alone on a strange and perhaps hostileworld. Water, food, safe shelter, those were important now. And onceagain, away from the ordered round of the camp where he had been ruledby the desires and requirements of others, he was thinking, planning infreedom. Later (his hand went to the butt of his stunner) perhaps laterhe might just find a way of extracting an accounting from thebeetle-faces, too.
For the present, he would have to keep away from the Throgs, which meantwell away from the camp. A fleck of green showed through the amethystfoliage before him--the lake! Shann wriggled through a last bush barrierand stood to look out over that surface. A sleek brown head bobbed up.Shann put fingers to his mouth and whistled. The head turned, blackbutton eyes regarded him, short legs began to churn water. To hisgratification the swimmer was obeying his summons.
Taggi came ashore, pausing on the fine gray sand of the verge to shakehimself vigorously. Then the wolverine came upslope at a clumsy gallopto Shann. With an unknown feeling swelling inside him, the Terran wentdown on both knees, burying both hands in the coarse brown fur, warmingto the uproarious welcome Taggi gave him.
"Togi?" Shann asked as if the other could answer. He gazed back to thelake, but Taggi's mate was nowhere in sight.
The blunt head under his hand swung around, black button nose pointednorth. Shann had never been sure just how intelligent, as mankindmeasured intelligence, the wolverines were. He had come to suspect thatFadakar and the other experts had underrated them and that both beastsunderstood more than they were given credit for. Now he followed anexperiment of his own, one he had had a chance to try only a few timesbefore and never at length. Pressing his palm flat on Taggi's head,Shann thought of Throgs and of their attack, trying to arouse in theanimal a corresponding reaction to his own horror and
anger.
And Taggi responded. A mutter became a growl, teeth gleamed--those cruelteeth of a carnivore to whom they were weapons of aggression. Danger ...Shann thought "danger." Then he raised his hand, and the wolverineshuffled off, heading north. The man followed.
They discovered Togi busy in a small cove where a jagged tangle of driftmade a mat dating from the last high-water period. She was finishing ahearty breakfast, the remains of a water rat being buried thriftilyagainst future need after the instincts of her kind. When she was doneshe came to Shann, inquiry plain to read in her eyes.
There was water here, and good hunting. But the site was too close tothe Throgs. Let one of their exploring flyers sight them, and the littlegroup was finished. Better cover, that's what the three fugitives musthave. Shann scowled, not at Togi, but at the landscape. He was tired andhungry, but he must keep on going.
A stream fed into the cove from the west, a guide of sorts. With verylittle knowledge of the countryside, Shann was inclined to follow that.
Overhead the sun made its usual golden haze of the sky. A flight ofvivid green streaks marked a flock of lake ducks coming for a morningfeeding. Lake duck was good eating, but Shann had no time to hunt onenow. Togi started down the bank of the stream, Taggi behind her. Eitherthey had caught his choice subtly through some undefined mental contact,or they had already picked that road on their own.
Shann's attention was caught by a piece of the drift. He twisted thelength free and had his first weapon of his own manufacture, a club.Using it to hold back a low sweeping branch, he followed the wolverines.
Within the half hour he had breakfast, too. A pair of limp skitterers,their long hind feet lashed together with a thong of grass, hung fromhis belt. They were not particularly good eating, but they were meat andacceptable.
The three, man and wolverines, made their way up the stream to thevalley wall and through a feeder ravine into the larger space beyond.There, where the stream was born at the foot of a falls, they made theirfirst camp. Judging that the morning haze would veil any smoke, Shannbuilt a pocket-size fire. He seared rather than roasted the skitterersafter he had made an awkward and messy business of skinning them, andtore the meat from the delicate bones in greedy mouthfuls. Thewolverines lay side by side on the gravel, now and again raising a headalertly to test the scent on the air, or gaze into the distance.
Taggi made a warning sound deep in the throat. Shann tossed handfuls ofsand over the dying fire. He had only time to fling himself face-down,hoping the drab and weathered cloth of his uniform faded into the colorof the earth on which he lay, every muscle tense.
A shadow swung across the hillside. Shann's shoulders hunched, and hecowered again. That terror he had known on the ledge was back in fullforce as he waited for the beam to lick at him as it had earlier at hisfellows. The Throgs were on the hunt....