Postmarked The Stars Part 4

But surely life could not be limited to vegetation-yet there were no birds, no flying things, no animals to be sighted. Perhaps the landing of the LB had driven many to cover. Yet he kept hoping to see a single track, some evidence that they were not in a deserted world.

The sound that did break that increasingly ominous silence was a whistle from Ali. He spun around to see Kamil waving to Rip, who disappeared then from sight. Dane did not at once retrace his way. The need to make sure that there was some life here pushed him on a short distance.

What he did find was a bare, black section of ground, unmistakably once the site of a fire. Stones had been set in a rough circle, and in the midst of that lay charred lengths of nearly consumed wood. Sand had been blown across the stones, so that it was plain it had been some time since this campsite had been used. Surveyors from some holding? An exploring party? There might even be a chance that, as on too many frontier worlds, there was an outlaw element here that had taken to the wilderness, though the accounts they had of Trewsworld named it a placid, hard-working, and law-abiding planet.

Dane went a little beyond the campfire and came across unmistakable evidence that the vegetation had been hacked away to clear pa.s.sage for something larger than a party traveling on foot. In another bare spot that must have been soft clay and was now frozen into a sharp ridged rut, he saw the track of what could only be a crawler. The gashed growth and crushed tracks led on into the shade of the trees.

If they did need a road later on, they might use that track. But for now- He heard the moan of displaced air and turned in time to see the LB slide from the cliff top and aim in Ali's direction. Not for the first time he admired Rip's skill as a pilot.

They could not hide the marks of their own landing, for the LB smashed a pa.s.sage into the brush, stopping only when it nosed into the beginnings of the forest. But the growth seemed to possess unusual elasticity, and where it had not been actually broken off, it began to rise slowly and cloak a little of that backtrail.

Why Dane continued to think of some danger in their being seen, he could not explain, save that this whole affair was so bizarre and in a way menacing. And he knew that the captain thought they needed time on their side.

They did not disturb the brach nest-cage. But Ali suited up and, moving ponderously in that s.h.i.+elded clothing, took the box, to trudge on into the woods. When he came back later, he taped directions as to its burial spot. They could not be sure even now that there was no leakage from the outer sh.e.l.l so hurriedly made in the Queen's engineering repair cabin and that the dire influence of what was inside could not spread to the surrounding territory.

"By rights we should have s.p.a.ced it!" Rip declared as he brought out E-ration tubes and they sat, with their backs to the LB, sucking the contents.

"s.p.a.ce it and you have no chance to pick it up again," Ali returned. "After the captain reports in, there may be a lot of big brains wanting to beam in on it."

"There're the brachs." Dane had been only half listening to them, thinking along another path. "If they have degenerated, well, what's the answer? Are we bound to use the box, or something like it, to return them to an intelligent race? There's the code against interference-how would it work in such a case?"

"Nice legal point." Ali squeezed the last mouthful from his tube and rolled the now flaccid container into a small ball. "If you have a station on a planet marked no I life and then you discover you can produce native I life there, thus losing your contract, are you required to do just that?"

"You mean Combine might fight any upgrading?" Dane asked. "Is Xecho worth a beam-out with the Council?"

"Xecho," Rip answered, "is a crossroads, a way station. In itself it is not important except for its port. So if the Combine were a.s.sured they could keep that, they might not fight upgrading. But it would be chancy. Brachs have been considered harmless, but these have been hostile-"

"Suppose you suddenly woke up to the fact you were a prisoner of an alien race and you had your wife to defend and children-" Ali asked. "What would you do?"

"Just what the brach did," Dane agreed. "So it's up to us, the three of us now, to make contact with the brachs and induce them to see we are friends."

"That we may be able to do. What I don't like is that cargo of embryos," Ali observed. "I think we had better get them out of the s.h.i.+p. They're spoiled now for all purposes. And there's this-the brach gave birth ahead of time. Suppose the radiation works the same way on the embryos, speeds up gestation? Stotz wasn't able to rig any freeze unit to deter that."

"We don't decant them," Dane replied. "If you do, in this cold they'd be finished." But it was only token resistance on his part. With the engineer apprentice, he felt the need for getting those boxes and their nightmare cargo out of the LB. The sooner they were sure that what lay within would never develop further, the better.

It was a wearying business, pulling the boxes out the hatch, tramping among the trees to stack them between two, piling stones around them. The ground here was ankle deep in powdery skeletons of the pulpy leaves, so these must fall at some time. They dug into the dust, using it with the stones to cover the boxes lest some native life try to investigate them, though what manner of tooth, fang, or claw could break them open, Dane had no idea.

The dark had come by the time they had finished, and, tired, they dragged themselves wearily back to the LB, longing for rest in the hammocks. But Dane went first to the brach cage, lifting the lid and pulling aside some of the padding. There was a heaving, and something rose almost under his hand.

A head poked out to regard him with unblinking eyes, by its size one of the kits. However, this was no helpless youngling. He could not mistake the intelligence in that steady gaze, and the fantastic growth rate of the creature astounded him. It was half, maybe two-thirds as big as one of its parents, and might have been a year or more older by brach development. Though the time in hyper followed a different rate than that of planet time, there was nothing to explain this but the effects of radiation.

He was so startled that he was not ready for the next move of the young brach. Showing reaction to their confrontation, the small creature threw itself at the nearest side of the cage, hooked both front paws on the edge, and heaved up with a speed Dane had not seen before-save when the male had gotten out of the cage the second time in the s.h.i.+p.

"Rip-the hatch!"

Shannon jerked the door shut just in time, almost catching the long nose of the infant brach in the crack. Before he could stoop to lay a hand on the escapee, the animal turned and scuttled away, leaping to the nearest hammock, where it settled down, watching them warily, its lip wrinkling back under the horn to show teeth already well budded.

Dane slammed the lid back on the cage just in time, for three more heads had arisen from the padding and other forepaws were reaching for the edge of their prison.

He advanced to the cub in the hammock. "Come on-I won't hurt you. Come on-" he tried to keep his voice low, coaxing, rea.s.suring it as much as he could.

It uttered a high-pitched chittering and tried to horn his hand. But Ali had slipped up behind, using the stuff of the hammock to net it, though he had a struggle on his hands, for the captured one kicked furiously, voicing screeches of mingled fear and rage, which were echoed loudly from the crate. In the end it took all three men to get the kit back with its fellows, and Dane was bitten during that process.

"They have to be fed," he said as he nursed his hand. "And we can't put their food in there until we take out some of the packing-"

"Explain it to them then, nice and slow," Ali suggested. "But I don't think-"

"All right, I will." Dane interrupted him. Just how intelligent the brachs now were was anyone's guess. He was no specialist in wildlife, but he could not let them go any longer without food or water, and it was plain that if he opened the cage again, he would have a struggle.

He wrapped a plasta strip about his hand to cover the bite and brought out the container of water and the bag into which Mura had packed a supply of brach food. Pouring the water into a shallow bowl, he set it on the deck of the LB, then opened the bag, shaking out into another dish a little of the mixture inside-dried insects, sh.e.l.lfish, and some slightly withered proten leaves-so that they could both see and smell it.

All four heads turned in his direction, and they watched him carefully. All he could do now was to try primitive trade procedures. He touched the water bowl and the heap of mixed food with one hand, then pushed it a little toward the cage.

"Is the hatch closed?" he asked without turning his eyes from the brachs, who met him stare for stare.

"Dogged down," Rip a.s.sured him.

"All right. Get back, out of their line of sight if you can."

"How? By melting through the walls?" Ali wanted to know. But Dane heard the click of s.p.a.ce boots on the deck and knew that they were moving as well as they could in that tightly confined s.p.a.ce.

"You're not going to let them out?" Ali demanded a moment later.

"If they are going to eat, I have to. But they ought to be hungry enough to want to get to this more than anything else."

He rose slowly to his knees from squatting on his heels, found the latch of the cover he had just slammed down, and shot it open, moving slowly and with as little noise as he could.

Dane fully expected all four to shoot out the minute the crack was wide enough, with the same speed the kit had shown earlier. But they did not. Still moving with care, he laid the lid all the way back and then inched away himself.

Their regard of him continued for a long moment. Then the kit that had been returned there with such effort made a move. But an adult paw swung, landing on the young nose slightly above horn tip, bringing an indignant squeal of protest. It was the male alone who drew himself up and out of the thick padding. He dropped down beside the food and touched nose to it and to the water pan. Then looking at his family, he made a small muttering sound.

The two kits scrambled over with speed, but the female moved more slowly, and the male returned and balanced on the edge of the cage, cluttering to her encouragingly. Now and then he turned his long head to look at Dane and the other two who had backed away as far as they could.

Neither kit had waited for the parents. Both were stuffing eagerly from the food dish, pausing only now and again to lap water, though one liked to put a forepaw into the bowl and lick the moisture from its pads.

Pads? Dane dared not move closer, but he thought that the shape of forepaws for both kits differed from those of the adults-more handlike somehow. When the male had coaxed the female over the edge and to the dishes, he gave several low growls. And the kits, still chewing, one squealing resentfully, backed away so that the male could push his mate forward, standing guard while she-at first languidly and then with a show of greater interest-fed and drank. It was not until she turned away of her own desire that he finished up what remained.

Now what, wondered Dane. They would have to get them back in the cage, though that would probably be a struggle. Just how intelligent were they? And if intelligent, how alien were their thought processes to those of his own species? Intelligence did not always mean ability to communicate.

He would like their cooperation if he could possibly gain it. To use them as animals might only make them ever ready to escape and force the men to be constantly on guard.

Now he tried to echo the small clucking noise the male had used to urge his mate out of the cage. He was successful in that the heads of all four brachs turned in his direction, and he saw that he did have their attention, but there was a tenseness about them that suggested they were ready for instant resistance. Still clucking, Dane moved, careful not to advance toward them. Facing the four, he edged along the wall of the LB, pus.h.i.+ng aside the hammocks until he was on the opposite side of the cage from the brachs.

He raised the lid. Instantly all cowered closer to the deck, the male rumbling deep in his throat, the female standing before the two kits, who in turn chittered.

Dane stooped and felt along the edge of the lid. The cage had been improvised, and he hoped not too well. He held the screen up as a barrier between him and the brachs as he worked to loosen the fastenings.

For a s.p.a.ce the male continued to rumble. Then when Dane did nothing but work at the lid, he raised a little, manifestly wanting to see what the man was doing. A long moment more, and he jumped to the top of the box, edging along its rim until his head with its useful horn nudged against Dane's fingers. The man jerked back in surprise, and straightway the horn fitted under the fastening and pried away until the hinge was loose and off. Then the brach swayed along the rim and followed through with the other. Dane lifted the cover away and stood back, uncertain as yet as to whether this gesture could be understood, though the brach's aid with the fastening was promising.

The male brach continued to teeter on the rim of the cage, looking from Dane to the lid, now resting against the cabin wall. Dane dared to move, sidling around the cage, still leaving what he trusted would be a rea.s.suring distance between him and the brachs. Then he stooped and pulled at the padding, pulling it out in chunks, until he left only enough to form what he hoped would be acceptable bedding. The brach balanced, still watching.

Then the female brach moved, pulling up and over into the cage. She reached with forepaws and teeth to catch the last puff of padding Dane had loosened, drawing it determinedly out of his grasp and thumping it down with force on the floor of the cage. She called to the kits, who obeyed her, to Dane's relief. And lastly the male brach jumped down to curl up with his family. Dane stepped away.

"Does that mean that they are willing to stay if they aren't shut in?" Rip wondered.

"We can hope so. But we'll have to keep the hatch locked. It is too cold out there." Dane pushed the extra padding along the floor. Suddenly he was so tired that he felt he could not make another effort, no matter how needful, as if his struggle to communicate with the brach had been in some way as harrowing an ordeal as the one on Xecho. He wanted peace and quiet and sleep, and he only hoped that was what they could depend upon-with no more complications for a while.

6. MONSTER FROM THE PAST.

"Rise and orbit!"

Dane was jarred out of sleep, his hammock oscillating from a hearty push Rip must have delivered, for Shannon still had a hand raised as if to shove again if his first a.s.sault was not effective. Dane sat up groggily. For a second or two he was not oriented. This was not his cabin on the Queen.

Beyond Rip, as he was able to focus better, he saw Ali wearing a thermo jacket, already at the hatch as if impatiently awaiting him.

"What's the-?"

"We may have trouble," Ali answered. "See?"

He pointed. Ali had made certain safeguard arrangements when they had completed their two caches-that of the box and that of the embryos. He had set small ray warns on each so that any disturbance would be recorded on an improvised pickup, and now one was blinking red with warning enough to shake Dane fully out of sleep.

"Which one?" With their present luck it would be the box, of course. He swung stiffly out of the hammock and reached for his own thermo wear.

But Ali surprised him. "The embryos. Fire rockets, can't you-this is a speed job!"

They came out into the early morning and a crisp chill, which made Dane pull up his hood with its visored face plate and tuck his hands into the gloves, which dangled at the ends of his sleeves, but he remembered to make fast the hatch, ensuring that the brachs were safe in the warm cabin.

There was a rime of frost on twigs and leaves, giving a silvery coating to the vegetation, and their breath formed small white clouds.

"Listen!" Rip threw up his hand as if to bar them from entering the path they had made yesterday when dragging the containers to the cache.

They heard a crackling, as if something large forced its way through the brush. There was another noise, a kind of snort sounding now and then, and from that they judged that whatever might be sniffing around was no small creature.

Dane drew his stunner, thumbed its controls to full force, and saw that his companions were doing the same. The growth hid whatever crunched along, and they could only trace it by sound. But by the sound it was going away, not coming toward them. They stood listening for several minutes until they were sure the unknown had retreated farther into the wood.

That it had been nosing about the embryos' cache Dane was sure. Perhaps there was some scent that attracted it. They had best see how much damage it had done. The lathsmers were useless to the settlers-that was positive-but no cargo could be destroyed until ordered, and Dane did not have that order. Therefore, he must protect the boxes until he did.

They had not gone far along the tracks left by their journey of the day before when they came to the signs left by the other thing. It had tramped, or rather stomped. There were prints breaking the frozen crust of the ground, large enough so that when Dane knelt to measure his hand beside them, the marks spread beyond the stretch of his fingers. They were not very plain, for the frostbound soil had resisted even this heavy weight. They were more like rounded holes than anything else.

A stunner set on high would take care of most creatures, but there were on some worlds menaces with nervous systems on which such a ray would have no more effect than the flick of a twig. Then a blaster was the only answer, but those they did not have.

So now they went slowly, listening, relying on the fact the cras.h.i.+ng was faint and the unknown was still going from them. When they came to where they had hidden the containers, they had more proof of the strength of what they had not yet seen, for the stones and earth they had piled with such backbreaking effort to hide the cache had been pulled away. The containers themselves had been battered and broken, though they had been made to withstand all the shocks and strains that might occur during s.p.a.ce flight. They were twisted and rent, and two had been opened as if they had been as easy to handle as an E-ration tube.

And as an E-ration tube would have been by a hungry man, they had been completely emptied. Dane kicked one out of the way to see a third that had been bent and then left. He had not been mistaken. What had rested so cus.h.i.+oned inside was stirring. But it was not time for it to be decanted yet! As with the brachs, its "birth" was coming ahead of schedule.

He could see the writhing of the monster body inside. A few more minutes and it could certainly die. Since it was a monster, let it. Only his sense of duty objected. Cargo intact-that was what it said. And perhaps it would be proof of their own innocence to keep these embryos intact until the techs could a.s.sess what had happened to them.

But this scaled, half-serpent thing-they could not nurse it in the LB. And how long before Jellico sent them instructions?

Dane knelt beside the broken container. Surely the thing would be frozen stiff soon. Reptiles were especially sensitive to extremes of both cold and heat. Perhaps they could freeze it and keep it that way, as they had kept the body of the dead stranger on the Queen.

What had seemed feeble straggles at first were growing stronger instead of weaker. If the thing felt the cold, the chill stimulated it to greater efforts instead of sending it into stupor and death. The container shook back and forth now under the wriggling and fell over on its side. Through the rent in the top, not large enough for the creature to crawl through, was thrust a scaled foot, large claws gouging at the frost-filled ground for purchase to pull itself out.

Dane changed the reading on his stunner to half and rayed the container. The clawed foot released its clutch on the soil and relaxed. The container ceased rocking.

"Two more want out." Ah had been stacking the containers. Now he indicated two set to one side.

These had not been misused by the feaster. However, before the men could move, now the tops swung open as they were triggered to do at "birthing," and the things inside began to crawl out. Rip beamed them unconscious.

Dragon heads on long necks swung limply over the edges of their boxes.

"How about the others?" Dane went to check. But there were no more signs of life. The warning tags on the covers were safely blank.

"What do we do? Give them full beam and finish them off?" Ali asked.

Probably the most sensible move. But they were cargo, and they might be needed. Dane said as much and saw Rip nod slowly as if he agreed.

"The labs might want them. Maybe they could tell more about the radiation by examining them. But where do we put them?"

"Yes, where?" Ali demanded. "The LB? If so, we'd better move out. It's turned into a part-time zoo already. And these"-his nose wrinkled-"are not the best s.h.i.+pmates. At least they don't smell fresh-"

Certainly the fetid odor of the inert reptiles made them the last things one wanted penned under or around one's bed. But they would never live outside unless some kind of a heated pen could be rigged. Dane wondered about that aloud.

"We have the brach cage. If they cooperate as they did last night," Rip suggested, "we can put them in the extra hammock. And these containers, could we pound them out and weld them around the cage with a heat unit hooked up?"

Ali picked up one of the smashed containers. "Can't promise anything, but it's worth trying. At least we can't share the LB with them loose or in boxes either. That stink's enough to send one's stomach into s.p.a.ce. How long will they stay under?"

Dane did not want to touch the unconscious things, and he had no way of judging. The only answer was that one of them would have to stay on guard while the other two worked.

"There's another problem," Rip said, and it was not the kind of thought to add brightness to their day. "That thing that smashed in here might have acquired a taste for pseudo lathsmer. If it trails or hunts by scent, it might follow to the LB. Do we want that?"

That made sense, Dane thought. His first solution had been to get the creatures back to the craft and build the heated pen right outside. But did they need to do that?

Ali responded to the same idea. "We could set up a nasty jolt for anything that did come hunting," he offered. "Stotz gave me a tool kit when we left, and we can run a wire from the s.h.i.+p and set up a force field-"

Dane was willing to trust to Ali. Anyone who held a cadet's berth under Johan Stotz knew his business, and it would not be the first time that a Free Trader crew improvised. Half their wandering life depended upon imaginative thinking when confronted by a crisis.

So that long day was spent in hard labor-Ali providing the information and technical knowledge they must have, Rip and Dane giving untrained labor. They straightened out the three containers the strange hunter had mauled and two others whose tabs reported the contents dead, throwing the misshapen embryos those had held into a pit and rolling stones over them, well away from where they proposed to build the pen.

In the end they had a somewhat lopsided-looking structure that should be large enough to house the three still sleeping creatures, and this fitted about the brach cage stripped of all its contents. Ali rigged his force field, warning them that they were thus exhausting the power of the LB.

The brachs appeared perfectly content to be transferred to the fourth hammock in the cabin. In fact, they slept away much of the day, and Dane wondered if they were, in the natural state, nocturnal, reminding himself to be sure to dog down the hatch door that night just in case they took a fancy to wander.