Lord of Thunder Part 13

"That is true." Gorgol's fingers made an emphatic sign of agreement. "And once the war arrow is sped, who can recall it to the quiver? But there is also this-outside this place lies the hand of the Dry. Water secrets we have, but not enough to sustain any large parties through the Peaks. And those who so venture cannot so do in straight lines but must go from one bidden spring to another, using much time. Were men to march today, it would be"-he spread out bis fingers, curled them back into bis palms, and opened them out again three times-"these many suns before they would reach the plains."

"Would Krotag listen to you?" Hosteen demanded.

"I am a warrior with scars. In the voice of the clan, I have my speech right. He would listen."

"Then if we can get out of here, get on the other side of the mountain where you can meet with Krotag and Ukurti-?"

Gorgol stared past Hosteen into the brilliance of the parched land beyond. "Krotag would listen-and beyond Krotag stands Kustig of the Yoris totem, and beyond Kustig, Dankgu of the Xoto standard."

"And if all those listened, the Shosonna would break their peace poles and have no part of this?"

"It might be so. And if the Shosonna marched, then would follow the Warpt of the north and perhaps the Gousakla of the coasts-"

"Splitting Dean's army right down the middle!" Hosteen took fire, but Gorgol's expression was still a sober frown.

"With truce poles broken, there might be another kind of war, for these wild men of the Blue are tied to the medicine here and will fight to uphold it."

"Unless Dean can be proved a false Drummer-"

"Yes. And here are two trails." Gorgol turned away from the "window." "I must find the place of the Zamle totem and you this one who is of your people but a doer of evil."

"And to do those things, we must have a way back through the mountain," Hosteen added.

They held a council of war in the green heart of the valley, Najar, Hosteen and Gorgol sitting together, Baku and Surra nearby. Storm translated between Gorgol and the off-world veteran as they pooled what knowledge they had of the inner ways. And Najar thought he might be able to guide them to the village side of the heights if he could reach a mid-point within that he had located during his own wanderings. They ate of the fruit from bush and tree, and Hosteen slept, his head pillowed against Surra's furry side, the soft purring of the cat lulling him into a deeper and more restful slumber than any he had known since he left the plains to begin this wild adventure.

It was dark when Gorgol awakened him, and they went to the hole beneath the rock, which was Surra's private exit from the valley. Baku objected with a scream of anger when Hosteen called her to push through with them, and he had to wheedle her into furling wings and taking a footway. Only his firm statement that he and Surra were leaving not to return and that she would remain alone finally brought the eagle to obey, though fierce clicks of her beak made very plain her opinion of the whole maneuver as they crept back through the crack.

Baku settled on Hosteen's shoulder once they reached the pa.s.sage, her eyes like harsh sparks in the light of the torch. Surra took the lead, setting a gliding pace that brought the men to a fast walk.

The cat was retracing the way by which she had brought Hosteen in, but long before they reached the place where Dean had vanished into thin air, Najar uttered an exclamation and caught at the Beast Master's arm.

"Here!" He was looking alertly about him with the air of a man who had come across some landmark. "This is the way-"

Hosteen recalled Surra, and the party turned into a side tunnel. Najar was now leading. To Hosteen, one of these unmarked pa.s.sages was much like another, but he knew that just as he had been trained and conditioned to be the leader of a team, so had the Reconnaissance scouts been selected, trained, and psycho-indoctrinated for their service as pathfinders and "first-in" men.

Najar displayed no hesitation as he threaded from one way to another and crossed several small caverns with the certainty of one treading a well-defined trail. Then they stood in a hollow s.p.a.ce and saw near its roof a slit of light. Najar pointed to that.

"Opening made by a landslide. This place is a natural cave and opens on the mountainside."

Hosteen had his hand on the first hold to climb to that door when he heard an odd cry from Najar. He half turned and saw the other's face illuminated in the torch Gorgol held. The scout was glaring at Hosteen, his eyes pure hate as he flung himself at the Beast Master, the momentum of his body jamming Storm against the cave wall.

The Amerindian strove to roll his head and his shoulders to avoid blows he knew were meant to kill. Then the torchlight snapped off, and they were in the dark.

"You dirty Xik liar!" Najar spat almost in Hosteen's face. "Liar-!"

He was choked off in mid-breath, his body jerked away from Hosteen's. Gasping, holding his arm where one of those nerve deadening blows had landed, the Beast Master leaned limply against the rock. A furred body pressed against his leg. He reached down, took the torch from Surra's mouth, and snapped it on.

Gorgol stood, his arm crooked about Najar's throat, the Terran castaway hugged back to the native's chest, his struggles growing weaker as the Norbie exerted pressure on his windpipe.

"Don't kill him!" Hosteen ordered.

Gorgol's grip loosened. He let the off-worlder collapse against him. He transferred his hold to the other's arms, keeping him upright to confront the man he had attacked.

"Why?" Hosteen asked, rubbing feeling back into his arm.

"You said-settler world-no Xik-war over here-" Najar might be helpless in Gorgol's prisoning hands, but bis spirit-and his hate-were unbeaten. "There's a recon-broadcaster out there!"

Hosteen stared at him blankly-not that he doubted Najar's word or now wondered at the other's reaction. A Recon scout had an induced sensitivity to certain beamed waves, a homing device that was implanted in him through surgery and hypnotic conditioning. If Najar had caught a recon-beam, he would not be mistaken. But to Hosteen's knowledge the nearest recon-broadcaster was at Galwadi or the Port. Unless-unless Kelson or some other authority was moving into the Blue!

"I told you the truth," he said. "But-maybe-maybe we're already too late. The Patrol could have been called in."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

"To the West-there-" Najar's right hand was a compa.s.s direction, pointing southwest.

Baku-Hosteen thought the command that sent the eagle up and out into the sky. She soared past the point of their sighting, exulting in the freedom she had not been able to find in the invisibly roofed valley. And from her came the report he wanted.

There was a party of men, encamped in a hollow, doubtless digging in for protection against the heat of the day. Now Hosteen depended upon Gorgol for advice.

"Can we reach them before the sun is too high?"

The Norbie was uncertain. And Hosteen could give him little help as to distance, though Najar insisted from the strength of the recon-beam the camp could not be farther than five miles. Only, five miles in this broken country for men on foot might be equal to half a day's journey in the plains.

"If these others come into the Blue," Gorgol warned, "then will all of my people unite against them, and there will be no hope of breaking truce between tribe and tribe."

"That is so. But if you go to the clans and I and this one who knows much concerning the evil one go to the settlers, then with our talk we may hold them apart until the war arrows can be hidden and wise heads stand up in council."

Gorgol climbed to the top of the rocky pile hiding the cave entrance, studying a southern route. His fingers moved.

"For me the way is not hard; for you it may be impossible. The choice is yours."

"What about it?" Hosteen asked Najar. "They'll have to hole up during the day. But they'll be moving on. And they have scouts out in this territory or you wouldn't have picked up that beam. And once they enter the big valley, there'll be a fight for sure-one that Dean will win under the present circ.u.mstances and that will begin his war."

"What will you do?" Najar counterquestioned.

"Try to reach them before night when they'll move on-"

Perhaps that was the wrong decision; perhaps his place was here, pursuing Dean through the interior burrows. But even if some miracle of luck would put the renegade tech into his hands, there would still be war when the off-world force crossed the line into the Blue.

"You'll never find them unless you follow the beam." Najar rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

"I have Baku and Surra," Hosteen replied, though in one way Najar was right. With the Recon scout they could take the quickest and easiest route to that camp, following the broadcast.

Najar hitched the cord of a canteen around his bony shoulder. "We'd better blast if we're going." He circled the rocks and started on.

Hosteen waved a hand at Gorgol, and the Norbie slid down the other side of the rock pile, heading into the valley to find the clansmen who might listen to him if they were not provoked by an invasion.

It was still early enough so that the heat was no more than that of midmorning of the milder season. Hosteen, eying the sun's angle, thought they might squeeze in two or two and a half hours of travel before they would have to lay up. Then they might have another hour-if they were lucky-in the early evening. But the best way was to think only of what lay immediately ahead-first of the next ridge or crevice, then, as the sun burnt higher and patches of shade were few, of the next ten steps, five steps, ahead.

Surra, ranging wider than the men, disappeared, only keeping mental contact with Hosteen. The time came when he asked of her the location of a hiding hole, for the time between their rests grew shorter and the land beyond was as barren and sun-seared as that he had seen through the "window" in the sealed valley wall.

Najar took a quick step farther right.

"The beam-it has doubled its strength! We're either practically on top of them or there's an emergency recall." From their careful, slow plod he broke into a trot, topping a small ravine and dropping into it in a cascade of rocks and earth. At the same time Surra's alert came-she had sighted the camp.

The ravine fed them into a larger break, and there they came upon a half station such as Norbies and hunters used in the Peaks-a collection of stones heaped over a pit in the earth-in which men could rest during the day in a livable atmosphere. Surra prowled about its circ.u.mference and raised her voice in a growl of feline exasperation.

Hosteen hurried on and clawed at the frawn-skin robe wet down with seal seam to close the entrance. A moment later the head and shoulders of a man pushed that aside-Kelson!

"Storm! We knew you were on the way-Baku came in a few minutes ago. Come in, man, come in. And you, Logan-" Then the Peace Officer took a closer look at Hosteen's companion.

"That isn't Logan-"

"No." Hosteen shoved Najar ahead of him through the hole as Kelson retreated to give them pa.s.sage. Then Surra and finally he dropped in. He stood there allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

The quarters had been chosen well, the scooped-out pit leading back into a cave of sorts. Only Hosteen had little time to a.s.sess his surroundings, for he was facing Brad Quade.

"Logan-?"

The question Hosteen had been asking himself for what seemed now to be days of time was put into words-and by the one he most dreaded hearing it from. All he had beside the bare fact of their parting on that strange transport device of the caves was Najar's story of the other man who had taken that route but had not come to the installation hall. If Logan were still alive, he was lost somewhere in the tunnels.

"I don't know-"

"You were with him?"

"Yes-for a while-"

"Storm"- Kelson's hand on his shoulder brought him partly around to face the other-"we picked up that com cast from in there, the one you sent."

All Hosteen's frustration, fears, and fatigue boiled over into rage.

"Then why in the name of the Dang Devil are you heading in? Take one step into that valley and the rocket goes up for sure!" He was shaking. The anger in him, against this country, against the odds of ever puffing down Dean, against the tricks of the cave pa.s.sages he could not hope to master, was eating at him until he wanted to scream out as loudly as Surra did upon occasion. And now the cat snarled from the shadows and Baku voiced a cry, both of them sensitive to his loss of control.

Two hands on his shoulders now forced him down, steadily but gently. He tried to twist out of that grip and discovered that his tired body would not obey him. Then there was a cup at his cracked lips, and he drank thirstily until it was removed.

"Listen, boy, no one is trying to run this through blind. We've scouts in the heights, but they have orders not to go into that valley. Can you give us some idea of what is going on?" Quade spoke quietly as he settled Hosteen on the floor of their sunhide, moistened a cloth in a milky liquid he had poured from a small container, and with it patted Hosteen's face, throat, and chest. The aromatic scent of the stuff brought with it soothing if fleeting memories of relaxing at the day's end back at the holding.

The younger man was sobered as if in the heat of his anger he had plunged into an icy stream. And in terse sentences he told them what little he knew, then waved Najar forward to add his part of the tale.

"You're right," Kelson commented when they were done. "Dean is the answer. An unstable tech with a genius-level brain turned loose in a Sealed Cave storehouse- Lord, that could finish Arzor just as quickly as a continental Tri-X bomb!"

"You've called the Patrol in?" Hosteen asked.

"Not officially yet. We've borrowed some trained personnel. Maybe now"-he stood up in the dugout, his hands on his hips, his face flushed with more than the heat of their shelter-"the Council will listen to a little common sense. This country should have been adequately patrolled five, ten years ago."

"Intrusion of treaty rights," Quade reminded.

"Treaty rights! n.o.body's suggesting we curtail Norbie treaty rights-at least I'm not, though you'd have a different answer from some of those in the Peaks. No! I want-just as I have always wanted-a local force of Norbie-c.u.m-settler to police the outback. That's what we needed from the first-could have had it last year if you taxpayers had pushed for it. Such a corps would have routed out that Xik gang before they dug in-and they could have stopped this before it even started. You say now this Ukurti is against Dean's war talk and he can carry his clan Chief with him. Well, we could get the good will of natives of that type and their backing. That's not breaking any treaty rights I know of-but no, that's too simple for those soft-sitting Galwadi pets. Now it may be too late. If we are forced to call in the Patrol to handle Dean-"

He did not have to continue. They all knew what that would mean-a loss of settler and Norbie independence, a setting up of off-world control for an indefinite period, the end to native growth, which was their hope for the future.

"How long do we have before the authorities will move?" Hosteen asked.

"How long will Dean hold off on his raids?" Kelson barked. "If our scouts report any parties of warriors leaving the Blue and we don't have the power to stop them-"

"Power," repeated Hosteen softly. "Dean's control in there rests on the fact the natives believe it's true medicine. I think there was a residue of some alien knowledge among the Norbies of the Blue-some of those machines must have been left running. There is certainly weather control in the village valley and the smaller one where Najar hid out. Perhaps the Norbies were able to make use of other devices-we saw the village Drummer pull a trick that certainly never originated on Arzor-without understanding them. Then Dean has activated more, so he's a part of the medicine, which makes him taboo and a man of power-"

"And the answer is-remove Dean?" Kelson speculated.

"Not remove him," Quade cut in, and Hosteen nodded agreement. "That would merely add to the medicine-were he to disappear. And if he is removed bodily and that action discovered, it would be a declaration of war. He has to be removed by those who set him up."

"No chance of that that I can see," Kelson exploded.

"Ukurti's att.i.tude is in our favor," Quade pointed out. "And Dean is unstable. We have to get at him on a ground he believes is safe-"

Hosteen stirred. "In the mountain!"

"That's right-in the mountain."

"It's a tangle of pa.s.sages. To find him in there, when he knows those interdimension transports and we don't-" Hosteen could see the futility of such a chase, and yet that was their only chance. If they could actually capture Dean, hold him prisoner in the taboo mountain where his native allies would not venture they would have time to work out a method of unmasking him.

"Najar." Quade spoke to the castaway. "You can find that installation hall?"

"I can try. But as Storm says, that's a mighty big mountain or mountains, and there're a lot of pa.s.sages. It's easy to get lost-"

"We can take off as soon as it cools this evening," Kelson began briskly.

"We take off-you stay here and contact the rest of the force," Quade corrected. "No, don't try to finger me down over this, Jon. You're official, and you can swing weight with those rocket boys back in the lowlands. How much do you think they'd listen to me? I'm just another rider scrabbling up a frawn herd as far as they're concerned. Najar," he asked, "are you willing to give us a trail leading back in there?"

The castaway looked down at the ground. As well as if he had said it aloud, Hosteen could guess what the other wanted to reply, that he had finally won free of the nightmare in which he had been encased since the crash landing in the Blue. Najar had a good chance now of completing that interrupted voyage, of getting home. But he was Terran-for him, too, no home world was waiting. Was it that loss that tipped the scales in their favor?

"All right." He wiped his hands across the tatters that served him as a s.h.i.+rt. "Only I make no promises about finding your man."

"That's understood. Anyway-we can fit you out."

Kelson energetically tackled the packs stored at the back of the sunhide, rummaging through supplies meant to equip a scout post. There were arms to be had, stunners, belt knives, fresh clothing, supplies of energy tablets.

Hosteen slept away most of that day. Since his initial inquiry, Quade had not spoken of Logan, but the thought of him was there, and Logan himself walked through Hosteen's troubled dreams. At nightfall he awoke, sweating, from a vivid return to the transport wedge in the valley-from which, in that nightmare, he had seen Logan vanish, knowing that he had no way of following after, the reversal of what had actually happened. And now the Amerindian could not understand his earlier action. When he had had that compulsion to walk the spiral, why had he not called Logan, made the other do likewise? Why had he been so buried in concentrated effort that he had ignored his half-brother? He could find no excuse-none at all.

Baku was left with Kelson, with orders to keep liaison between the scout post and the mountainside. The eagle hated the tunnels, and her particular gifts were useless there. But Surra sped with the party, backtracking the route that had brought them there that morning.

Once again within the cave, Hosteen put his arm about the cat. In his hold he could feel the play of her powerful shoulder muscles. Just as she had known his frustrated anger back in the hide-up, so did she now react to the job ahead. They had a mission and one in which time itself was drawing the war arrow against them.