The Game of Stars and Comets (21 page)

"Like what the Patrol officer said on the com?"

"Just as he said on the com," Rees confirmed.

"I want Mom and Dad!" Gordy's lower lip protruded stubbornly, now it quivered.

"Well, they aren't here!" Rees' exasperation grew. He knew that this had been a day of shocks for the boy, but the mere fact that they were still alive meant something. Though, he corrected himself silently, Gordy had no way of recognizing that.

"Tonight we'll turn on the hopper, head for Wrexul's plantation. Now let me switch on the hummer and you and the Salarika curl up back there and see if you can sleep."

"Travel at night," Gordy considered the possibilities that offered. "Stay up all night and maybe see an air dragon, Rees?"

"Truly. But you won't be able to see any air dragon unless you get sleep enough so you
can
stay awake tonight." Rees accepted the diversion gratefully.

He spread out two of the blankets on the floor of the storage compartment, gave each of the children another drink, set the small hummer, once used to quiet newly captured animals, to lull them to sleep, pleased that the girl seemed content to follow Gordy's example. Then Rees settled himself down in a corner of the driver's seat, on his knee the recorder which was one remainder from the good life with his father.

Commander Tait Naper had never been on Ishkur. But he had had training in handling widely varied alien beings. And his private note tapes, left behind when he had taken off on that last voyage, were a rich inheritance for his son. They held distilled experience hints from his successful career. Rees thumbed the button now, though the key words for his own need: jungle, hostiles, escape, and waited for the re-run beam to reach his mind.

Fifteen minutes later he snapped off the recorder. None of the specific information the beam had planted in his mind was closely applicable to the here and now. But a general idea or two . . .

"Eye of the spider," he repeated softly aloud. "If you would fight a spider, you must attempt to see through its eyes, think with its mental equipment, foresee its attack as it would make one.

The spiders in this case were the Crocs and Rees would have to strive to think Croc in order to out-think Croc, a rather confused estimate of the task, but a correct one.

What did he know about the Crocs, the educated ones at the mission, the servile class that did the heavy labor, the guides and hunters with whom he had worked in Vickery's camp? These were three types, reacting in three separate ways. You could tongue-click and clapper Croc speech, the audible speech. But no off-worlder could mind-touch as it was certified that Crocs did with one another.

Yes, you could learn something of the outward forms of Croc life: the fisherfolk of the sea shore, the hunters of the jungle, the handful of those who had chosen to learn something of off-world education and galactic civilization. But you did not really know what went on in those sloping, reptilian skulls. To use the eye of the spider here—the task was close to impossible. But Survey never accepted the term impossible.

Rees closed his eyes, tried to evaluate as he had been taught; if he had only had more training! He was in the position of a man ordered to build a Spacer, with a full list of materials to draw upon, and only a beginner's knowledge of engineering. His concentration became close to physical pain as he forced himself to study the problems of getting under a rough, armor plated skin, seeing through the "eye of the spider," trying to foresee the moves of the Crocs against the fugitives.

Again it was the absence of sound which alerted Rees, as it had when he had awakened hours earlier that morning. The sonic! His hand was already reaching for the proper button on the control panel. Could the roller power unit be failing?

But as his finger rammed home on the button, that faint vibration began again. No power failure, a turn-off. Gordy! Rees hunched around to peer into the storage compartment behind the driver's seat. But Gordy was there, stretched out full length, short arms and legs flung wide. Gordy was there—the Salarika child was gone!

How had she known? But then she'd watched Gordy turn the sonic on and off. Why had she gone; after food, water? Rees had fed the children, and the half full canteen was within easy reach. No, the canteen was gone, as was a fish spear which had lain along the back of the storage space—water, a weapon of sorts. Their fugitive from the post must be following some definite course of action. Was she going back, trying to find others of her family? That was far more probable than the idea a child would strike into the jungle for any other reason.

Rees rubbed his hands across his forehead. She couldn't have been gone very long. The breaking of the sonic had alerted him. How much of a homing instinct had her feline ancestors bequeathed her? Enough to guide her through the miles of jungle to the post? Not that she could make such a journey. The jungle was safe only when traveled by a hunter; any off-worlder must go in a machine equipped with the ingenious multitude of detective and protective devices this one possessed.

But how could he hunt down a small Salarika who probably was determined against being found, with a thousand good hiding places to hand? There was only one answer, and it was a danger for all of them—the roller must be used. The sense detector in it could be used to nose out any living thing with intelligence above a set quotient. Rees had it connected now as a Croc warning but it could as easily put him on the trail of the Salarika.

He leaned forward to study the dial. That was set to register at the mark Vickery had put there months previously, reporting on Croc mental radiations, meant to keep track of foot hunters on a drive. What would Salariki thought beams be? Closer to human, Rees guessed. The Crocs were a reptilian species; Salarika were mammals, warm-blooded and off-world. He moved the pointer with infinite care and then his heart beat faster with excitement. A tiny spark of answer. He could use the tracer though that meant hunting with the machine.

Rees activated the motor, his eyes moving quickly from what lay ahead to the tracer dial. The spark fluttered faster, then settled to a steady dot of fire. He was on course. The path weaved away from the rock pillars, heading on the slight down slope. That was a direct route back for the post. If they only had a common language and he had been able to explain the danger. He could now believe that the cubling was certain she had been virtually kidnapped, taken by force from her own kind. Perhaps, as a female, she had had so little contact with off-worlders of other species that she associated Rees and Gordy with the raiding Crocs!

Now that the Terran was sure of the direction of her trail he could try something else. Rees set the prowler to hop, cleared a large path of vegetation and settled down in the midst of a stream where water circled about the treads. They were ahead of the fugitive now, instead of trailing. And she would come to them.

Only she did not. Rees' frown grew. The spark on the dial remained constant. The Salarika was making no move. Had she witnessed their hop, was she remaining hidden to wait out the hunt? Well, he dared not waste the time in such games. This called again for Gordy's aid. Rees snapped off the hummer, reached back to shake the boy awake.

It required a moment or two to make Gordy understand. And when he did, he stared up the slope where the bush was thick and shook his head dubiously.

"I don't see, Rees, how we can find her there. There are so many places she can hide."

"Our noses will have to do it for us." Rees stepped out of the roller, almost knee deep into the water, and then swung Gordy from the machine to the up slope bank. "She's still wearing those perfume bags. Here, sniff this!" He had dosed himself with the inhaling powder which made him sneeze and had an even more violent effect on the boy.

"That hurts!" Gordy complained, rubbing his nose vigorously with the back of a grimy hand.

"Only for a minute," Rees assured him. "Take some deep breaths, Gordy." The inhalant had only a temporary effect and it could not be used again for hours. But the perfume of the Salariki clothing should be easy to pick up when their sense of smell was so intensified.

They started up the slope together, Gordy still rubbing his smarting nose. Suddenly he looked up at his tall companion. "I can smell, lots of things—different things!"

The sense of smell, so blunted in his species during their evolvement on their own world, was probably not yet as keen as that of an average animal, but it was far more effective than usual. And they were favored because the breeze was towards them—down hill. The wind must pass over wherever their quarry was in hiding.

"Over here!" Gordy jumped to the right, skidded down on one knee and scrambled up again. Rees moved to join him.

The boy was right. That scent which had hung about them so heavily in the roller was on the down breeze. They could not be too far away. But there was something else, a reek that was no perfume.
Croc!
grabbed for Gordy.

He held the boy fast as he drew a deep questing breath. Salariki and Croc all right. But the Croc stench was old, certainly nothing as strong as the taint left at the mission. An excited Croc had been there, but was no longer lurking nearby. Rees released Gordy but the boy did not move away.

"I smell . . ." he began and Rees nodded.

"Yes, but it's old, maybe since yesterday. Come on."

Rees broke through a stand of bushes, to face a dark hole in the ground. He cried out and threw himself flat, to wriggle forward and look down into a trail trap dug for one of the large beasts the jungle natives considered the best of eating.

The pit was dark, only a small portion of its covering had broken under the slight weight of the Salarika girl. Rees wondered if she had jumped from above to the seemingly secure surface of this place and her landing had snapped the roofing of the trap.

She was inside right enough, on her feet, her back against the wall, her forearm streaming blood where the flesh had scraped a upward pointing stake set to impale a captive. Mercifully she had escaped with only that hurt. Her yellow eyes were alight in the dark as she looked up at him, voicing a faint wordless plaint.

"Gordy!" Rees turned his head as he edged back from that danger section. The Crocs always undermined the edges of such a pit against any escape efforts. His own weight here might bring about another slip which would entrap them all, hold them prisoners for the Croc hunter. Gordy would have to act as his tool now.

"Is she down there?"

Rees nodded as he slashed and dug at the roots of the bushes about the hole. Those were long and tough, pulled up fairly easy when the fastening tendrils were loosened. They would make a rope of sorts and Gordy must do the rest under Rees' direction.

Rees worked fast.
With the root lengths freed from the soil, he jerked and tore off the smaller side tendrils until he had a length of reasonably supple line, tough enough to stand the strain of Gordy's weight. He explained carefully to the boy what must be done, made him tie by himself twice over the necessary knots. To Rees' relief, Gordy was an apt pupil, appeared to understand just what he must do and why.

Then, with one end of the root rope tied about his middle, Gordy crawled out to the break and dropped into the pit. As Rees had feared the saw action of the root cord on the brink of that drop sent another portion of the concealing covering cascading down into the pit below. But Gordy swung free well above the danger of the stakes.

Rees looped the rope about a sapling, lowered it hand over hand until Gordy hailed that he had reached the bottom. The rope went slack. Gordy was unfastening it. Then there was a jerk, a series of them as the boy knotted it in turn about the Salarika.

"Take your time," Rees called softly. "Test the knot, Gordy."

"I will," the promise arose out of the ground where dust motes still danced upward. "Ready!" Gordy's pipe was echoed by a pull on the rope. Rees began to haul it. At least that second cave in seemed to have taken all the loosened earth with it. Though the rope still sawed the lip of the pit, no more of the soil gave way. A small hand waved suddenly above the surface and the claw nails of the Salarika dug into the ground as the child helped to pull herself over and out.

Rees drew her to him, loosened the knot Gordy had tied, and threw the rope back. The Salarika crouched against his legs, tonguing the gash in her arm, shivering throughout her small body. But Rees had to get the boy out before he could make a closer examination of her hurt. When Gordy was back on firm ground once again Rees knelt beside the little alien, gently drew her hurt arm across his knee—and then froze as he saw those pricks in the grayish skin, pricks already marked a brownish tinge.

"Ka thorns!" Rees whispered. One of the most devilish devices in a Croc hunter's armory. And one for which there was just one antidote. Rees bit hard on his lower lip. He had an aid kit in the roller, but he could inventory its contents too easily, just as he could also visualize that shelf back in the lab where stood a slender container of green fluid, the one outstanding achievement of Dr. Naper's Ishkurian research; an answer to the poison of Ka thorns, as well as to several other fatal jungle-fostered deaths. The Salarika in his arms was going to die, almost as painfully and horribly as had the rest of her family back at the post. And there was nothing he could do about it, nothing but think of that container and its contents, which might be as far away as Terra itself now.

Gordy must have heard that whisper. Now he laid his hand on Rees' shoulder, his eyes big and wide. "The medicine, Rees, that's good. You can give her that, make her well. Dad said it always works!"

They had all been so proud at the mission of that discovery. But it was lost now, along with the men who had made it. Just as the child who now lay across his knees was lost. If he only had the container out of the lab!

To return would be the wildest folly. They had only one hope for escape, to head quickly for the eastern mountains and the plantations at their feet. The charge in the roller motor, Rees could not be sure it would last that far. To go back to the mission where even now the Crocs could be crawling . . .