The Game of Stars and Comets (57 page)

Her words dropped into my mind one by one as one might cast pebbles into a pool and watch the ripples spread outward to the edge of the surface and then break and go. That my father was a driven man—yes, that I had always known since I had grown into the age when one's world does not center only upon one's self as it does for a child. That he was ridden ever by the puzzle which remained beyond his solving, yes, that, too, was true. But that he would surrender—No! I bit back the harsh outburst which I might have used to greet that. What remained to think on now—at this present—was not that he had died—doubtless of such hurts not even off-world medical wonders could heal—but that he had asked a promise of me and I was sworn to fulfill it.

How was that task to be accomplished? I did not even know for sure in what direction Mungo's lay or how far away. But that I would do this—that I must.

"I have sworn to him that he will lie in Mungo's—or what is still left of it," I told her. Somehow I shook my mind free of the frozen grip upon it, began to think of ways and means. Days of travel might lie ahead. I had no transport—even if I could raise the mine or the port on the com, I knew that I could get no one who would be willing to help.

Very well, alone I would do what I must. So I set to work. But when she saw what I brought out of the jumble of supplies Illo came forward, and, without a word, set about helping me. My father's body we sealed into the protect suit he had used all these years for exploring the Shadow-blasted ruins. There was a keg of plastaseal in the broken wagon, part of the shipment for the mine, used to repair their shelters there. Now it proved the outward seal, the encoffining for the body, until even the white suit was completely hidden by a swiftly stiffening green casing which under the sun became dura-hard.

Just as I had half thought out the transport for him alive, so did I now follow the same idea for him dead. The planks from the bunks I also sealed together with what was left of the plasta—forming a platform on which the enclosed body could be safely lashed.

I worked away most of the day, dealing with what supplies and tools I might use or improvise. Nor was I aware, as I worked, of anything but the job at hand, driving myself to its doing. Only when I had fastened the last rope and smeared the remaining drops of plasta over those knots, did I stagger to the side of the fire and take in shaking hands the bowl of food Illo held out to me. I was halfway through gulping its contents when I heard the sound which brought me to my feet, the food dribbling to the ground as the bowl turned over in my grasp. Faint and far away, yes—! I had no doubts that that was what I had heard.

Now I dropped the bowl entirely, put fingers to my lips to aid in a distance piercing whistle. Gars—that could have been the bellow of some wild herd bull, for there were such, drifters from the ruined holdings. Only, once a team was well united, it was the nature of the great beasts to keep with their masters in a strong relationship, and our gars had been unusually united, even for their breed.

That they could have traced us over the wildness where the stream had driven the wagon, that, too, was not unknown. I had heard tales of gars who had traveled from one holding to another seeking the breeder with whom they had been identified in training as calves. That was why few of them could ever be sold away from their trainers.

It was close to sunset, but there was light across the land. I fumbled for my distance glasses after I had whistled for the second time. Now I could pick up greyish specks in the distance—three of them. Where the others were—remembering the fury of the storm, the beating of the hail, perhaps I could expect no more than those.

Illo moved in beside me. "Yours?"

"I will wager it. But there are only three—"

"Not enough to raise the wagon," she commented.

I shook my head, my attention all for those distant dots which were growing larger by the moment. They were moving fast, at a trot, their horned heads now and then dipping groundwards as if they scented some trail. But there was no mistaking that larger bulk in the lead now—Witol! One who followed was his mate—Dru—and the third—he was a youngster whom we had put to the yoke only this season, a calf sired by Witol—Wodru.

With the gars I could well carry out my plan. Only, as I turned back to the fire confident that they would soon be shouldering their way to our camp, I remembered for the first time Illo and her own quest. I was bound to the task my father had set for me, but as trekmaster he had given her passage with us. The cargo we carried for the mine would be no problem—I could use the com as a set signal for the men there and give in that fashion a pick-up point so that they could find what might be salvaged. Illo's transportation was another matter. I must now take on the responsibility of seeing her safely to her own destination.

"Will you go on?" I asked bluntly. "Have you any map or guide?"

She looked up at me over her shoulder, for she had gone back to kneel by the fire and add to it some of the brush culled from beneath the growth where the rain had not left it sodden.

"Trekmaster's bond?" she held out her hands to the small flames. "No, I do not hold you to it, Bart s'Lorn. Such can be dissolved by mutual consent."

"I do not consent," I told her sharply. "With the gars we can pack enough supplies surely to see you to where you would go—"

"Very well then. Suppose I say now that I go to Mungo's—"

"Why?" I challenged her. "Because you know that I must journey there? But that is folly. I can see you to whatever holding—"

"Holding?" she interrupted me. "There is no holding or settlement—save that of the off-worlders—this far north—now."

"But you said—you had call, that you were needed. The off-worlders—?"

Her lips curved in a faint smile. "Would they drink my potions, allow my hands to draw any illness from them? They have no belief in such. Yes, I was called—but not by any messenger such as can be seen or heard. I told you—I am Shadow touched. As your father there is a need in me to know—to discover what I cannot remember. So—Mungo's fell to the Shadow doom as did Voor's Grove. Therefore, perhaps I can learn the nature of what I wish there as well as in the place from which I came."

I did not like it. Still it cannot be that any man says 'no' to a healer who declares that she has a call for aid. That she could not help my father was no reflection on her skill—for there are hurts past any healing. It was true that if I did not have to linger on my own journey to see her to her destination it would be the better. Still I was not satisfied within myself, though I could raise no adequate argument against such a journey.

The gars reached our camp and then I saw a thing which I had witnessed but once before in my life, for the three beasts, led by Witol went to the crude sled on which my father's body lay in the coffining I had devised and there stood for a space, Witol at the head, Dru on his right, Wodru on the left. The great team leader raised his three horned head and gave a cry which was not his usual deep-throated bellow, rather a keening which I have heard from those of his species when one of their own herd or team lay dead.

Three times did the gar sound his cry and then he turned, the other two falling in behind him, and they walked slowly and purposefully to me, Witol lowering his head now so that I could lay my flattened palm on the smooth hide between his great eyes as was also customary when one of his kind chose to serve a man of his own free will.

For near ten years of my life I had known Witol, yet never had he given me this salute. We had often speculated, my father and I, as to the intelligence of the gars—now I believed I had proof that they were indeed more than just the bearers of burdens which off-worlders classed them as being. Now I spoke to Witol and the others, greeting them by name as gravely and with as much courtesy as if they had been the people of some holding, thanking them for the offering of their service.

Thus we slept that night within the light of the lanterns, but more secure, for the gars could and did keep patrol. I thought earlier that I might never sleep well again, that memory would come to plague me with the knowledge of all I had lost. Only that was not so—perhaps the fatigue of my body won the battle with my mind, for I sank into a darkness which even dreams did not trouble.

Among the gear
which I had salvaged from the wagon were two things which I made use of in the morning. Though I was left with no way of transporting the heavy crates which had been ordered by the off-worlders, still I, now by force of circumstances made trekmaster, must take what precautions that I could concerning the consigned cargo. So I set on the top of that small hillock beyond the lip of the gully a detect taken from the miner's own order. Sooner or later they would be in search, and that sound broadcast into the sky would register on the instruments of their flyers though it would not summon any other wanderers.

With the detect I left a tape recording of what had happened to us so that my father, even in death, would be cleared of unfair dealing or refusal to carry out a contract. Since loper's pride demanded this by their small but rigid code, I made sure this was done to the best of my ability.

We worked through the morning dividing all I had brought from the wagon, choosing that which was the most useful for what might lie ahead. I set aside tools, such off-world gadgets, which, if they failed in the wilderness of the plains, would be only useless burdens. For example, we needed no coms, for there would be no one in the north land to pick up any cry for help. So what we took were the necessities to which a loper could pare his packing when it was necessary.

There were the trail rations—the hard cakes of pressed and dried meats and grains produced nourishing food. I made another raid upon the wagon, detached two of the water carriers which were slung on the upward side I was still able to reach. Illo strained the rapidly dwindling water of the gully through a length of cloth and filled both of these as well as the supply would let her. Together they made a single load, one slung on either side of her back, for Dru.

Blankets folded into packs held extra charges for the stunners, our two tanglers, some simple tools, such as the hatchet which I had used to clear the brush in the gully, a coil of the rope which was so thin and could be looped into small lengths and yet remain so tough even my belt knife had difficulty in slicing it through. We decided against the lanterns, taking instead all units for the two torches that my father had worn on his belt and my own. Illo shouldered her own compact pack, and I had another like it put together with all I could think of which might be of use in the field. There was a second sling of packs for Wodru, and Witol bent to the harness I had cobbled together for the sled which held my father.

We ate a hasty meal when the sun was noon high and then started onward. One thing I had taken with me which might be considered as unnecessary burden were those tapes my father had dictated after each exploration of one of the deserted holdings, together with the reader. They had no like, I was sure, anywhere on Voor and if we could learn anything more of what lay before us, it might come only from those.

Across the gully we went. Nor did I look back at the wreck of the wagon. It was as if that part of my life was now finished, complete, and there was no need to think of any loss—save the greatest one of all and that we carried with us.

Our goal was that distant shadow of the Tangle, the ugly blot of which stretched across the far horizon. I had a map of my father's make, which I carried in my belt pocket, and I knew each marking on that as well as I knew the lines appearing on the palm of my own hand. For I had been with him when most of them had been set down. I had shown this chart to Illo before we broke camp and she had pointed to the northwest where there was only vacancy.

"Voor's Grove lies so—" she spoke with such conviction I did not doubt her. "Where is Mungo's?"

To my knowledge my father had never returned to that lost town once he had taken me out of it. Still he had marked it and in a separate way with a small sign like the blade of a drawn knife done in red. To my plains-wise observation it lay a little to the east from where we had crossed the gully. Nor would it be as close to the Tangle as Voor's Grove.

On this wide land there were few marks one could sight on as guides. The Tangle was the most obvious one, being the end of any march or penetration in this direction. So that we need only head on towards that and then prospect a little from our main trail to strike Mungo's. Or so I hoped—and made myself believe.

The gars moved onward at a steady pace which was not difficult for either of us to match. I had made no provision to lead any of the animals as a loper sometimes sets guide rope to the fore yoke of a wagon. Somehow I accepted that Witol understood what we chose to do and would himself willingly follow the same path.

The grass was lifting upright once more under the pull of the sun as the heaviness of the rain damp was loosed. As it brushed against us and the hides of the gars, we were soon wet to our knees, with patches of damp well up the animals' legs.

By mid-afternoon we came to a wallow-cupping and this brimmed full with the bounty left by the storm. The three gars drank their fill from one side of that already dropping level of water, while we did the same from the other. Nor were we alone. There was a scuttling in that grass, a fleeing of small things we could not see. In the muddy rim about the wallow was such a tracery of tracks it looked as if this had been a point of meeting for both birds and animals. I picked up those of species I knew, inspecting the mud patch carefully all the way around for any prints which might be left by the few predators hunting in the grass lands. Luckily I saw no claw prints of the scrowers—those sharp-beaked screaming furies who could outrace a running man and were ready to feed on anything smaller or weaker than themselves.

However it was only wise to put as much distance as possible between us and that pool before the coming of night. For that which would drink by day was in the main harmless. The true hunters emerged after dark. Witol might have been able to read my mind, for, once his thirst and that of his companions was quenched, he quickened pace to a trot and I broke into the loper's run to keep abreast of him. Twice I glanced at Illo, but she seemed able to keep up well with the other two gars and I was fast losing any fear that she would be a drag upon me. She could have well been trained by the same schooling as I had known for so many years.