 Chapter 11 of The Defiant Agents This is a LibreBox recording. All LibreBox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreBox.org Recording by RJ Davis The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton Chapter 11 Either the red was lucky or his reactions were quick. He had somehow rolled clear of the struggling horse as Loopy leaped from behind a bolder knife out and ready. To the eyes of the Apaches, they helmeted man lay easy prey to Loopy's attack. Nor did he raise an arm to defend himself, though one hand lay free across the plate on his chest. But the young Apaches stumbled, rebounded back as if he had run into an unseen wall. When his knife was still six inches away from the other. Loopy cried out, stood under a second impact as the red fired an automatic with his other hand. Travis dropped his bow, returned to the most primitive weapon of all. His hand closed around a stone and he hurled a fist-side oval straight at the helmet, so clearly outlined against the rocks below. But even as Loopy's knife had never touched flesh, so was the rock deflected. The red was covered by some protective field. This was certainly nothing the Apaches had seen before. Knoll and Squistle summoned them to draw back. The red fired again, the sharp mark of the handgun harsh and loud. He did not have any real target, for with the exception of Loopy, the Apaches had gone to earth. Between the rocks, the red was struggling to his feet, but he moved slowly, favoring his side and one leg. He had not come totally unharmed from his tumble with the pony. An armed enemy who could not be touched, one who knew there were more than outlaws in this region. The red leader was far more of a threat to the Apaches now than he had ever been. He must not be allowed to escape. He was holstering his gun, moving along with one hand against the rocks to steady himself, trying to reach one of the ponies that stood with trailing range beside the inert totters. But when the enemy reached the far side of that rock, he would have to sacrifice either his steadying hold or his touch on the chest plate for his other hand rest. Would he then, for an instant be vulnerable? The Pony. Travis put an arrow on Bocord and shot, not if the red who had released his hold of the rock, preferring to totter instead of lose control of the chest plate. But into the air straight before the nose of the mount. The pony made widely, tried to return, and his shoulder cut the free, groping hand of the red and spun the man around and back, so that he flung up both hands in an effort to ward himself off the rock. Then the pony stampeded down the break, his companions catching the same fever, trailing in a mad dash which kept the red hard against the boulder. He continued to stand there until the horses, saved for the wounded one, still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of retreat. They might not be able to get at the red, but he was hurt and afoot. Two strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the Apaches could handle. Apparently the other was also aware of that, for now he pushed out from the rocks and stumbled along after the ponies. But he went only a step or two, then settled down once more against a convenient boulder. He began to work at the plate on his chest. Nolan appeared noiselessly beside Travis. What does he do? His lips were very close to the younger man's ear. His voice hardly more than a breath. Travis shook his head slightly. The reds' actions were a complete mystery. Unless now disabled and afoot, he was trying to summon aid, though there was no landing place for a helicopter here. Now was the time to try and reach Lupi. Travis had seen a slight movement in the falling Apaches hand. The first indication that the enemy's shot had not been as fatal as it had looked. He touched Nolan's arm, pointed to Lupi, and then, discarding his bow and quiver beside the war leader, he stripped for action. There was cover down to the wounded Apaches, which would aid him. He must pass one of the tartars on the way, but none of the tribesmen had shown any signs of life since they had fallen from their saddles at the first attack. With infinite care, Travis lowered himself into a narrow passage, took a loser's way between brush and boulder, pausing only when he reached the tartar for a quick check of the potential enemy. The lean brown face was half turned, one cheek in the sand, but the slack mouth, the closed eyes were those Travis believed of a dead man. By some action of his diabolic machine, the red must have stuffed out his forecasters, perhaps in the belief that they were part of the Apache attack. Travis reached the rock where Lupi lay. He knew that Nolan was watching the red and would give him warning if he suddenly showed an interest in anything but his machine. The Apache reached out, his hands closing on Lupi's ankles. Beneath his touch, flesh and muscle tense, Lupi's eyes were open, focused now on Travis. There was a bleeding pearl above his right ear. The red had tried a difficult headshot, failing in his aim by a mere fraction of an inch. Lupi made a swift move for which Travis was ready. His grip on the other's body helped to tumble them both around a rock which lay between them and the red. There was a crack of another shot and dust spurted from the side of the boulder, but they lay together, safe for the present, as Travis was sure the enemy would not risk an open attack on their small fortress. With Travis's aid, Lupi struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited. Jill Lee was there to make competent examination of the boy's wounds. Preach, he reported, a sore head, but no great damage. Perhaps a scar later, warrior. He gave Lupi an encouraging thump on the shoulder before plastering an aid pack over the cut. Now we go, Nolan spoke with emphatic decision. He saw enough of us to know we are not targets. Nolan's eyes were cold, his mouth grim as he faced Travis. And now, can we fight him? There is a wall, a wall you cannot see about him, Lupi broke him. When I would strike at him, I could not. A man with invisible protection and a gun, Jill Lee took up the argument. How would you deal with him, younger brother? I don't know, Travis admitted, yet he also believed that if they withdrew, let the red here to be found by his own people. The enemy would immediately begin an investigation of the southern country, perhaps pushed by their need for learning more about the Apache. They would bring the helicopter in over the mountains. The answer to all Apache dangers for now lay in the immediate future of this one man. He is hurt, he cannot go far on foot, and even if he calls the chopper, there is no landing place. He will have to move elsewhere to be picked up. Travis thought aloud, citing the thin handful of points in their favor. Tashay nodded toward the rim of the ravine. Rocks up there, and rocks can roll. Starting earthslide. Something within Travis balked at that. From the first, he had been willing enough to slug it out with the red, weapon to weapon, man to man. Also, he had wanted to take a captive, not stand over a body. But to use the nature of the country against the enemy, that was the oldest Apache trick of all, and one they would have to be forced to employ. Nolan had already nodded in a sense, and Tashay and Jill Lee started off. Even if the red did possess a protective wall device, could it operate in full against a landslide? They all doubted that. The Apaches reached the cliff rim without exposing themselves to the enemy's fire. The red still sat there calmly, his back against the rock. His hands busy with his equipment, as if he had all the time in the world. Then suddenly came a scream from more than one throat. Dar Ygar. The ancient war cry of the Mongol Horses. Then over the lip of the other slope rose a wave of men. Their curves soared out, a glaze set to their eyes, heading for the Amerindians with other disregard for any personal safety. Menlick in the lead, his shamans rogue flapping wide below the his belt, like the wings of some oversized predatory bird. Hoolagar, Jagatai, men from the outlaws camp, and they were not striving to destroy their disabled overlord in the vein below, but to wipe out the Apaches. Only the fact that the Apaches were already sheltered behind the rocks they were laboring to dislodge gave them a precious few moments of grace. There was no time to use their bows. They could only use knives to meet the swords of the Tatars, knives and the fact that they could fight with unclouded minds. He has them under control. Travis paused at Jillie's shoulder. Get him. They'll stop. He did not wait to see if the other Apache understood. Instead, he threw the full force of his own body against the rocks they had made the center stone of their slide. It gave, rolled, carrying with it, and before it, the rest of the pile rubble. Travis stumbled, fell flat, and then a body thudded down upon him. And he was fighting for his life to keep a blade from his throat. Around him were the shouts and cries of embroiled warriors. Then all was silenced by a roar from below. Glazed eyes in a face only a foot from his own. He twisted panting mouth, sending gust of breath into his nostrils. Suddenly there was reason back in those eyes, a bewilderment, which became fear, panic. The Tatars' body twisted in Travis' hole, striving now not to attack but to win free. As the Apache loosened his grip, the other jerked away, so that for a moment or two they lay gasping side by side. Men set up to look at men. There was a spreading stain down Jill Lee's side and one of the Tatars crawled near him, both his hands on his chest, coughing violently. Men licked clawed at the trunk of a wind-twisted mountain tree, pulled himself to his feet and stood swaying as might a man long ill and recovering from severe exertion. Insensibly both sides grew apart, leaving a space between Tatar and Apache. The faces of the Amerindians were grim. Those of the Mongols bewildered and then harsh as they eyed their late opponents with drowning reason. What had begun in compulsion for the Tatars might well flare now into rational combat. And from that to a campaign of extermination. Travis was on his feet. He looked over the lip of the drop. The red was still in his place down there, a pile of rubble about him. His protection must have failed, for his head was back at an unnatural angle and the dent in his helmet could be easily seen. That one is dead or helpless, Travis cried out. Do you still wish to fight for him, shaman? Men licked came away from the tree and walked to the edge of the drop. The others, too, were moving forward. After the shaman looked down, he stooped, picked up a small stone and flung it at the motionless red. There was a crack of sound. Then all saw the tiny spurt of flame. A curler smoked from the plate on the red's chest. Not only the man, but his control was finished now. A whoopee's growl and two of the Tatars swung over started down to the red. Men licked shouted and a slackened pace. We want that, he cried in English, perhaps so we can learn. The learning is yours, Julie replied, just as this land is yours, shaman, but I warn you, from this day do not ride south. Men licked turned, the charms of his belt clicking. So that is the way it is to be, Apache. That is the way it shall be, Charter. We do not ride to war with allies who can turn their knives against our backs because they are slaves to a machine the enemy controls. The Tatars' long, slender-fingered hands opened and closed. You are a wise man, Apache, but sometimes more than wisdom alone is needed. We are wise men, shaman, let it rest there, Julie replied somberly. Already the Apaches were on their way, putting two cliff bridges between them before they halted to examine and cover their wounds. We go, no one's skin lifted indicating the southern route. Here we do not come again. There is too much witchcraft in this place. Travis Third saw that Jill Lee was frowning at him. Go, he repeated. Yes, younger brother, you would continue to run with these who are governed by a machine? No, only eyes are needed on this side of the mountain. Why? This time Jill Lee was plainly on the side of the conservative. We have now seen this machine at work. It is fortunate that the Red is dead. He will carry no tales of us back to his people as you fear. Thus if we remain south from now on, we are safe. And this fight between Charter and Red is none of ours. What do you seek here? I must go again to the place of the towers. Travis answered with the truth. But his friends were facing him with heavy disapproval. Now a full roll of decay. Did you not tell us that you felt this strange thing during the night we waited about the camp? What if you became one of those Tartars and are also controlled by the machine? Then you too can be made into a weapon against us, your clansman. Jill Lee was almost openly hostile. Sense was on his side, but in Travis was this other desire of which he was becoming more conscious by the minute. There was a reason for those Tartars. Perhaps a reason important enough for him to discover and run the risk of angering his own people. There may be this, Nolan's voice was remote and cold. You may already be a piece of this thing bound to the machines. If so, we do not want you among us. There it was, an open hostility with more power behind it than Declays' motiveless disapproval had carried. Travis was troubled. The family, the clan, they were important. If he took the wrong step now and was outmide from that tight fortress, then as an Apache, he would indeed be a lost man. In the past of his people, there had been renegades from the tribe. Men such as the infamous Apache kid who had killed and killed again. Not only white men, but his own people. Wolf men living wolves lives in the hills. Travis was threatened with that. Yet, up the ladder of civilization, down the ladder, why did this feverish curiosity write him so cruelly now? Listen, Julie, his side padded with bandages, stepped closer. And tell me, younger brother, what is it that you seek in these towers? On another world, there were secrets of the old ones to be found in such ancient buildings. Here, that might also be true. And among the secrets of these old ones, Nolan's voice was still harsh. For those which brought us to this world, is that not so? Did any man drive you, Nolan, or Utah say, or you, Julie, or any of us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done, and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers. Say, for this voyage, when we were told nothing, Julie answered, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. Yet, Nolan, I do not believe that it is for more voyage-tapes that our younger brother now searches. Nor would those do us any good, as our ship will not rise again from here. What is it that you do seek? Knowledge? Weapons, maybe? Can we stand against these machines of the Reds? Yet, many of the devices they now use are taken from the starships they have looted through time. To every new weapon, there is a defense. Nolan blinked, and for the first time, a hint of interest touched the mask of his face. To the bow, the rifle, he said softly. To the rifle, the machine gun. To the cannon, the big bomb. The defense can be far worse than the first weapon. So you think that in these towers, there may be things which shall be to the Reds' machines, as the bomb is to the cannon of the Force soldiers? Travis had an inspiration. Did not our people lie aside the bow for the rifle when we went up against the Bluecoats? We do not so go up against these Reds, protested Loopy. Not now, but what if they come across the mountains, perhaps driving the Tartars before them to do their fighting? And you believe that if you find weapons in these towers, you will know how to use them? Julie asked. What will give you that knowledge, younger brother? I do not claim such knowledge, Travis countered, but this much I do have. Once I studied to be an archaeologist, and I have seen other storehouses of these star people, who else among us can say as much as that? That is the truth, Julie acknowledged. Also, there is good sense in this seeking out of the tower thing. That the Reds find such first if they exist at all, and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with only death at our heels. And you would go to these towers now, no one demanded. I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the past. The feeling of urgency, which has been mounting in Travis was now so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was surprised when Jill Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger man. Take care, younger brother. This is not a lucky business. And remember, if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no returning. We shall wait on the other side of the past for one day, no one added. Then he shrugged. Where you go will be your own affair. Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two steps down his chosen path. This concludes the reading of Chapter 11, Chapter 12 of the Defiant Agents. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by RJ Davis. The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton, Chapter 12. Travis had taken a direct cross route through the Heights, but not swiftly enough to reach his objective before night falls. And he had no woosh to enter the tower valley by moonlight. In him two emotions now warped. There was the urge to invade the towers to discover their secrets and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the Redacks and his modern education in the Pindaliculai world, half Apache brave of the past, half modern archaeologists with a thirst for knowledge? Or was a fear rooted more deeply in for another reason? Travis crouched in a hollow trying to understand what he felt. Why was it suddenly so overwhelmingly important for him to investigate the towers? If he only had the coyotes with him. Why and where they had gone? He was alive to every noise out of the night. Every scent the wind carried to him. The night had its own life, just as the daylight hours held theirs. Only a few of those sounds could he identify. Even less did he see. There was one wide wanged huge flying thing which passed across the green gold plate of the Manera Moon. It was so large that for an instant Travis believed the helicopter had come. Then the wings flap, breaking the glide and the creature merged in the shadows of the night. A hundred large enough to be a serious threat and one he had never seen before. Relying on his own small defense, the stewing of brittle sticks around the only approach to the hollow. Travis dozed at intervals, his head down on his forearm across his bent knees. But the cold cramped him and he was glad to see the graying sky of free dawn. He swallowed two ration tablets and a couple of mouthfuls of water from his canteen and started on. By sun up he had reached the ledge of the waterfall and he hurried along the ancient road at a pace which increased to a run the closer he drew to the valley. Deliberately he slowed his native caution now in control so that he was walking as he passed through the gateway into the swirling mist which alternately exposed and veiled the towers. There was no change in the scene from the time he had come here with Cadesa. But now rising from a comfortable sprawl on the yellow and green pavement was a welcoming committee. Naliki Adeu and Najinta showing no more excitement at his coming than if they had parted only moments before. Travis went down on one knee holding out his hand to the female who had always been the more friendly. She advanced a step or two touched a cold nose to his knuckles and whined. Why, he voiced that one word, but behind it was a long list of questions. Why had they left him? Why were they here where there was no hunting? Why did they meet him now as if they had calmly expected his return? Travis clanced from the animals to the towers. Those windows set in diamond pattern and again he was visited by the impression that he was under observation. With the mist floating across those openings it would be easy for a lurker to watch him unseen. He walked slowly on into the valley. His moccasins making no sound on the pavement but he could hear the faint click of the coyote's claws as they paced beside him on each hand. The sun did not penetrate here making merely a gilt fog of the mist. As he approached with the entusting ditches to the first tower it seemed to Travis that the mist was curling about him. He could no longer see the archway through which he had entered the valley. Nay Ninjane, slayer of monsters, his strength to the boar, to the kniferear. Out of what long buried memory did that ancient flea come? Travis was hardly aware of the sense of the words until he spoke them aloud. You who wait, shayende to die each hour, and a passage is not food for you. I am fox of the it-catch-cud-ende you, the eagle-people, and besides me walk gans of power. Travis blinked and shook his head as one waking. Why had he spoken so using words and phrases which were not part of any modern speech? He moved on around the base of the first tower to find no door, no break in its surface below the second-story windows. To the next structure and the next until he had encircled all three. If he were to enter any he must find a way of reaching the lowest windows. Arnie went to the other opening of the valley, the one which gave upon the territory of the Tartar camp. But he did not sight any of the mongols as he hacked down a sapling, trimmed, and smoothed it into a blunt pointed lance. His size belt, torn into even strips and knotted together, gave him a rope which the judge would be barely long enough for his purpose. Then Travis made a chancey cast for the lower window of the nearest tower. On the second try the lance slipped in and he gave a quick jerk jamming the lance as they barred across the opening. It was a frail ladder, but the best he could improvise. He climbed until the sill of the window was within reach and he could pull himself up and over. The sill was a wide one, at least a 24 inch span between the inner and outer surface of the tower. Travis sat there for a minute, reluctant to enter. Near the end of his dangling scarf rope the two coyotes lay on the pavement. Their heads up, their tongues lolling from their mouths. Their expression won't have detached interest. Perhaps it was the width of the outer wall that subdued the mount of light in the room. The chamber was circular and directly opposite him was a second window, the lowest of the matching diamond pattern. He took the forefoot drop from the sill to the floor, but lingered in the light as he surveyed every inch of the room. There were no furnishings at all, but in the very center sank a well of darkness. A smooth pillar, flowing faintly, rose from its core. Travis's adjusting eyes noted how the light came in small ripples, green and purple, over a fountain shade of dark blue. The pillar seemed rooted below and it extended up through a similar opening in the ceiling, safe for climbing from window to window outside. Travis moved slowly to the well. Underfoot was a smooth surface overlaid with a velvet carpet of dust which arose in languid puffs as he walked. Here and there he sighted prints in the dust, strange triangular wedges which he thought might possibly have been made by the claws of birds. But there were no other footprints. This tower had been undisturbed for a long, long time. He came to the well and looked down. There was dark there, darkened which the pulsations of light from the pillar shone the stronger. But that glow did not extend beyond the edge of the well, through which the thick rod threaded. Even by close examination he could detect no break in the smooth surface of the pillar, nothing remotely resembling hand or footholds. If it did serve the purpose of a staircase, there were no threads. At last Travis put out his hand to touch the surface of the pillar and then he jerked back to no effect. There was no breaking contact between his fingers and an unknown material which had the sleekness of polished metal butt and the thought made it slightly queasy, the warmth and very slight give of flesh. He summoned all his strength to pull free and could not. Not only did that hole grip him, but his other hand and arm were being drawn to join the purse. Inside Travis, primitive fears awoke full force, and he threw back his head, voicing a cry of panic as wild as that of a hunting beast. An instant later his left palm was as tight a prisoner as his right, and with both hands so held, his whole body was suddenly snapped forward off the safe foundation of the floor, tight to the pillar. In this position he was sucked down into the well, and while unable to free himself from the pillar, he did slip along his length easily enough. Travis shut his eyes in an involuntary protest against this weird form of capture, and a shiver ran through his body as he continued to descend. After the first shock had subsided, the Apache realized that he was not truly falling at all. Had the pillar been horizontal instead of vertical, he would have gazed at speed that of a walk. He passed through two more room enclosures. He must already be below the level of the valley floor outside, and he was still a prisoner of the pillar, now in total darkness. His feet came down against a level surface, and he guessed he must have reached the end. Again he pulled back, arching his shoulders in a final desperate attempt at escape, and stumbled away as he was released. He came up sideways against a wall and stood there panting. The light, which might have come from the pillar, but which seemed more a part of the very air, was bright enough to reveal that he was in a corridor running into greater dark, both right and left. Travis took two strides back to the pillar, finished his palms once again to its surface, with no result. This time his flesh did not adhere, and there was no possible way for him to climb that slick pole. He could only hope that at some point the corridor would give him access to the surface, but which way to go? At last he chose the right hand path and started along it, pausing every few steps delicious. But there was no sound except the soft pad of his own feet. The air was fresh enough, and he thought he could detect a faint current coming toward him from some point ahead, perhaps an exit. Instead he came into a room and a small gasp of astonishment was rung out of him. The walls were blank, covered with some ripples of blue-purple green light which colored the pillar, just before him was a table and behind it a bench. Both carved from the native yellow-red to mountain rock, and there was no exit except the doorway in which he now stood. Travis walked to the bench, immovable. It was placed so that whoever sat there must face the opposite wall of the chamber with the table before him. And on the table was an object Travis recognized immediately from his voyage in the alien starship. One of the reader-viewers through which the involuntary explorers had learned what little they knew of the older galactic civilization. A reader and beside it a box of tapes. Travis touched the edge of that box gingerly, half expecting it to crumble into nothingness. This was a place long deserted. Stone table, bench, the towers could survive through centuries of abandonment. But these other objects? The substance of the reader was firm under the film of dust. There was less dust here than had been in the upper tower chamber. Hardly knowing why, Travis threw one leg over the bench and sat down behind the table. The reader before him, the box of tapes just beyond his hand. He surveyed the walls and then looked away hurriedly. The rippling colors caught at his eyes. He had a feeling that if he watched that ebb and flow too long, he would be captured in some subtle web of enchantment just as the reds machine had caught and held the totters. He turned his attention to the reader. It was, he believed, much like the one they had used on a ship. The room, table, bench had all been designed with a set purpose. And that purpose, Travis' fingers rested on the box of tapes he could not yet bring himself to open. That purpose was to use the reader. He would swear to that. Tapes so left must have had a great importance for those who left out. It was as if the whole valley was a trap to channel a stranger into this underground chamber. Travis snapped open the box, fed the first disc into the reader, and applied his eyes to the vision tube at his apex. The rippling walls looked just the same when he looked up once more. But the cramp in his muscles told Travis that time had passed. Perhaps hours instead of minutes, since he had taken out the first disc. He cupped his hands over his eyes and tried to think clearly. There had been sheets of meaningless symbol writing, but also there had been many clear three-dimensional pictures, accompanied by a singsong commentary in an alien tongue, seemingly voiced out of thin air. He had been stuffed with ragged bits and patches of information to be connected only by guesses, and some wild guesses too. But this much he did know. These towers had been built by the ball spacemen, and they were highly important to that vanished stellar civilization. The information in this room, as disjointed as it had been for him, led to a treasure trove on Topaz, greater than he had dreamed. Travis swayed on the bench, to know so much and yet so little, if asked were only here or some other other project technicians. A treasure such as Pandora's Box had been, parallel for one, who opened it and did not understand. The Apache studied the three walls of the blue-purple-green in turn and with new attention. There were ways through those walls. He was fairly sure he could unlock at least one of them, but not now, certainly not now. And there was another thing he knew. The Reds must not find this. Since a discovery on their part would not only mean the end of his own people on Topaz, but the end of Terra as well. This could be a new and alien black death spread to destroy whole nations at a time. If he could, much as his archeologist training would argue against it, he would blot out this whole valley above and below ground. But while the Reds might possess a means of such destruction, the Apaches did not. No, he and his people must prevent his discovery by the enemy by doing what he had seen as necessary from the first. Wiping out the Red leaders. And that must be done before they chanced upon the towers. Travis arose stiffly. His eyes ached, his head felt stuffed with pictures, hence speculations. He wanted to get out, back into the open air, where perhaps the clean winds of the heights would blow some of this frightening half-knowledge from his benumb mind. He lurched down the corridor, puzzled now by the problem of getting back to the window level. Here before him was a pillar. Without hope, but still obeying some buried instinct. Travis again set his hands to its surface. There was a tug at his cramped arms. Once more, his body was sucked to the pillar. This time he was rising. He held his breath past the first level and then relapsed. The principle of this weird form of transportation was entirely beyond his understanding. But as long as it worked in reverse, he didn't care to find out. He reached the window chamber, but the sunlight had left it instead the clean cut of moonsuite play on the dusty floor. He must have been hours in that underground place. Travis pulled away from the embrace of the pillar. The bar of his wooden lance was still across the window and he ran for it. To catch the scouting party at the pass he must hurry. The report they would make to the clan now had to be changed radically in the face of his new discoveries. The Apaches dared not retreat southward and withdraw from the fight, leaving the Reds to use what treasure lay here. As he hit the pavement below, he looked about for the coyotes. Then he tried to mine-call. But as mysterious as they had met him in the valley, so now were they gone again. And Travis had no time to hunt for them. With a sigh, he began his race to the past. In the old days, Travis remembered, Apache warriors had been able to cover forty-five or fifty miles a day on foot and over rough territory, for perhaps his modern breeding had slowed him. He had been so sure he could catch up before the others were through the past. But he stood now in the hollow where they had camped, read the sign of overturned stone and bent twig left for him, and knew they would reach the ranchera and report the decision decay and the others wanted before he could head them off. Travis slogged on. He was so tired now that only the drug from the substance tablets he mouthed the intervals kept him going at a dogged pace, hardly more than a swift walk. And always his mind was haunted by fragments of pictures, pictures he had seen in the reader. The big bomb had been the nightmare of his own world for so long, and what was that against the forces the ball-star rovers had been able to command. He fell beside his scream and slept. There was sunshine about him as he rose to stagger on. What day was this? How long had he sat in the tower chamber? He was not sure of time anymore. He only knew that he must reach the ranchera, tell his story, somehow win over Declay and the other reactionaries to prove the necessity for invading the north in force. A rocky point which was a familiar landmark came into focus. He patted on, his chest heaving, his breath whistling through parts' sun-cracked lips. He did not know that his face was now a mask of driven resolution. How? The cry reached his dull tears. Travis lifted his head, saw the men before him and tried to think what that show of weapons turned toward him could mean. A stone thudded to earth only inches before his feet to be followed by another. He wavered to a stop. Now it got. Which? Where was a which? Travis shook his head. There was no which? The old death threat. But why? For whom? Another stone, this one hitting him in the ribs with force enough to send him reeling back and down. He tried to get up again, saw Declay grin widely and take aim, and at last Travis realized what was happening. Then there was a bursting pain in his head and he was falling, falling into a well of black. This time with no pillar of blue to guide him. This concludes the reading of Chapter 12, Chapter 13 of The Defiant Agents. This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org. Recording by RJ Davis. The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton, Chapter 13. The rasp of something wet and rough persisted against his cheek. Travis tried to turn his head to avoid the contact and was answered by a burst of pain which trialed off into a giddiness, making him fear another move, no matter how minor. He opened his eyes and saw the pointed ears, the outline of a coyote's head between him and a dull gray sky. He was able to recognize Nalikia Dewu, a witness other than that from the coyote's tongue slid down his forehead now. The dull clouds overhead had released the first heavy rain Travis had experienced since their landing on Topes. He shivered as a chilled damp of his clothes made him aware that he must have been laying out in the full force of the downpour for some time. He was a struggle to get to his knees, but Nalikia Dewu mouthed a hold on his shirt tugging and pulling so that somehow he crept into a hollow beneath the branches of a tree where the sprouting water was lessened by a few patterned drops. There, the Apache strength deserted him again and he could only hunch over. He was bent knees against his chest, trying to endure the throbbing misery in his head, the awful floating sensation which followed any movement. Fighting against that, he tried to remember just what had happened. The meeting with Declay and at least four or five others, then the Apache acquisition of witchcraft, a serious thing in the old days. Old days. To Declay and his fellows, these were the old days, and the threat that Declay or some other had shattered at him, Nalikia Dewu, met literally, it won't dawn for you, death. Stones, the last thing Travis remembered were the stones. Slowly his hands went out to explore his body. There was more than one bruised area on his shoulders and ribs, even on his thighs. He must still have been a target after he had fallen under the stone which had knocked him unconscious. Stones outlawed, but why? Surely Declay's hostility could not have swept Buck, Jay Lee, Tassay, even Nolan into agreeing to that. Now he could not think straight. Travis became aware of warmth, not only of warmth and the soft touch of a furred body by his side, but a comforting communication of mind. A feeling he had no words to describe adequately. Nalikia Dewu was setting crowded against him. Her nose thrust up to rest on his shoulder. She breathed a soft breath which stirred the loose locks of his rain-damped hair. And now he flung one arm around her. A gesture which brought a whisper of answering whine. He was past wondering about the actions of the Kyles, only supremely thankfully for Nalikia Dewu's present companionship. And a moment later, when her mate squeezed under the low loop of a branch and joined him in his natural wikia. Travis held out his other hand and drew it lovingly across Najintos' wet hide. Now what, he asked aloud, Declay could only have taken such a drastic action with the majority of the clan solidly behind him. It could well be that this reactionary was a new cheat. This act of Travis' expulsion merely adding to Declay's growing prestige. The shivering which had begun when Travis recovered consciousness still shook him at intervals. Back on Terra, like all the others in the team, he had had every inoculation known to the space positions, including several experimental ones. But the cold virus could still practically immobilize a man, and this was no time to give body room to chills and fever. Catching his breath as his movements touched to life the pain in one bruise after another, Travis peeled off his soaked clothing. Rubbed his body dry with handfuls of last year's leaves, cold from the thick carpet under him. Knowing there was nothing he could do until the whirling in his head disappeared. So he burred into the leaves until only his head was uncovered and tried to sleep. The coyotes curled up one on either side of his nest. He dreamed but later could not remember any incident from those dreams, save a certain frustration and fear. When he awoke, again to the sound of steady rain, it was dark. He reached out, both coyotes were gone. His head was clear and suddenly he knew what must be done. As soon as his body was strong enough, he too would return to instincts and customs of the past. The situation was desperate enough for him to challenge Declay. In the dark, Travis frowned. He was slightly taller and three or four years younger than his enemy. But Declay had the advantage in a stouter built and longer reach. However, Travis was sure that in his present life, Declay had never fought a duel, a patchy passion. And an Apache duel was not a meeting anyone entered into lightly. Travis had the right to enter the ranchera and deliver such a challenge. Then Declay must meet him or admit himself in the wrong. That part of it was simple. But in the past, his duels had just one end, a fatal one for at least one of the fighters. If Travis took this trail, he must be prepared to go the limit. And he didn't want to kill Declay. There were too few of them here on Topes to make any loss less than a real catastrophe. While he had no liking for Declay, neither did he nurse any hatred. However, he must challenge the other or remain a tribal outcast. And Travis had no right to gamble with time in the future, not after what he had learned in the tower. It might be his life and skill or Declay against the blotting out of them all and their homeworld into the bargain. First, he must locate the present camp of the clan. If Nolan's arguments had counted, they would be heading south away from the past. And to follow would draw him further from the tower valley. Travis's battered face ached as he grinned bitterly. This was another time when a man could whoosh he were two people. They scowled on sentry duty at the valley, the fighter heading in the opposite direction to have it out with Declay. But since he was merely one man, he would have to gamble on time, one of the trickiest risks of all. Before dawn, Nalikia de Yu returned, carrying with her a bird, for at least birds must have been somewhere in the creature's ancestry. But the present representative of his kind had only vestigial remnants of wings. His trailing feet and legs were developed and far more powerful. Travis skinned the corpse, automatically putting aside some spine quills to feather future arrows. Then he ate slivers of dusky meat raw, throwing the bones to Nalikia de Yu. Though he was still stiff and sore, Travis was determined to be on his way. He tried mind contact with the coyote, picturing the Apaches, notably Declay, as sharply as he could by metal image. And her assent was clear in return. She and her mate were willing to lead him to the tribe. He gave it like sigh of relief. As they slogged on through the depressing drizzle, the patchy wondered again why the coyotes had left him before and waited in the tower valley. What length was there between the animals of Terra and the remains of the long ago empire of the stars? For he was certain it was not by chance that Nalikia de Yu and Nagenta had lingered in that misty place. He longed to communicate with them directly to ask questions and be answered. Without their aid, Travis would never have been able to track the clam. The drizzle alternated with splicing bursts of rain, torrential enough to drive the trackers to the nearest cover. Overhead the sky was either dull bronze or night black. Even the coyotes paced nose to ground, often making wild cast for the trail while Travis waited. The rain lasted for three days and nights, building water courses with rapidly rising streams. Travis could only hope that the others were having the same difficulty traveling that he was. Perhaps the more so since they were burdened with packs. The fact that they kept on meant that they were determined to get as far from the northern mountains as they could. On the fourth morning the bronze of the clouds slowly thinned into the usual gold and the sun struck across hills where mist curled like steam from a hundred bubbling pots. Travis relaxed in the welcome warmth, feeling his shirt dry on his shoulders. It was still a waterlogged terrain ahead which should continue to slow the clam. He had high expectations of catching up with him soon and now the worst of his bruises had faded. His muscles were limber and he had worked out his plan as best he could. Two hours later he sat in ambush waiting for the scout who was walking into his hands. Under the direction of the coyotes Travis had circled the line of march coming ahead of the clam. Now he needed an emissary to stage his challenge and the fact that the scout he was about to jump with Magnolito, one of Declay's supporters, suited Travis's purpose perfectly. He gathered his feet under him as the other came opposite and sprained. The rust carried Magnolito off his feet and faced down on a sod while Travis made the best of his advantage and pinned the wildly fighting man under him. Had it been one of the older braves he might not have been so successful but Magnolito was still a boy by Apache standards. Life still, Travis ordered, listen well so you can say to Declay the words of the fox. The frenzied struggle ceased. Magnolito managed to rent his head to the left so he could see his captor. Travis loosened his grip, got to his feet. Magnolito set up his face darkly sullen but he did not reach for his knife. You will say this to Declay. The fox says he is a man of little sense and less courage, preferring to throw stones rather than meat knife to knife as does a warrior. If he thinks as a warrior let him prove it. His strength against my strength after the ways of the people. Some of the sullenness left Magnolito's expression. He was eager, excited. You would duel with Declay after the old custom? I would say this to Declay openly so that all men may hear. Then Declay must also give answer openly. Magnolito flushed at that implication concerning his leader's courage and Travis knew that he would deliver the challenge openly. To keep his hold on the clan, the latter must accept it and there would be an audience of his people to witness the success or defeat of their new chief and his policies. As Magnolito disappeared, Travis summoned the Kyles putting full effort into the battle. Any tribe led by Declay would be hostile to the mutant animals. They must go into hiding, run free in the wilderness if the gamble failed Travis. Now they withdrew into the bushes but not out of reach of his mind. He did not have too long to wait. First came Juli, Buck, Nolan, Tosche, and the rest of the tribe. He did not have too long to wait. First came Juli, Buck, Nolan, Tosche, and the rest of the tribe. Those who had been with him on the northern scout. Then the others, the warriors first. The women making a half circle behind leaving a free space in which Declay walked. I am the fox, Travis stated, and this one has named me which and that day he outlawed the mountains. Therefore do I come to name names in my term. Hear me people. This Declay, he would walk among you as Isaiah's Nantam, a great chief. But he does not have the go in die, the holy power of a chief. For this Declay is a fool with a head filled by nothing but his own wishes, not caring for his clan brothers. He says he leads you into safety. I say he leads you into the worst danger any living man can imagine. Even in payout dreams. He is one twisted in his thoughts and he would make you twisted also. Buck cut in sharply, hushing the murmur of the mass clan. These are bold words, Fox. Will you back them? Travis's hands were already peeling off his shirt. I will back them. He stated between set teeth. He had known since his awakening after the stoning that this next move was the only one left for him to make. But now that the testing of his action came, he could not be certain of the outcome. Of anything saved at the final decision of this battle might affect more than the fate of two men. He stripped noting that Declay was doing the same. Having stepped into the center of the blade, Nolan was using the point of his knife to score a deep ridged circle there. Neckad, except for his moccasins, with only his knife in his hand, Travis took the two strides which put him in the circle facing Declay. He surveyed his opponent's finely muscled body, realizing that his earlier estimate of Declay's probable advantages were close to the mark. In sheer strength, the other outmatched him. Whether Declay was skillful with his side was another question. One which Travis would soon be able to answer. They circled eyes and tanned upon each other, driving to weigh and measure each other's strengths and weaknesses. Knife dueling among the pendulum of life, Travis remembered, had once been an art close to finished sword play, with two evenly matched fighters able to engage for a long time without seriously marking each other. But this was a far rougher and more deadly game with none of the niceties of such a meeting. He evaded a vicious thrust from Declay. The bull charges he laughed and the fox snaps. By some incredible stroke of good fortune, the point of his weapon actually grazed Declay's arm, drawing a thin, red inch long line across the skin. Charging in bull feel once more the fox's teeth. He's go to go decay into a crippling loss of temper, knowing how the other could explode into violent rage. It was dangerous that rage, but it could also make a man blindly careless. There was an articulate sound from Declay, a dusky swelling in the man's face. He sped as minded and raised puma and rushed at Travis, who did not quite manage to avoid the lunge falling back with a smarting slice across the ribs. The bull goers, Declay bellowed, horns tossed to fox. He rushed again, elated by the sight of the trickling wound on Travis' side, but the slider man slipped away. Travis knew he must be careful in such evasions. One foot across the ridge circle and he was finished as much as if Declay's blade had found his mark. Travis tried a thrust of his own and his foot came down hard on a sharp pebble. Through the sole of his moccasin, pain shot upward, causing him to stumble. Again, the scarlet flame of a wound down his shoulder and forearm this time. Well, there was one tricky news. Travis trossed a knife into the air, caught it with his left hand. Declay was now facing a left-handed spider and must adjust to that. Paw, bull, rattled your horns, Travis cried. The fox still shows his teeth. Declay recovered from his instant of surprise. With a cry which was indeed like the bellow of an old rain's bull, he rushed into gravel, sure of his superior strength against a younger and already wounded man. Travis ducked one knee thumping the ground. He groped out with his right hand, caught up a handful of earth and plunged it into the dusky brown face. Again, it seemed that luck was on his side. That handful could not be as blinding as sand, but some bit of a shower landed in Declay's eye. For a space of seconds, Declay was wide open, open for a blow which would rip him up the middle. The blow Travis could not and would not deliver. Instead, he took the offensive recklessly, springing straight for his opponent. As the earth grime fingers of one hand clawed into Declay's face, he struck with the other, not with the point of the knife, but with his shaft. But Declay already only had conscious from the blow had his own chance. He fell to the ground, leaving his knife behind. Two inches of steel between Travis' ribs. Somehow, he didn't know from where he drew that strength. Travis kept his feet and took one step and then another, out of the circle until the comforting brace of a tree trunk was against his bare back. Was he finished? He fought to nurse his rags of consciousness. Had he summoned Buck with his eyes or had the urgency of what he had to say reached somehow from mind to mind. The other was at his side, but Travis put out a hand to ward him off. Towers. He struggled to keep his wits through the pain and bellowing weakness beginning to creep through him. Reds mustn't get to the towers. Worse than a bomb. End us all. He had a hazy glimpse of Nolan and Jill Lee closing in about him. The desire to cough tore at him, but they had to know to believe. Reds get to the towers. Everything finished. Not only here, maybe back home too. Did he read comprehension on Buck's face? Would Nolan and Jill Lee and the rest believe him? Travis could not suppress the cough any longer and the ripping pain which followed was the worst he had ever experienced. But Jill Lee kept his feet, tried to make them understand. Don't let them get to the towers. Find that storehouse. Travis stood away from the tree, reached out to Buck, his earth and blood stained hand. I swear, truth, this must be done. He was going down and he had a queer thought that once he reached the ground he would end. Not only for him, but also for his mission. Trying to see the faces of the men about him was like attempting to identify the people in a dream. Towers. He had meant to shout it, but he could not even hear for himself that last word as he fell. This concludes the reading of chapter 13. Chapter 14 of the Defiant Ages. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by RJ Davis. The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton. Chapter 14. Travis's back was braced against blanketed packs as they studied a piece of light yellow bark against one bent knee, scowling at the lines drawing on it in pink-green. We are here then, and the ship is there. His thumb was set on one point of the crude map, forefinger on the other, but not at it. That is so. Tosé, Asquite, Co-Acal, they watched the trails. There is a pass. Two other ways men can come on foot, but who can watch the air? The charters say the reds do not bring the chopper into the mountains. After they first landed, they lost a flyer in a tricky air current blow up there. They have only one left and won't risk it. If only they aren't reinforced before we can move. There it was again, that constant gnawing fear of time, time shortening into a rope to strangle them all. You think that the knowledge of our ship will bring them into the open? That, or information about the towers, would be the only things important enough to pull out their experts. They could send a controlled, harder party to explore the ship, sure, but that wouldn't give them the technical reports they need. No, I think if they knew a wrecked western confrederation ship was here, it would bring them, or enough of them to lessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open, otherwise they can hold up forever in that ship forward of theirs. And just how do we let them know our ship is here? Send out another scouting party and let them be trailed back? That's our last resource. Travis continued to frown at the map. Yes, it would be possible to let the Reds sight and trail in a patchy party, but there was none in the clan who were expendable. Surely there was some other way of lying the trap with the wrecked ship. Captured one of the Reds, let him escape again, having seen what they wanted him to see. Again, a time-wasting business. And how long would they have to wait and what risk would they take to pick up a Red prisoner? If the Tartars were dependable, luck was thinking aloud, but that if was far too big. They could not trust the Tartars, no matter how much the Mongols wanted to aid in pulling down or they were useless. Or were they? Bought of something? Luck must have caught Travis with change of expression. Suppose a Tartar saw our ship and then was picked up by a Red hunting patrol and they got the information out of him. Do you think any outlaw would volunteer to let himself be picked up again? And if he did, wouldn't the Reds also be able to learn what the Tartars wanted to do? Now, Buck was plainly considering the possibilities of such a scheme and Travis's own spirits rose a little. The idea was full of holes, but it could be worked out. Suppose they captured, say Midlake, bring him here as a prisoner, let him think they were about to kill him because of that attack back in the foothills. Then let him escape, be driven into the hands of the Reds. Very tensy, but it just might work. Travis was staggering a gamble now, since his desperate one with the duel had paid off. The risk he had accepted then had cost him two deep wounds, one of which might have been serious if Jill Lee's project sponsored medical training had not been to hand. But it had also made Travis one of the clan again in the morning concerning the Tower Treasury. The girl, the Tartar girl. At first Travis did not understand Buck's ejaculation. We get the girl, the other elaborated, let her escape, then hunter to where they'll pick her up. Might even in prisoner in the ship to begin with. K. Jessa? Though something within him was the advantage of Buck's choice. Woman's stealing was an ancient pastime among privileged cultures. The Tartars themselves had found wise that way in the past, just as the Apache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wiki ups. Yes, for raiders to steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as such by the Reds. For the same woman to endeavour to escape and be hunted by her captors and pursue a woman cut off from her outlaw kin to eventually head back towards a Reds settlement as the only hope of evading her enemies, logical all the way. She would have to be well frightened, Travis observed with reluctance. That can be done for us. Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certain games out of their common past to be played with K. Jessa. He would not allow certain games out of their common pastime, brutality in mind. Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Decay and I went back to the ship. Decay, you beat him openly, so he must restore his honour in his own sight. And the council has forbidden another duel or challenge, Buck replied. Therefore he will continue to poost for recognition in another way. And now that he has heard the Reds, not run from them, he is eager to take the war trail. Too eager. So we returned to the ship to make another search for weapons. There were none there before except those we had. Nor now either, but we discovered something else. Buck paused and Travis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by a note in the other's voice. It was if Buck had come upon something he could not summon the right words to describe. First Buck continued, there was this dead thing there near where we found Dr. Ruthless. It was something like a man, but all silver rehair. The eight things, the eight things from the other worlds. What else did you see? Travis had dropped a map. His side gave him a painful twint as he caught up Buck's sleeve. The ball spaced rovers in the air. Did they still exist here somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the pattern of their own, but manned by Terrence? Nothing except tracks, a lot of them. In every open cabin and hole, I think there must have been a sizable pack of the things. Buck killed a dead one. Buck wet his lips. I thanked fear. His voice dropped a little apologetically, and Travis stared. The ship has changed. Inside there is something wrong. When you walk the corridors, your skin crawls. You think there is something behind you. You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes. When you turn, there's nothing, nothing at all. And the higher you climb into the ship, the worse it is. I tell you Travis, it was a ship of many dead. Travis reminded him. Had the age-old Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute phobia to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck? No. At first that too was my thought. Then I discovered that it was worse not near that chamber where we lay our dead but higher in the Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running but running in a wrong way so that it does not awaken old memories of our ancestors now but brings into being all the fears which have ever haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you Travis, when I came out of that place Declay was leading me by the hand as if I were a child and he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this toddler girl were she only to say there a very short time would be well frightened. So frightened that any trained scientist examining her later would know there was a mystery to be explored. The eight things could they have tried to run the Redax Travis wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure folly but they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old civilization and Ace thought they might represent the degenerate remains of a once intelligent species. That is possible if so they raised a storm which drove them out and killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now but for us to use a girl Travis had seen the logic in Buck's first suggestion but now he differs if the atmosphere of the ship was as terrifying as Buck said to imprison Kadesa there even temporarily was still wrong. She need not remain long suppose we should do this we shall enter with her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. We could run leave her alone. When she left the ship we could then take up the chase shepherding her back to the country she knows within the ship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long Travis could see a good prospect in that plan there was one thing he would insist on if Kadesa was to be in that ship he himself would be one of the captors he said as much and Buck accepted his determination as final they dispatched the scouting party to infiltrate the territory to the north to watch and wait their chance of capture Travis strode to regain his feet to be ready to move when the moment came five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay the wrecked ship with him were Jill Lee Lupi and Manuelito they satisfied themselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Duck Clay there was no sign that the eight things had returned from here Travis said the ship doesn't look too bad almost as if it might be able to take off again it might lift Jill Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve of the globe about that far the tubes on this side are intact what would happen were the reds to get inside and try to fly again Manuelito wondered aloud Travis was struck by a sudden idea one perhaps just as wild as the other inspirations he had had since landing on Topes but one to be studied and explored not dismissed without consideration suppose enough power remain to lift the ship partially and then blow it up with the red technicians on board at the time but he was no engineer he had no idea whether any part of the globe might or might not work again they are not fools a close look would tell them it is a wreck Jill Lee countered Travis walked on not too far ahead a yellow-brown shape moved out of the brush stood sift slagged in his path facing the ship and growling in a harsh rumble of sound whatever moved or operated in that wreck was picked up by the acute sense of the coyote even at this distance on Travis heads around the starling animal with one halting step and in another it followed him there was a sharp warning yelp from the brush and a second coyote head appeared Najinta followed Travis but Naliki I do refused to approach the grounded globe Travis surveyed the ship closely trying to remember the layout of its interior to turn the whole sphere into a trap was it possible Alhead Ace said the redacks worked something about high-frequency waves stimulating certain brain and nerve centers what if one were shielded from those rays that tear in the side he himself must have closed and climbed through that the night they crashed but the break was not too far from the space lock near the lock was a storage compartment and if it had not been jammed for its contents crushed they might have something he back into Gilles give me a hand up there why I want to see if the spacesuits are intact Gilles regarded Travis with open bewilderment we do not need those suits to walk here Travis the air we can breathe not for the air and not in the open Travis advanced to the deliberate pace those suits may be insulated in more ways than one against a mixed up redacks broadcast you mean Gilles exclaimed yes but you stay here younger brother this is a risky climb and you are not yet strong Travis was forced to exceed to that waiting as Manuelito and Lupi climbed up to the tear and entered at least Buck and Declay's experience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weird ghost haunting the interior but when they returned pulling between them the limp spacesuit both men were pale the shiny sheen a sweat on her forehead their hands shaking Lupi sat down on the ground before Travis evil spirits he said giving to this modern phenomena the old name truly ghost and witches walk in there Manuelito had spread the suit on the ground and was examining it with a care which spoke of familiarity this is unharmed he reported ready to wear the suits were all tailored for size Travis knew and this fitted a slender medium sized man it would fit him Travis Fox but Manuelito was already unbuckling the fastenings with practice teams I shall try it out he announced and Travis seemed the awkward climb to the entrance of the ship had to agree that the first test should be carried out by someone more agile at the moment sealed into the suit with the bubble helmet locked in place he climbed back into the globe the only form of communication with him was the rope he had tied about him and if he went above the first level he would have to leave that behind in the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along the rope after counting 50 slowly Travis gave his attentive jerk to find it firmly fastened with him so Manuelito had tied it there and was climbing to the control cabin they continued to wait with what patience they could muster Nagenta patient up and down a good distance from the ship whined at intervals the warning echoed each time by his made-up slope I don't like it Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared again at the break moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing Manuelito reached the ground with the catch of his head covering and then stood taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air well, Travis demanded I see no ghosts Manuelito said, running this is ghost proof he slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest there is also this from what I know of these ships some of the relay still works I think this could be made into a trap we could entice the reds in and then his hand moved in a quick upward flip but we don't know anything about the engines Travis replied no, listen you fox are not the only one to remember useful knowledge Manuelito had lost his cheerful grin do you think we are just the savages those big brains back at the project roost us to be they have played a trick on us every day so we can play a few tricks too me, I went to MIT or is that one of the things you no longer remember fox Travis swallowed hastily he really had forgotten that fact until this very minute from the beginning the Apache team had been carefully selected and screened not only for survival potential which was their basic value to the project but also for certain individual skills just as Travis's grounding in archaeology had been one advantage so had Manuelito's technical training made a valuable though different contribution if at first the redact used without warning had smothered that training perhaps the effects were now fading you can do something then he asked eagerly I can try there's a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least you would poke and pry working in this suit will be tough how about my trying to smash up the redact first not until after we use it on our captain Geely decided then there would be some time before the reds come you talk as if they will come cut in loopy how can you be sure we can't Travis agreed but we can count on this much judging from the past they will be forced to explore it they cannot afford an enemy settlement on this side of the mountains that would be according to their way of thinking an eternal threat Geely nodded that is true this is a complicated plan yes and one in which many things may go wrong but is also one which covers all the loopholes we know of with loopy's aid Manuelito crawled out of the suit as he leaned it carefully against a supporting rock he said I have been thinking of this treasure house in the towers suppose we could find new weapons there Travis hesitated he still shrank from the thought of opening the secret places behind those glowing walls to lose a new peril if we took weapons from there and lost the fight he advanced his first objection and was glad to see the expression on Geely's face it would be putting the weapons straight into red hands the other agreed we may have to chance it before we're through Manuelito warned suppose we do get some of their technicians into this trap that isn't going to open up their main defense for us we may need a bigger nutcracker than we've ever seen with the return of that queasy feeling he had known in the tower that this new Manuelito was speaking since they might have to open Pandora's box before the end of this campaign this concludes the reading of chapter 14 chapter 15 of the Defiant Agents this is a leverbox recording all leverbox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit leverbox.org recording by RJ Davis the Defiant Agents by Andre Norton chapter 15 they camped another two days near the wrecked ship while Manuelito prowled through Honda's quarters and cabins in his space suit planning his movie trap at night he drew diagrams on pieces of bark and discussed the possibility of this or that device sometimes lapsing into technicalities but Travis was well satisfied that Manuelito knew what he was doing on the morning of the third day Nolan slipped into their midst he was dust crime his face gaunt the signs of hard travel plain to read Travis handed him the nearest canteen and they watched him drink sparingly in small sips before he spoke they come with the girl you had trouble looking the targets had moved their camp which was only wise since the Reds must have had a line on the other one and they are now farther to the west but he wiped his lips with the back of his hand also we saw your towers box and that is a place of power no sign that the Reds are prowling there Nolan shook his head to my mind the mist there could feel the towers from aerial view only one coming on foot could tell them from the natural crags of the hills Travis relaxed time still granted them a margin of grace he glanced up to see Nolan smiling faintly this maiden she is akin to the fuma of the mountains he announced she has marked Tossé with her claws until he looks like the ear clipped earling pressed from the branding shoot she is not hurt Travis demanded this time Nolan chuckled openly hurt no we had much to do to keep her from hurting us younger brother that one is truly as she claims a daughter of wolves and she is also keen-witted marking a return trail all the way though she does not know that is as we wish did we not pick the easiest way back for just that reason yes she plans to escape Travis stood up let us finish this quickly his voice came out on a rough note this plan had never had his full approval now he found it less and less easy to think about taking Cadessa into the ship allowing the emotional torment lurking there to work upon her yet he knew that the girl would not be hurt and he had made sure he would be beside her within the globe sharing with her the horror of the unseen a rattling of gravel down the narrow valley opening gave warning to those by the campfire Manulito had already stood the space suit in hiding to Cadessa they must have seemed reverted entirely to savagery Tossé came first an agri-raking of four parallel scratches down his left cheek and behind him Buck and Escota shoved the prisoner urging her on with a show of roughness which did not descend to actual brutality her long braids had shaken loose and a sleeve was torn leaving one slender arm bare but none of the fighting spirits had left her they thrust her out into the circle of waiting men and she planted her feet firmly apart flaring at them all indiscriminately until she sighted Travis then her anger became hotter and more deadly egg, router in the dirt disease camel she shouted at him in English and then reverted to her own tongue her voice writing up and down the scale her hands were tied behind her back but there were no bonds on her tongue this is one who could speak thunders and shoot lightnings from her mouth Buck commented in a patchy put her well away from the wood at least she set it aflame Taché held his hands over his ears she can deafen a man when she cannot set her mark on him otherwise let us speedily get rid of her yet for all their jeering comments their eyes held respect often in the past a defiant captain who stood up boldly to his captors had received more consideration than usual from a patchy warden courage was a quality they prized they pinned a licky eye such as Tom Jeffers who rode into Cochise's camp and set in the midst of his sworn enemies for a parley won the friendship of the very chief he had been fighting Cadesa had more influence with her captors than she could dream of holding now it was time for Travis to play his part he caught the girl's shoulder and pushed her before him toward direct some of the spirit seemed to have left her thin tense body and she went without any more fights only when they came into full view of the ship did she falter Travis heard her breathe a gasp of surprise as they had planned for the Apaches Jill Lee, Taché, Nolan and Buck fanned out toward the heights above the ship Manulito had already gone to cover to don the space suit and prepare for any accident Resolutely Travis continued to propel Cadesa ahead at the moment he did not know which was worse to enter the ship expecting the fear to strike or to meet it unprepared he was ready to refuse to enter not to allow the girl suddenly plotting on under his compulsion to face that unseen but potent danger only the memory of the towers and the threat of the reds finding and exploiting the treasure there kept him going Eskelta went first climbing to the chair Travis cut the ropes binding Cadesa's wrist and gave her a slight slap between the shoulders Climb woman his anxiety made that a harsh order and she climbed Eskelta was inside now heading for the cabin which might reasonably be selected as a prison they planned to get the girl as far as that point and then Cadesa act of being overcome by fear allowing her to escape Cadesa and Act Travis was not two feet along that corridor before he knew that there would be little acting needed on his part the thing which pervaded the ship did not attack sharply rather it seeped into his mind and body as if he drew in poison with every breath sent it racing along his veins with every bead of a laboring heart yet he could not put any name to his feelings except an awful weakening fear which weighted him heavier with every step he took Cadesa screams not this time enraged but with such fear that Travis lost his hope staggered back to the wall she whirled about her face contorted and sprang at him it was indeed like trying to fight a wildcat and after the first second or two he was hard put to protect his eyes his face, his side without injuring her in return she scrambled over him running for the break in the wall and disappeared Travis gasped and started to crawl for the break as Kelta loomed over him pulling him up in haste they reached the opening but did not climb through Travis was uncertain as to whether he could make that descent yet and as Kelta was obeying orders they were not venturing out too soon below the ground was bare there was no sign of the Apaches though they were in hiding there and none of Cadesa Travis was amazed that she had vanished so quickly still uneasy from the emulation within they perched within the shadow of the break until Travis thought that the fugitive had a good five minute start then he nodded a signal to this Kelta by the time they reached ground level Travis felt a warm wetness spreading under his shielding palm and he knew the wound had opened he spoke a word or two in a hot protest against that mishap knowing it would keep him from the trail Cadesa must be covered all the way back across the path not only to be shepherded away from her people and towards the plains where she could be picked up by a red patrol but also to keep her from danger and he had planned from the first to be one of those shepherds now he was about as much used as a trail lane pony however he could send deputies he thought out his call a nylicky I use head appeared in a frame of brush go both of you and run with her guard he said the words in a whisper fought them with a fierce intensity as he centered his gaze on the yellow eyes in the pointed coyote face there was a feeling of a scent and then the animal was gone Travis sighed the Apache scouts were subtle and alert but the coyotes could far out do any math with the nylicky day you and Najinta liking her flight Cadesa would be well guarded she would probably never see her guards or know that they were running protection for her that was a good move Dealee said coming out of concealment but what have you done to yourself he stepped closer pulling Travis's hand away from his side by the time loopy came to report Travis was again wound in a strapping bandage pulled tightly about his lower ribs and reconciled to the fact that any trailing he would do must be well to the rear of the first party the towers he said to Dealee if our plan works we can catch part of the Reds here but we still have their ship to take and for that we need help which we may find at the towers or at least we can be on guard there if they return with Cadesa on that path loopy dropped down lightly from an upper ledge he was grinning that woman is one who thinks she runs from the ship first as a rabbit with a wolf at her heels then she begins to think she climbs he lifted one finger to the slope behind him she goes behind a rock to watch under cover when Fox comes from the ship with this kelta again she climbs but lets himself be seen so she moves east as we wish and now we are on guard as we wish and now question Travis she is keeping to the highways almost she thinks like one of the people on the war trail Nolan believes she will hold up for the night somewhere above he will make sure Travis licked his lips she has no food or water Dealee's lips shape the smile they will see that she comes upon both as if by chance as you know younger brother that was true Travis knew that Cadesa would be guided without her knowledge by the accidental appearance now and then of some pursuer just enough to push her alone then too she is now armed Julietted Hal demanded Travis look to your own belt younger brother where is your knife startled Travis glanced down his sheath was empty and he had not needed that blade since he had drawn it to cut meat at the morning meal loopy left she had steel in her hand when she came out of that ghost ship took it from me while we struggled Travis was openly surprised he had considered the frenzy displayed by the tartar girl as an outburst of almost mindless terror yet Cadesa had had with enough to take his knife could this be another case where one race was less affected by a mind machine than the other just as the Apaches had not been governed by the red collar so the tartar might not be as sensitive to the redax she is a strong one that woman one worth many ponies as Kelta reverted to the old measure of the ship that is true Travis agreed empathically and then was annoyed at the broadening of Jill Lee's smile abruptly he changed the subject Manulito is setting the booby trap in a ship that as well he and his Kelta will remain here and you with them not so we must go to the towers Travis protested I thought Jill Lee cut in the face of the old ones too dangerous for us to use maybe they will be forced into our hands but we must be sure the towers are not entered by the reds on their way here that is reasonable but for you younger brother no trailing today perhaps not tomorrow if that wound opens again you might have much bad trouble Travis was forced to accept that in spite of his worry and impatience and the next day when he did move on he had only the report that Cadessa had sheltered beside a pool for the night and was doggedly moving back across the mountains three days later Travis, Jill Lee and Buck came into the tower valley Cadessa was in the northern foothills twice turned back from the west and the freedom of the outlaws by the Apache scouts and the the Red Helicopter was cruising as it had on the day they watched the hunters enter the uplands there was an excellent chance of the fugitives being sighted and picked up soon Tossae had also spotted a party of three tartars watching the helicopter but after one wide sweep of the flyer they had taken to their ponies and ridden away at the fastest pace their mounts could not be seen and their routes could manage in this rough territory on a stretch of smooth earth Buck scratched the trail and they studied it the Reds would have to follow this route to seek the wreck's ship a route covered by Apache sentinels and following the chain of communication the result of the trap would be reported to the party at the towers the waiting was the most difficult too many imponderables did not allow for unemotional thinking Travis was down to the last shred of patience when word came on the second morning at the hidden valley that K. Dessa had been picked up by a red patrol drawn out to meet them by the collar now the tower weapons Buck answered the report with an imperative order to Travis and the other knew he could no longer postpone the inevitable and only by action could he blot out the haunting mental picture of K. Dessa once more drawn into the bondage she so hated flanked by Jill Lee and Buck he climbed back through the tower window and faced the glowing pillar he crossed the room put out both hands to the sleek pole uncertain if the weird transport would work again he heard the sharp gas from the others as his body was sucked against the pillar and carried downward through the well toward him and Jill Lee came left then Travis led the way along the underground corridor to the room with the table and a reader he sat down on the bench fumbled with the pile of tape disk knowing that the other two were watching him with almost hostile intentness he snapped a disk into the reader hoping he could correctly interpret the directions it gave he looked up at the wall before him four steps the correct move and in an unlocking you know Buck demanded I can guess well Jill Lee moved to the table what do we do this Travis came from behind the table walked to the wall he put out both hands flattened his palms against the green blue purple surface and slid them slowly along under his touch unlike the live feel the pillar had cool until one palm held at arm's length had found the right spot he slid the other hand along in the opposite direction until his arms were level with his shoulders his fingers were able now to press on those points of warmth Travis tense and pushed hard with all ten fingers this concludes the reading of chapter 15