 8 A subdued but steady light all around him, issued from stark grey walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room, and he'd better be on the move before Darfoo comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful kick or one of those backhanded blows which the Selarkian used to reduce most humans to helpless obedience. Vi blinked again, but this wasn't his cubby-hole at the starfall. His nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self was a wide, scaled belt and a loincloth. Clumsy sandals shot his feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing scratches and blotched with bruises. Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he tried to think back. Sluggishly memory-associated one picture with another. Last night or yesterday, Wrench Brody had been locked in here. And here was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a man named Was. It had been Was's pilot in the Flitter which snaked them from the River Islet where the monsters had besieged them. This was a concealed, fortified camp, Was hideout. He was a prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the Veep, and a man named Hume. Hume, the out-hunter, had shown no surprise when Was stood up in the lamp-light to greet the rescued. I see you have been hunting. His eyes had moved from Hume to Wrench and back again. Yes, but that does not matter. The hunter had returned impatiently. No, then what does? This is not a free world. I have to report that. Get my SIVs off-planet before something happens to them. I thought all safari worlds were certified as free Was countered. This one isn't. I don't know how or why, but that fact has to be reported and the SIVs lifted. Not so fast. Was's voice had been quiet, almost gentle. Such a report would interest the patrol, would it not? Of course, Hume began, and then stopped abruptly. Was smiled. You see, complications already. I do not wish to explain anything to the patrol, nor do you either, my young friend, not when you stop to think about what might result from such explanations. There wouldn't have been any trouble if you'd kept away from Jomala. Hume's control had returned. Both voice and manner were under tight reign. If Rovall's reports explicit enough to satisfy you, I have risked a great deal on this project, Was replied. Also it is well from time to time for a veep to check upon his field operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the moment we make no moves. No Hume, your sieves will have to take their chances for a time. And if there is trouble, Hume challenged him. A report of an alien attack will bring in the patrol quickly enough. You forget Rovald, Was corrected. The chance that one of your sieves can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote. And Rovald will see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brody, I see. Yes. No. What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had realized the folly of his outburst the moment Was had looked at him. This becomes more interesting, the veep had remarked, with that deceptive gentleness. You are Wrench Brody, cast away from the Largo Drift. Are you not? I trust that out-hunter Hume has made plain to you our concern with your welfare, Gentle Homo Brody. I'm not Brody. Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth, he was stubborn enough to continue swimming. I find this enlightening indeed. If you are not Brody, then who are you? That had been it. At that moment he couldn't have told Was who he was, explained that his patchwork of memories had gaping holds. And you, out-hunter, Was' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume. Perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery? None of his doing, he burst out. I remembered. Some inexplicable emotion made Wrench defend Hume then. Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. Yes, Was, your texts are not as good as they pretend to be. He didn't follow the pattern of action they set for him. A pity. But there are always errors when one deals with a human factor. Peek. One of the other three men moved towards them. You will escort this young man to the spacer. See him safely stowed for the present. Yes. A pity. Now we must see just how much can be salvaged. Then Vi had been brought into the shop, supplied with a ration container, and left to himself, within this bare-walled cabin, to meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so utterly stupid? This of Was'caliber did not swim through the murky channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was, ruthless, powerful, and thorough. A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened, and Vi crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood there, his head turned so his ear rested against the wall. Obviously, he was listening. You brain-smooth idiot! The hunter's voice was a thread of whisper. Why couldn't you have kept that swinging jaw of yours closed last night? Now listen, and listen good. This is a slim try, but it's one we have to take. We, Vi, was startled into asking. Yes, we. By rights I ought to leave you right here to do the rest of your big, brave speech-making for Was'c benefit. If I didn't need you, that's just what I would do. If it weren't for those civs, his head snapped back, cheek to panel. He was listening again. After a long moment his whisper came once more. I don't have time to repeat this. In about five minutes, Pete will be here with rations. I'll leave this door unlatched. There's another storage cabin across the corridor. See if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock him in. Got it? Vi nodded. Then make for the exit port. Here. He snapped a packet loose from his belt. This is a flare-pack. You saw how they worked on the island. When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should hit the camp-force barrier. And the result ought to hold their attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand? Yes. The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp-force barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up. Hume gazed at him soberly. He gazed once more, and then went. Vi counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited. Pete was coming now, the metallic plates on his space-boots clicking in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock-bar on the other cabin. There was an exclamation of surprise. Vi went into action. His hand, backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumbed between Pete's shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment. Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vi had the pall shut, the bar locked into place. He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rings with an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the airlock, getting his bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom-lamp, where the men were gathered, to his right. Vi stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare-pack. Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp, but near enough to dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship. There was a flash, shouting. Vi curbed the impulse to look back, darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment, scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, leaving that free for Hume's quick entrance. More shouting. Now he saw the lines of fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier. Now black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that flaming wall. Then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped Vi's stomach up into the lower regions of his throat. The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them. Too slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher. Then the hunter spoke, half an hour at the most. The safari camp? Yes. They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a projectile flight into the dark of the night. What are those? Vi suddenly leaned forward. Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their fixed orbits? Flex of light moving in an arc headed towards the speeding flitter. Hume hit a button. Again they rose in a violent leap above those wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked, moving fast to close in on the flyer. A straight ram course, Hume muttered, more to himself than Vi. Again the flyer drove forward in a rising thrust of speed. And the smooth purr of the propulsion unit faltered, broke into protesting coughs. Hume worked over the controls, beads of sweat showing on his forehead and cheek in the gleam of the cabin light. Deading, deading out. He brought the flitter around in a wide circle. The purr smoothed out once more in a steady reassuring beat. Outrun them. But Vi feared they were back again on the losing side of a struggle with the unknown alien power. As they had been herded along the river, so now they were being pushed across the sky, towards the mountain, the enemy had followed them aloft. Some core of stubborn will in Hume would not yet allow him to admit that. Time and time again he climbed higher, always timid climbing, twisting, spurting lines of lights, which reacted on the engine of the flitter and threatened it with complete failure. Where they were now, in relation to Waskamp or that of the Safari, Vi had no idea, and he guessed that Hume could not be too certain. Hume switched on the flitter's comm unit, tried a channel search until he picked up a clicker signal. The automatic reply of the Safari camp. His fingertip beat out in return the danger warning. Then the series of code sounds to give an edited version of what must be guarded against. Wask has a man in your camp. His skin is in just as much danger as the rest. He may not relay it to the patrol. But he'll keep the force barrier up and the sieves inside. Anything else would be malicious neglect and a murder charge when the guild check tape goes in. This call is on the spacer tape now, and will be a part of that. He can't possibly alter such a report, and he knows it. This is the best we can do now. We're close to the mountains, aren't we? Do you know much about this part of the country? Vi persisted. Hume's knowledge might be their only hope. You over the range twice, nothing to see. But there has to be something there. If there is, it didn't show up during our survey. Hume's voice was dull with fatigue. You're a guildman. You've dealt with alien life forms before. The guild doesn't deal with intelligent aliens. That's XT patrol business. We don't land on any planet with unknown intelligent life forms. Why should we court trouble? Couldn't run a safari in under those conditions? XT certified Jamala as a wild world. Our survey confirmed that. Someone or something landed here after you left? I don't believe so. This is too well organized in action. And since we have a satellite guard in space, any ship landing would be taped and recorded. No such record appeared on the guild screens. A small spacer such as Was could slip through by knowing procedure, just as he did. But to land all those beasts in equipment, they'd need a regular transport. No. This must be native. Hume leaned forward again, flipped a switch. A small red light answered on the central board. Radar worn off, he explained. So they wouldn't end up smeared against some cliff face, anyway, there was only small comfort amid terrifying possibilities. Hume had taken the precaution just in time. The light blinked faster, and the speed of the flyer was checked as the automatic control triggered by the worn off came into command. Hume's hands were still on the board, but a system of relays put safety devices into action with a speed past that which a human pilot could initiate. They were descending and had to accept that, since the worn off, operating for the sake of the passengers, had ruled that move best. The directive would glide the flitter to the best available landing. It was only moments before the shock here did touch surface, then the engine was silent. This is it, Hume observed. What do we do now, if I wanted to know? Wait. Wait for what? Hume consulted his planet time watch in the light of the cabin. We have about an hour until dawn. If dawn arrives here at the same time it does in the planes, I don't propose to go out blindly in the dark. Which made sense, except that to sit here quietly in their cramped quarters, not knowing what might be waiting outside was an ordeal Vi found increasingly harder to bear. Maybe Hume guessed his discomfort, maybe he was following routine procedure, but he turned, thumbed open one of the side panels in Vi's compartment, and dug out the emergency supplies. End of Chapter 8, Chapter 9 of Star Hunter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Coming by, Leonie Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter 9 They sorted the crash rations into small packs. A blanket of the water-resistant, feather-heavy Ozakian spider silk was cut into a protective covering for Vi. That piece of tailoring occupied them until the graying sky permitted them a full picture of the pocket in which the flitter had landed. The dark foliage of the mountain growth was broken here by a ledge of dark blue stone on which the fly arrested. To the right was a sheer drop, and a land-slip had cut away the ledge itself a few feet behind the flitter. There was only a steadily narrowing path ahead, slanting upward. Can we take off again? Vi hoped to be reassured that such a feat was possible. Look up! Vi backed against the cliff wall, stared up at the sky. All above them those globes still swam in unwearyed circles, commanding the air lanes. Hume had cautiously approached the outer rim of the ledge, was using his distance glasses to scan what might lie below. No sign yet. Find you what he meant. The globes are overhead, but the blue beasts or any other fauna those balls might summon had not yet appeared. Shouldering their packs, they started along the ledge. Hume had his ray tube, but Vi was weaponless, unless somewhere along their route he could pick up some defensive and offensive arm. Stones had burst the lights of the islet they might prove as effective against the blue beasts. He kept watch for any of the proper size and weight. The ledge narrowed, one shoulder scraped the cliff now, as they rounded a pinnacle to lose sight of the flitter, but the globes continued to hover over them. We are still travelling in the direction they want, Vi speculated. Hume had gone to hands and knees to negotiate an ascent so steep he had to search for head and toe holds. When they were safely past that point they took a breather and Vi glanced aloft again. Now the sky was empty. We may have arrived or are about to do so, said Hume. Where? Hume shrugged. Your guess is as good as mine, and both of us can be wrong. The steep ascent did not quite reach the top of the cliff around the face of which the ledge curled. Instead their path now leveled off and began to widen out so that they could walk with more confidence. Then it threaded into a crevice between two towering rock walls and sloped downward. A path unnaturally smooth, Vi thought, as if shaped to funnel away ferrers on. And they came out on the rim of a valley, a valley centred with a wooden circled lake. They stepped from the rock of the passage on to a springy turf which gave elastically to their tread. Vi's sandal struck a round stone. It started from its bed in the black-green vegetation, turned over so that round pits stared eyelessly up at him. He was faced by the fleshless grin of a human skull. Hume went down on one knee, examined the ground growth, gingerly lifting the lace of vertebrae forming a spine. That ended in a crush to break, which he studied briefly before he laid the bones gently back into the concealing cover of the mossy stuff. That was done by teeth. The cup of green valley had not changed. It was the same as it had been when they had emerged from the crevice. But now every clump of trees, every wind-rippled mound of brush, promised cover. Lime moistened his lips, diverted his eyes from the skull. Weathered, Hume said slowly, must have been here for seasons, maybe planet years. A survivor from the LB? Yet this spot laid days of travel from that clearing back in the plains. How did he get here? Probably the same way we would have had we not holed up on that river island. Driven, perhaps the lone human on Jumala herded up into this dead-end valley by the globes or the blue beasts. This process must have been in action for some time. Why? I can give you two reasons. Hume studied the nearest trees narrowly. First, for some purpose, whatever we are up against wants all interlopers moved out of the lowlands into this section, either to imprison them or to keep them under surveillance. Second, he hesitated. Vai's own imagination supplied a second reason, a revolting one he tried to deny to himself, even as he put it into words. That broken spine, food. Vai wanted Hume to contradict him, but the hunter only glanced around. His expression already sufficient answer. Let's get out of here. Vai was fighting down panic with every ounce of control he could summon, trying not to bolt for the crevice, but he knew he could not force himself any farther into that sinister valley. If we can, Hume's words lingered direly in his ears. Stones had smashed the globes by the river. If they still waited out there, Vai was willing to try and break them with his bare hands, should escape demand such action. Hume must have agreed with those thoughts. He was already taking long strides back to the cliff entrance. But that door was closed. Hume's foot, raised for the last step toward the crevice corridor, struck an invisible obstruction. He reeled back, clutching at Vai's shoulder. Something's there. The younger man put out his hand questingly. What his fingers flattened against was not a tight, solid surface, but rather an unseen elastic curtain which gave a little under his prodding and then grew taut again. Together they explored by touch what they could not see. The crevice through which they had entered was now closed with a curtain they could not pierce or break. Hume tried his ray tube. They watched thin flame run up and down that invisible barrier, but not destroy it. Hume relooped the tube. Their trap is sprung. There may be another way out, but Vai was already despondently sure there was not. Those who had rigged this trap would leave no bolt holes. But because they were human and refused to accept the inevitable without a fight, the captive set off, not down into the curve of the cup but along its slope. Tongues of brush and tree-clumps brought about detours which forced them slowly downward. They were well away from the crevice when Hume halted, flung up a hand in silent warning. Vai listened, trying to pick up the sound which had alarmed his companion. It was as Vai strained to catch a betraying noise that he was first conscious of what he did not hear. In the plains there had been squeaking, humming, chitterings, the vocalizing of myriad grass dwellers. Here, except for the sighing of the wind and a few insect sounds, nothing, all inhabitants bigger than a Jumalan fly, might have long ago been routed out of the land. To the left Hume faced about. There was a heavy thicket there, too stoutly grown for anything to be within its shadow. Whatever moved must be behind it. Vai looked about infrantically for anything he could use as a weapon. Then he grabbed at the long bush-knife in Hume's belt sheath. Eighteen inches of trifold steel gleamed wickedly, its hilt fitting neatly into his fist as he held it point up, ready. Hume advanced on the bush in small steps, and Vai circled to his left a few paces behind. The hunter was an expert with ray-tube. That, too, was part of the necessary skill of a safari leader. Vai could offer other help. He shrugged out of the blanket-pack he had been carrying on his back, tossed that burden ahead. Out of cover charged a streak of red to land on the bait. Hume blasted, was answered by a water-cat's high-pitched scream. The feline writhed out of its life in a stench of scorched fur and flesh. As Vai retrieved his clawed pack, Hume stood over the dead animal. He reached down to grasp a still-twitching foreleg, stretched the body out with a sudden jerk. It was a giant of its species, a male, larger than any he had seen. But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur-invisible hoops, the skin tight over the skull, far too tight. The water-cat had been close to death by starvation. Its attack on the men probably had been sparked by sheer desperation, a starving carnivore in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life in a valley used as a trap. No way out and no food. Vai fitted one thought to another out loud. Yes, pin the enemy up, let them finish off one another. But why, Vai demanded? Least trouble that way. There are plenty of water-cats down on the plains. All of them couldn't be herded up here to finish each other off. It would take years, centuries. This one's capture may have been only incidental, or done for the purpose of keeping some type of machinery in working order, Hume replied. I don't believe this was arranged just to dispose of water-cats. Suppose this was started a long time ago, and those who did it are gone. So now it goes on working without any real intelligence behind it. That could be the answer, couldn't it? The process triggers into action when a ship sets down on this portion of Jamala. Maybe when one planets under certain conditions only? Yes, that makes sense. Only why wasn't the first patrol explorer flaming in here caught? And the survey team. We were here for months, cataloging, mapping, not a whisper of any such trouble. That dead man, he's been here a long time. And when did the lorgo drift disappear? Five, six years ago. But I can't give you any answers. I have none. It began as a low hum, hardly to be distinguished from the distant howling of the wind. Then it slid upscale until the thin whale became an yululating scream torturing the ears, dragging out of hiding those fears of a man confronting the unknown in the dark. Hume tugged at Vai, drew the other by force back into the brush. The whale, laced raw by the whip of branches. They stood in a small hollow with the drift of leaves high about their ankles. And the hunter pulled into place the portions of growth they had dislodged in their passage into the thicket's heart. Through gaps they could see the opening where lay the body of the water-cat. The whale was caught off short, that cessation in itself a warning. Vai's body, touching earth with a knee and hand as he crouched, picked up a vibration. The hunter came towards them, walked heavily. Did the smell of death draw it now? Or had it trailed them from the closed gate? Hume's breath hissed lightly between his teeth. He was siding the ray tube through a leaf gap, a snuffling heavier than a man's panting. A vast blot, which was neither clearly paw nor hand, swept aside leaves and branches on the other side of the small clearing, tearing them casually from the shrubs. What shuffled into the open might be a cousin of the blue beasts. But where they had given only an impression of brutal menace, this was savagery incarnate. Taller than Hume, but hunched forward in its necklace outline, the thing was a monster. But over the round of the lower jaw, tusks protruded in ugly promise. Being carnivorous and hungry, it scooped up the body of the water-cat and fed without any prolonged ceremony. Vai, remembering the crushed spine of the human skeleton, was sickened. Done, it reared on hind feet once again. The pear-shaped heads swung in their direction. Vai was half-certain he had seen that tube-nose expand to test the air and sent them. Hume pressed the button of the ray tube. That soundless spear of death struck in midsection of that barrel-body. The thing howled, threw itself in a mad forward rush at their bush. Hume snapped a second blast at the head, and the fuzz covering it blackened. Missing them by a precious foot, the creature crashed straight on through the ticket, coming to its knees, writhing in a rising chorus of howls. The men broke out of cover, raced into the open, where they took refuge behind a chimney of rock half-detached from the parent cliff. Down the slope the bushes were still wildly agitated. What was that Vai got out between sobbing breaths? Maybe a guardian, or a patrol stationed to dispose of any catch. Probably not alone, either. Hume fingered his ray tube. And I am down to one full charge, just one. Vai turned the knife he held around in his fingers, tried to imagine how one could face up to one of those tusked monsters with only this for a weapon. But if that thing had companions, none were coming in answer to its dying wails. And after it had been quiet for a while, Hume motioned them out of hiding. From now on we'll keep to the open, better see trouble like that before it arrives. But I want to find a place to hole up for the night. They trailed along the steep upper slope and, in time, found a place where a now-dried stream had once formed a falls. The empty water-course provided an overhang, not quite a cave, but shelter. Gathering brush and stones they made a barricade and settled behind it to eat sparingly of their rations. Water a whole lake of it down there. The worst of it is that a water supply in a dry country is just where hunters congregate that lake's entirely walled in by woodland and provides cover for a thousand ambushes. We might find a way out before our water bulbs fail, Vai offered. Hume did not answer directly. A man can live for quite a while on very thin rations, and we have tablets from the Flitter Emergency Supplies. But he can't live long without water. We have two bulbs. With stretching, that is enough for two days, maybe three. We ought to get completely around the cliffs in another day. And if we do find a way out, which I doubt, we're still going to need water for the trek out. It's right down there waiting until our need is greater than either our fear or our cunning. Vai moved impatiently, his blanket clad shoulders scraping the rock at their backs. We don't think we have a chance. We aren't dead, and as long as a man is breathing and on his feet, with all his wits in his skull, he always has a chance. I've blasted off-world with odds stacked high on the other side of the board. He flexed that plaster-flesh hand, which was so nearly human, and yet not, by the fraction which had changed the course of his life. I've lived on the edge of the big blackout for a long time now. After a while you can get used to anything. One thing I would like, to get at the one who set this trap, commented Vai. Hume laughed with dry humor. After me, boy, after me. But I think we might have to wait a long time for that meeting. CHAPTER 10 Vai crawled weakly from the area of a rock outcrop. The sun, reflected from the cliff-side, was a lash of fire across his emaciated body. His swollen tongue moved a pebble back and forth in his dry mouth. He stared dimly down the slope to that beckoning platter of water, open under the sun, rimmed with the deadly woodland. What had happened? They had gone to sleep that first night under the ledge of the dried waterfall, and all of the next day was only a haze to him now. They must have moved on, though he could remember nothing, save Hume's odd behavior. Dull-eyed silence, while stumbling on as a brainless, servile robot, incoherent speech wherein all the words came fast, running together unintelligibly. And for himself, patches of blackout. At some time they had come to the cave and Hume had collapsed, not rousing in answer to any of Vai's struggles to awaken him. How long they had been there Vai could not tell now. He had the fear of being left alone in this place. With water perhaps Hume could be returned to consciousness, but that was all gone. Vai believed he could scent the lake that every breeze upslope brought its compelling enticement. Once in case Hume might awake to a state of semi-consciousness and wander off, Vai tethered him with blanket-bonds. Vai fingered Hume's knife, which had been painstakingly lashed to a trimmed shaft of wood. Since he had emerged from that clouding of mind which still gripped the hunter, he had done what he could to prepare for another attack from any roving beast. And he also had Hume's ray-tube, its single charge to be used only in dire need. Water, his cracked lips moved, ejected the pebble. Therefore empty water-bulbs were in the front of his blanket-tunic, pressing against his ribs. It was now or die, because soon he would be too weak to make the attempt at all. He darted for the first stand of Bush downhill. As the brooding silence of the valley continued, he reached the edge of the wood unhindered, intent on his mission with a concentration which shut out everything save his need and the manner of satisfying it. He squatted in the bush, eyeing the length of woodland ahead. Then he tried the only action he had been able to think out. That beast Hume had killed had been too heavy to swing up in trees. Vi's own weight now did not prohibit that form of travel. With spear and ray-tube firmly attached to him, Vi climbed into the first tree. A slim chance, but his only defense against a possible ambush. A wild outward swing brought him heart-thudding to the next set of limbs. Then he had a piece of luck. A looped vine tied together a whole group of branches from one treetop to the next. Hand grips balance sometimes a walk along a branch. He threaded towards the lake. Then he came to a gap. With hands laced into tendrils, Vi hunched to look down on a beaten ribbon of grey earth, a trail well used by the evidence of its pounded surface. That area had to be crossed on foot. But his passage through the brush below would leave traces. Only there was no other way. Vi checked the lashings of his weapons again before leaping. Almost in the same instant his sandals hit the packed earth he was running. His palms skinned raw on rough bark as he somehow scrambled aloft once more. No more vines, but broad limbs shooting well out. He dropped from one to another, stopped for breath, listened. The dark gloom of the wood was broken by sunlight. He was at the final ring of trees. To get to the water he must descend again. A dead trunk extended over the water. If he could run out on that and lower the bulb it could work. Eerie silence. No flying things, no tree-dwelling reptiles or animals, no disturbance of any water creature on the uneruffled surface of the lake. Yet the sensation of life in imical life lurking in the depths of the wood under the water bore in upon him. Vi made the light leap to the bowl of the dead tree, balanced out on it over the water, moving slowly as the trunk settled a little under his weight. He hunkered down, brought out the first bulb tied fast to a blanket string. The water of the river had been brown, opaque, but here the liquid was not so cloudy. He could see snags of dead branches below its surface, and something else. Down in those turgid depths he made out a straight ridge running with a trueness of line which could not be nature's unassisted product. That ridge joined another in a squared corner. He leaned over, strained his eyes to follow through the murk the farther extent of those two ridges. Looked along both pointed protuberances aimed at the surfaces of the lake, like fangs in an open jaw. Down there was something, something artificially fashioned which might be the answer to all their questions. But to venture into the lake himself he could not do it. If he could bring the out-hunter to his senses the other might find the solution to this puzzle. Vi filled his bulbs working speedily but still studying what he could see of the strange erection under the lake. He thought it was curiously free of silt and its color as far as he could distinguish, allowing for the dark hue of the water was light gray, perhaps even white. He lowered his last bulb. Down in the bleached forest of dead branches well to one side of the mysterious walls there was movement, a slow rolling of a shadow so hidden by a stirring of bottom mud that Vi could not make out its true form. But it was rising to the bulb. Vi hated to lose a single precious drop. Once he might have the luck to make this journey unmolested. A second time the odds could be too high. A flash, the slowly rising shadow was transformed into a whizzing spear of attack. Vi snapped the bulb out of the water just as a nightmarish armored head arose on a whiplash of coiled, scaled neck and a blunt nose thudded against the tree trunk with a hollow boom. Vi clung to his perch as the thing flopped back into deeper water from a froth of beaten foam leaving a patch of odorous scum and slime to bracelet the waterlogged wood. He ran for the shelter of the trees to get away. This time there was no rear, no thump of feet in warning. Out of the ground itself or so it seemed to Vi's startled terror reared one of the tusked beasts. To reach his tree and its dubious safety he had to wind past that chimera and the creature waited with a semblance of ease for him to come to it. Vi brought around his spear. The length of the haft might afford him a fighting chance if he could send the point home in some vulnerable spot. Yet he knew that the beasts were hard to kill. The mouth opened in a wide grin of menace. Vi noted a tell-tale tightening of shoulder muscles. He was going to rush for him now with those clawed forepaws out to rip. To wait was to court disaster. Vi shouted, his battle cry piercing the silence of the lake and wood. He sprang aiming the spear point at the beast's protuberant belly and then swerved to the side as the knife bit home raking his weapon to open a gaping wound. The spear was jerked from Vi's hold as both those talent paws closed on it. Then the creature pulled it free, snapped the haft in two. Vi fired a short blast from the ray tube before it could turn on him, saw fur fuzz afire as he ran for the tree. Beneath its branches he looked back. The beast was pawing at the burning fur on its head and he had perhaps a second or two. He jumped and his fingers caught on the low-hanging branch. Then he made a superhuman effort, was up out of the path of the thing which rushed blindly for the tree, shrieking in frenzied complaint. The huge body crashed against the trunk with force which nearly shook Vi from his hold. As the giant forepaws belabored the wood, strove to lift the body from the ground, Vi worked his way out on another branch. In the end it was the shaking of that limb under him which aided his swing to the next tree, and from there he travelled recklessly, intent only on getting out of the woods as fast as he could. By the noise the beast was still assaulting the tree and Vi marveled at its vitality. For the belly wound would long ago have killed any creature he knew. Whether it could trace his flight aloft or whether its howls would bring more of its kind he could not guess, but every second he could gain was all important now. At the gap over the trail he hesitated. That path ran in the direction of the open and to go on foot met the possibility of greater speed. Vi slipped from the bow, hit the ground, and ran. His ragged lungs full of air came in great gasps and he doubted if he could take the exertion of more tree-travel now. He raced down the path. Those mulling cries were louder he was sure of it. Now he heard the thump of the beast's blundering pursuit behind him, but its bulk and hurts slowed it. In the open he could find cover behind a rock, use the ray again. The trees began to thin. Vi summoned power for a last burst of speed, came out of the shadow of the wood as might a dart expelled from a needler. Before him upslope was the closed door of the valley, and moving in from the left was another of the blue beasts. He could not retreat to the trees, but the newcomer was moving with the same ponderous self-confidence its fellow had shown earlier. Vi dodged right, headed for the rocks by the gap. As he pulled himself into that temporary fortification the wounded beast dragged out of the woods below. He thought it was blind, yet some instinct drove it after him. Shaking from fatigue, Vi steadied his forearm on the top of the rock, brought up the ray tube. Less than two yards away now was the deceptively open mouth of the gap. If he threw himself at that, would the elasticity of the unseen curtain hurl him back into the claws of the enemy? He fired his blast at the head of the unwounded beast. It screeched throughout its arms, and one of those paws struck against its wounded fellow. The cry, that one, flung itself at its companion in the hunt, and they tangled in a body-to-body battle terrible in its utter ferocity. Vi edged along the cliff, determined to reach the cave and hume, and the two blue things seemed intent on finishing each other off. The one from the wood was done, the fangs of the other ripping out its throat. Tearing viciously, the victor made sure of its kill. Then its seared head came up, swung about to face Vi. He guessed it was aware of its movements whether it could see or not. But he was not prepared for the speed of its attacking lunge. Here to fore the creatures had given the impression of brute strength rather than agility, and he had been almost fatally deceived. He jumped backwards, knowing he must elude that attack, for he could not survive hand-to-hand combat with the alien thing. There was a moment of dazed disorientation, a weird sensation of falling through unstable space in which there had never been and never would be firm footing again. He was rolling across rock, outside the curtain of the gap. He sat up, the feeling of being adrift in unmeasurable nothingness making him sick, to watch mistily as the blue beast came to a halt. Wimpering it turned, but before it reached the level of the woods its sag to its knees, fell face forward and was still, a destructive machine no longer controlled by life. Vi tried to understand what had happened. He had somehow broken through that barrier which made the valley a prison. For a moment all that mattered was his freedom. Then he looked apprehensively behind him along the road to the open, more than half expecting to see a gathering of the globes, or of the less impressive lowland beasts that acted as herders. But there was nothing. Freedom! He dragged himself to his feet, free to go. He slipped Hume's ray-tube back into his belt. Hume was still in the valley. Vi rubbed his shaking hands across his face. Through the barrier and free. But Hume was back there, without a weapon, defenseless against any questing beast able to nose him out. Sickly, without water and protection, he was a dead man even while he still breathed. Keeping one hand against the wall of the gap in support, Vi started to walk, not out of the gap towards the distant lowlands, but back into the valley, forcing himself to that by his will alone and screaming inside against such suicidal folly. He put out his hand tentatively when he reached the two points of rock where that curtain had hung. There was no obstruction. The barrier was down. He must get back to Hume. While keeping his wall-hold, Vi lurched through the gate, was once more in the valley. He stood swaying, listening. But once again there was silence. Not even the wind moved through trees or bushes. Placing one foot carefully before the other, he went on towards Hume's cave. The haze which had clouded his thinking processes since that first morning's awakening in this bowl was gone now. Except for the physical weakness that weighted his body, he felt once more entirely alive and alert. Riggling in the cave's entrance was the hunter. He had freed the bonds Vi had put on his legs, but his hands were still tied. His face, grimy, sweat-covered, was turned up to the sunlight, and his eyes were again bright with reason. Vi found the strength to run the last few feet between them. He was fumbling with those ties about Hume's wrists as he blurted out the news. The barrier was out. They could go. Then he was bringing one of those precious bulbs, raising it to Hume's eager mouth, squeezing a portion of its contents between the man's cracked and bleeding lips. Somehow they made that trip back to the valley gate. When they saw their goal, Hume broke from Vi's hold, tottered forward with a cry not far removed from a sob. He rebounded to slip full length to the ground and lie there. Sobbing dryly, his gaunt face, eyes closed, turned up to the sky. The trap had snapped shut once again. Why? Why? Vi found he was repeating the same words over and over. His gaze blank, unfocused, yet turned to the woods of the lake. Tell me what happened again. Vi's head came around. Hume had pulled himself up so that her shoulders rested against the rock wall. His plaster hand was outflung, slipping up and down what seemed empty air, but which was the barrier against freedom. And now his eyes seemed entirely sane. Slowly, hesitating between words, Vi went over the full account of his visit to the lake. His retreat before the beasts, his fortunate stumble through the gap. But you came back. Vi flushed. He was not going to try to explain that. Instead he said, If it went away once, it can again. Hume did not press the subject of his return. Rather he fastened upon the end of that action with the wounded beast, made Vi go through it verbally a third time. There is just this, he said, when the other was done. When you fell, you were not thinking of the barrier at all. And your wits were working again. You had come out of the days we both had. Vi tried to remember. Decided that the hunter was correct. He had been trying to elude the charge of the beast. Clearly fear and that desperate desire had occupied his mind at that moment. But what did that signify? To test just what he did not know, he crawled now to Hume's side, put up his own hand to the space where the plaster flesh palm slid back and forth on nothingness. But he almost fell on his face forward into the gap where he had been expecting the resistance of the unseen curtain. There had been nothing at all. He turned to Hume with the expression of a man who had been stunned by an unexpected blow. CHAPTER XI It is open for you, Hume broke the quiet first. His eyes were very bleak in his bony face. Vi stood up, took one step, and was on the other side of the curtain where Hume's hand still found substance. He came back with the same lack of hindrance. Yes, to him there was no longer a barrier. But why? Why him, when Hume was still a prisoner? The hunter raised his head so his eyes could meet Vi's with the authority of an order. Go! Get away while you can. Instead Vi dropped down beside the other. Why? He asked baldly. And then the most obvious of all answers came. He glanced at Hume. The hunter's head lulled back against the rock which supported him. His eyes were closed now, and he had the look of a man who had been driven to the edge of endurance, and was now willing to relinquish his grip and let go. Deliberately Vi brought up his right hand, bawled his fingers into a fist, and just as deliberately he struck home, square on the point of that defenseless chin. Hume sagged, would have slipped down the surface of the rock had Vi's hands not caught in his armpits. Since he had not the strength left to get to his feet with such a burden, Vi crawled dragging the inert body of the hunter with him. And this time as he had hope there was no resistance at the gap. Unconscious Hume was able to cross the barrier. Vi stretched him as comfortably flat as he could, used a portion of their water on his face until he moaned, muttered, and raised his hand feebly to his head. When those grey eyes opened, focused on Vi. What? We're both through now, both of us. The younger man saw Hume glance around him with waking belief. But how? I knocked you out, that's how, Vi returned. Knocked me out. I crossed when I was unconscious. Hume's voice steadied, strengthened. Let me see. He rolled over on his side, threw out his arm, and this time the hand found no wall. For him too, the barrier was gone. Once through you are free, he added wonderingly. Maybe they never foresaw any escapes. He struggled up, sitting with his hands hanging loosely between his knees. Vi turned his head, looked down the trail. The length of distance lying between them and the safari camp now faced them with a new problem. Neither of them could make that trick on foot. We're out, but we aren't back. Yet Hume echoed his thought. I was wondering if this door is open, Vi began. The flitter, again Hume's mind matched his. Yes, if those globes aren't hanging around, just waiting for us to try. They might act only to get us here, not to keep us once we're in. That might be wishful thinking. They wouldn't know until they tried to prove it. Give me a hand. Hume held out his own. Let Vi pull him to his feet. Weak as he was, he was clear-eyed, plainly clear-headed once more. Let's go. Together they went back through the gap, then tested the absence of the barrier once more to make sure. Hume laughed. At least the front door remains open, even if we find the back one closed. Vi left him sitting by that entrance while he made a quick trip to the cave to pick up the small pack of supplies left them. When he returned, they crammed tablets into their mouths, drank feverishly of the lake water, and, with the stimulation of the new energy, set off along the cliff face. This wall in the lake, Hume asked suddenly, you are sure it is artificial? Runs too straight to be anything else, and those projections are evenly spaced. I don't see how it could be natural. We'll have to be sure. Vi thought of that attacking water creature. No diving in there, he protested. Hume smiled, a stretch of skin far too tight over his jaw now. Not us, at least not us now, he agreed, but the guild will send another survey. What could be the reason for all this? Vi helped his companion over the loose debris of a cliff slide. Information? What? Someone, or something, picked our brains while we were out of our heads, or— Hume paused suddenly, looked directly at Vi. I have a vague feeling that you were able to keep going a lot better than I was. That so? Some of the time, Vi admitted, that checks. Part of me knew what was going on, but was helpless while that other thing, his smile of moments earlier, was wiped away. There was a chill edge in his voice. Picked over my brains, sorted out what it wanted. Vi shook his head. I didn't feel that way, just thick-headed, as if for I were sleep-walking and yet awake. So it took me over, but didn't go all the way with you. Why? Another question for our list. Maybe, maybe Was, Tex fixed it so I couldn't be brain-picked, as you call it, Vi offered. Hume nodded. Could be. Would well be. Come on. We pressed the pace now. Vi turned to look down the slope suspiciously. Had Hume another warning of menace out of the wood? He could sight no movement there. And from this distance the lake was a topaz sheet of calm which could hide anything. Hume was already several paces ahead, scrambling as if the valley monsters were again on their track. What's the matter, Vi demanded, as he caught up. Which was true. Then Hume added, if we can reach the flitter before sunset we'll have a chance to fly over the lake down there to make a taping of it before we go. The energy of the tablets strengthened them so that by the time they reached the crevice door they were moving with their former agility. For a single second Hume hesitated before that slit, almost as if he feared the test he must make. Then he stepped forward and this time into freedom. They reached the ledge where the flitter perched just as they had seen it last. How long ago that had been they could not have told, but they suspected that days of haze hung in between. Vi searched the sky. No globes winking there, just the flyer alone. He took his old seat behind the pilot, watched Hume test the relays and responses in the quick rundown of a man who has done this chore many times before. But the other gave a little sigh of relief when he finished. She's all right, we can lift. Again they both looked aloft, half fearing to see those malignant herders wink into being to forbid flight. But the sky was as serenely clear of even a drifting cloud as they could hope. Hume pressed a button and they arose vertically with an even progress, totally unlike the leap which had taken them out of Was camp, well above the cliff wall they hovered, and were able to see below the round bowl of the valley prison. Hume touched controls. The flitter descended slowly just above the center of the lake. And from this position they were able to sight the other peculiarity of that body of water. But it was perfectly oval in shape, far too perfect to be an undeveloped product of nature. Hume took a round disc from his equipment belt, fitted it carefully into a slot on the control board, and pressed the button below. Then he sent the flitter in a weaving zigzag course well above the surface of the water, so that eventually the flyer passed over every foot of its surface. And from above, in spite of the turgid quality of the liquid, they could see what did rest on the bottom of that oval. The wall with its sharp corner, which Vi had noted from shore-level, was only part of a water-covered erection. It made a design when seen from overhead, a six-pointed star, surrounding an oval, and in the midst of that oval a black blot which they could not identify. Hume brought the flitter over in one last sweep. That's it! We have a full taping. What do you think it is? A device set there by an intelligent being, and set a long time ago. This valley wasn't arranged overnight, six months ago, or even a year ago. We'll have to let the experts tell us when and for what reason. Now, let's head for home. He brought the flitter up and over the valley wall, flying southwest so that they passed over the gap, which was the main entrance to the trap. And now he tried the comm unit, endeavoring to pick up a signal on which they could beam in for a safe ride. That's odd. Under Hume's control, the direction finder passed back and forth without bringing any answering code click from the mic. We may be too far in the mountains to pick up the beam, I wonder. He swept the needle in another direction, slightly to the left. A crackle spat from the mic. Vi could not read code, but the very fury and intensity of that sound suggested panic, even terror. What's that? Hume spoke without looking away from the control board. Alarm. From the safari? No. Was. For a long second Hume sat very still, his fingers quiet. The flitter was on the automatic course, taking them out of the mountains. And Vi thought that their airspeed was such they were already well removed from that sinister valley. Hume made a slight adjustment to a dial, and the flitter banked, coming around on another course. Once more he spun the finder of the calm. This time he was answered with a series of well-spaced clicks, which lacked the urgency of that other call. Hume listened until the code rattled into silence again. They're all right at the safari camp. But Was is in trouble, so what does that matter? Vi wanted to know. It matters this much. Hume spoke slowly, as if he must convince himself as well as Vi. I'm the guildman on Jumala, and the guildman is responsible for all SIVs. You can't call him your client. Hume shook his head. No, he's no client. But he's human. It narrowed down to that when a man was on the frontier worlds. Humans stood together. Vi wanted to deny it, but his own emotions, as well as the centuries of age-old tradition, argued him down. Was was a veep, one of the criminal parasite dabbling in human misery along more than one solar lane. But he was also human, and, as one of their own species, had his claim on them. Vi watched Hume take over the controls, felt the flitter answer another change of course, then heard the frantic yammer of the distressed call as they leveled off to ride its beam to the hidden camp. Automatic, Hume had turned down the volume of the receiver so that the clicks in the mic no longer were so strident. Set on maximum and left that way. They had a forced barrier around the camp, and they knew about the globes and the watchers. Vi tried to imagine what had happened in that woods clearing. The barrier might have shorted, and without the flitter they would have been pinned, could have taken off in the spacer. Was doesn't have the reputation of letting any project get out of his hands. Vi remembered, oh, your billion-credit deal. To his surprise, Hume laughed. He's all very far and out of orbit now, doesn't it, Lansor? Yes, our billion-credit deal. But that was thought out before we knew there were more players around the table than we counted. I wonder. But what he wondered he did not put into words, and a moment later he added over his shoulder. Better try to get some rest, boy. We some time to a set down. Vi did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And he roused, after a gentle shaking, to see a beam of light in the sky ahead, though around them was the solid darkness of night. That's a warning, Hume explained. And I can't raise any reply from the camp except a repeat of the distress call. If there is anyone there now, he can't or won't answer. Against that column of light they could make out the sky-pointed taper of the spacer, and the autopilot landed them beside that ship, in the middle of an area, well-lighted by the steady shaft of light from the tripod, standing where the atom lamp had been. On the night they had made their escape from camp. Climbing stiffly from the small flier, they advanced with caution. A very few minutes later, Hume slid his raid tube back into its belt loop. Unless they've holed up in the spacer, and I can't see why they do that, this camp's deserted. And they haven't taken any equipment with them except maybe a few items they could backpack. The ship proved as empty of life as the campsite. A wall-seat pulled out too hastily so that it was jammed awry. The comm-cabin suggested that the leave-taking, when and for what reason, had been a matter of some emergency. Hume did not touch the tape set to keep on broadcasting the call for assistance. But now Vi wanted to know as they completed the search. The safari camp first, and a call for the patrol. Look here, Vi sat down the ration container he had found, was emptying it with vast satisfaction of one who had been too long on tablets. If you beam the patrol, you'll have to talk, won't you? Hume went on fitting new charges into his raid tube. The patrol has to have a full report. There's no way of bypassing that. Yes, we'll have to give all the story. You needn't worry. He snapped closed the load chamber. I can clear you all the way. You're the victim, remember? I wasn't thinking about that. Boy! Hume tossed the tube up in the air, caught it in his plastic hand. I went into this deal with my eyes wide open. Why doesn't matter very much now? In fact, he stared beyond Vi out into the empty, lighted camp. I've begun to wonder about a lot of things, maybe too late. No. We'll call the patrol, and we'll do it, not because it is Wasse and his men out there, but because we're human and they're human, and there's a nasty setup here which has already sucked in other humans for its own purposes. The skeleton in the valley. And how very close they had been themselves to joining that unknown in his permanent residence. So now we make time. Back to the safari camp. Get our message off to the patrol, and then we'll try to trace Wasse and see what we can do. Jumala is off a regular route. The patrol won't be here tomorrow at sunrise, no matter how much we wish a scouter would plan it then. Vi was quiet as he stowed in the flitter again. As Hume had said, events moved fast. A little while ago he had wanted to settle with this out-hunter, wring out of him not only an explanation for his being here, but claim satisfaction for the humiliation of being moved about to suit some others' purposes. Now he was willing to defeat Wasse, bring in the patrol, go up against whatever hid in that lake up there, providing Hume was not the loser. He tried to think why that was so, and could not. He only knew it was the truth. They were both silent as they took off from Wasse's deserted camp, sped away over the black blot of the woodland, towards the safari headquarters on the plains. There were stars above again, but no globes. Just as they had won their freedom from the valley, so they moved without escort on the plains. But the lights were there, not impinging on the flitter, or patrolling along its line of flight. No, they hung in a glowing cluster ahead when, in the dawn, the flitter shot away from the woods, headed for the landmark of the safari camp. A crown of lights circled over the campsite, as if those below were in a state of siege. Hume aimed straight for them, and this time the bobbing circle split wide open, broke to left and right, vile looked below, though the grayness of the morning was still hardly more than dusk. He could not miss those humps spaced at intervals on the land, just beyond the unseen line of the force barrier. The lights above, the beasts below, the safari camp was under guard. Starting by Leonie Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton, CHAPTER XII. There is only one way they could be moving toward the mountains. Hume stood in the open space among the bubble tents, facing him the four men of the camp, the three civs and Roval. You say it's been seven days, planet time, since I left here. They may have been five days on that trail. If possible, we have to stop them before they reach that valley. A fantastic story. Chambers wore the affronted expression of a man who expected no interference with his own concerns. Then, catching Hume's eye, he added, not that we doubt you, Hunter. We have the evidence in those dumb brutes waiting out there. However, by your own story, this wasp is an outside the law veep on this planet secretly for criminal purposes. Surely, there is no reason for us to risk our safety in his behalf. Are you certain he is in any danger at all? You and this young man here have, by your testimony, been into the enemy's territory and have been able to get out again. Through a series of fortunate chances which might never occur again. Hume was patient. Two patient Roval seemed to think. His hand moved. He was holding a ray tube so that a simple movement of the wrist could send a crisping blast across all the rest of the party. I say, stop this yapping, and get out there and pick up the veep. I intend to, after I call the patrol. Roval's tube was now aimed directly at Hume. No patrol, he ordered. This wrangling has gone far enough. It was Yaktisi who spoke with an authority which startled them all. And as their attention swung to him, he was already in action. Roval cried out, the weapon spun from his fingers, fingers which were slowly reddening. Yaktisi nodded with satisfaction, and he held his electopole ready for a second attack. I scooped up the tube which had whirled across the ground to strike against his borrowed boot. I'll set the call for the patrol. Then I'll try to locate Was, Hume stated. Sensible procedure, Yaktisi approved in his dry voice. You believe that you are now immune to whatever force this alien installation controlled? It would seem so. Then, of course, you must go. Why? Chambers countered for the second time. Suppose he isn't so immune after all. Suppose he gets out there and is captured again. He's our pilot. Do you want to be planet bound here? This man is also a pilot, Starnes indicated Rovald, who was nursing his numb hand. Since he, too, is one of these criminals, he's not to be trusted. Chambers shot back. Hunter, I demand that you take us off-planet at once. And it is only fair to inform you that I also intend to prefer charges against you and against the guild. Empty world. Just how empty have we found this world? But, gentle Homo, Starnes showed no signs of any emotion but eager curiosity. To be here at this time is a privilege we could not hope to equal except by good fortune. The T-caste will be avid for our stories. What had that to do with the matter? But he saw Starnes' reminder produce a quick change in Chambers. The T-caste, he repeated, his expression of anger smoothing away. Yes, of course, this is, in a matter of speaking, a truly historic occasion. We are in a unique position. Had yet T.C. smiled? That change of lip-line had been so slight, Vi could not call it a smile. But Starnes appeared to have found the right way to handle Chambers. And it was the same little man who offered his services in another way when he said, diffidently to Hume, I have some experience with comms, Hunter. Do you wish me to send your message and take over the unit until you return? I gather, he added with a certain delicacy, that it will not be expedient for your gear-man to engage in that duty now. So it was that Starnes was installed in the calm cabin of the Spacer, sending out the request for patrol aid, while Rovald was locked in the storage compartment of the same ship, pending arrival of those same authorities. As Hume sorted out supplies and violated them into the waiting flitter, yet T.C. approached the Hunter. You have a definite plan of search? Just to cast north from their camp. If they've been gone long enough to hit the foothills, we may be able to sight them climbing. Otherwise we'll go all the way up to the valley. Wait for them there. You don't believe that they will be released after they have been processed? Hume shook his head. I don't think we would have been free, gentle Homo, if it hadn't been for a series of fortunate accidents. Yes, though you don't give us many details about that, Hunter. Hume put down the needler he had been charging. He studied yet T.C. across that weapon. Who are you? His voice was soft, but carried a snap. For the first time, I saw the tall, lean Siv really smile. A man of many interests, Hunter, shall we let it go at that for the present? Though I assure you that Was is not one of them in the way you might believe. Gray eyes met Brown, held so straightly. When Hume spoke, I believe you, but I have told the truth. I have never doubted that, only the amount of it. There must be more talking later on. You understand that? I never thought otherwise. Hume set the needler inside the flitter. The Siv smiled again, this time including Vi in that evidence of goodwill before he walked away. Hume made no comment. What does it, he told his companion, still want to go? If you do, and you can't do it alone, no man could take on the valley and Was and his men. Hume made no comment. They had rested briefly after their return to the safari camp, and Vi had been supplied with clothing from Hume's bags, so that now he wore the uniform of the guild. He went armed, too, with the equipment Belt taken from Rovald and that other's weapons, healer and tube. At least they started on their dubious rescue mission with every aid the safari camp could muster. It was mid-afternoon when the flitter took to the air once again, scattering the hovering globes. There was no alteration in the ranks of the blue watchers waiting, for the barrier to go down, or someone in the camp to step beyond that protection. They're stupid, Vi said. Not stupid, just geared to one set of actions, Hume returned. Which could mean that what sends them here can't change its orders. Good guess? I'd say that they were governed by something akin to our tapes. No provision made for any innovations. So the guiding intelligence could be long gone. I think it has been, Hume then changed the subject sharply. How did you get into service at the Starfall? It was hard now to think back to Nahuatl, as if the violensor who had been swamper in that den of the port town was a different person altogether. In that patch of memories into which Wrench Brody still intruded he hunted for the proper answer. I couldn't hold the state jobs, and once you get the habit of eating you don't starve willingly. Why not the state jobs? Without premium they're all low-rung, tenderest places. I tried hard enough, but to sit pressing buttons when a light flashed hour after hour, Vi shook his head. They said I was too erratic and gave me the shove. One more move on, and it would have been compulsive conditioning. I turned port drift instead. I thought of trying for a loan premium. Vi laughed shortly. Loan premium? That's a true fantasy if you've been job hopping. None of the companies will take a chance on a man with an in-and-out record. Oh, I tried. That memory arose to the surface, clear and very chilling. Yes, he had tried to break out of the net the law and custom had put around him from the day he had been made a state child. It was conditioning or port drift. And you chose port drift? I was still me as long as I stayed away from conditioning. Then you became rinch brody in spite of your flight. No, well, maybe for a while, but I'm still Vi Lancer here. Yes, here, and I don't think you'll have to worry about raising a premium to get a new start. You can claim victim compensation, you know. Vi was silent, but Hume did not let him remain so. When the patrol arrives, you put in your claim. I'll back you. You can't. That's where you're mistaken, Hume told him crisply. I've already taped a full story back at the spacer. It's on record now. Vi frowned. The hunter seemed determined to ask for the worst the patrol or the planet police back on the wattle could deal out. A case of illegal conditioning was about as serious as you could get. They shot along the diagonal of the triangle made by three points, the Mountain Valley, Was Camp, and the Safari Headquarters, heading to the slopes up which the men must be herded if the beasts were shepherding them to the Mountain Valley. Vi, surveying the forest thick below, began to doubt they would ever be able to pick them up before they reached the Valley Gate. Hume took a weaving course, zigzagging back and forth, while they both watched intently for a glint from one of the globes, any movement which would betray that trail. And it was on one of the upper slopes that the flitter passed over two of the blue beasts lumbering along. Neither of the creatures paid any attention to the flyer. They moved with purpose on some mission of their own. Maybe the tail end of the hunting pack, Hume commented. He sent the flyer hovering over a stunted line of trees and brush. Beyond that was bear rock. But though they hung for moments, nothing moved into that open. Wrong sent somehow. Hume brought the flitter around. He had it on manual control now, keeping it answering to the quick changes of his will. A longer sweep supplied the answer. A vegetation-roofed slit running back into the uplands, in a way resembling the crevice through which they had originally found their way into this country. Hume brought the flyer along that. But if the men they sought were pushing their way through below, they could not be sighted from the air. At last, with evening drawing in, Hume was forced to admit failure. Wait by the gap, Vi asked. Have to now, Hume glanced about. I'd say maybe tomorrow, mid-morning before they make it that far, if they are here. We'll have plenty of time. Time for what? To make ready for a pitched battle with Was, or with the beasts herding him? To try in the space of hours to solve the mystery of the lake? Do you think we could blast that thing in the lake? Vi asked. We might be able to, just might, but that must be the last resort. We want that in working order for the XT men to study. No, we'd better plan to hold Was at the gate. Wait for the patrol to come in. Less than an hour later, after a soaring approach, Hume brought the flitter down with neat skill on the top of one of the cliffs which helped to form the portal of the gap. There was no difference in the scene below, save that where the two bodies of the blue beasts had lain they were now only clean and shining bones. Darkness spread out from the lake woods like a growing stain of evil promise as the sun fell behind the peaks. Night came earlier here than in the plains. Watch! Vi had been gazing down the gap. He was the first to note that movement in the cloaking bush. Out of the cover trotted a four-footed antlered animal he had not seen before. Siken deer, Hume identified. But why in the mountains? It's a long way from its home range. The deer did not pause, but headed directly for the gap and, as it neared, Vi saw that its brown coat was roughed with patches of white froth while more dripped from the pale pink tongue protruding from its open jaws and its shrunken sides heaved. Driven, Hume picked up a stone, hurled it to strike the ground ahead of the deer. The creature did not start, nor show any sign of seeing the rock fall. It trotted on at the same wearied pace, passed the portal rocks into the valley. Then it stood still, wedge-shaped head up, black horns displayed, while the nose flaps expanded, tested the air until it bounded toward the lake, disappearing in the woods. Though they shared watches during the night, there were no other signs of life, nor did the deer reappear from the woods. With the mid-morning there was a sudden sound to warn them, a wild cry which must have come from a human throat. Hume tossed one of the needlers to Vi, took the other, and they scrambled down to the floor of the gap passage. Was did not lead his men. He came behind the reeling trio as if he had joined the blasts as driver, and while his men wavered, staggered, gave the appearance of nearly complete exhaustion, he still walked with a steady tread in command of his wits, his fears, and the company. As the first of the men blundered on, a fresh trickle of red running down his bruised face, Hume called, Was! The Veep stopped short. He made no move to unsling the needler he carried. Its barrel pointing skyward over his shoulder, but his round head, with its upstanding comb of hair, swung slightly from side to side. Stop, Was! This is a trap. His three men kept on. Vi moved, for Peek leading that wavering group, stumbled would have fallen had not the younger man advanced from the shadows to steady him. Vi, Hume made his name a warning. He had only time to glance around. Was! his broad face impassive except for the eyes. Those burning mad man's eyes was aiming a ray tube. Broken free of his hold, Peek fell to the right, came up against Hume. As Vi went down, he saw Was! Dart forward at a speed he wouldn't have believed a driven man could summon. The Veep lunged, escaping the shot the hunter had no time to aim. Rolled and came up with a needler Vi had dropped. Then Hume, hampered by Peek's feeble clawing, met head on the swinging barrel of that weapon. He gave a startled grunt and smashed back against the cliff, a wave of scarlet blood streaming down the side of his head. The momentum of Was! charge carried him on. He collided with his men and the last thing that Vi saw was the huddle of all four of them, flailing arms and legs, spinning on through the gate into the valley with Was! horse wordless shouting, bringing echoes from the cliffs. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of Star Hunter. 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 Leonie Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter 13. He lay against a rock and it was quiet again, except for a small whimpering sound which hurt, joined with eating pain in his side. Vi turned his head, smelled burned cloth and flesh. Cautiously he tried to move, bring his hand across his body to the belt at his waist. One small part of his mind was very clear. If he could get his fingers to the packet there and the contents of the packet to his mouth, the pain would go away and maybe he could slip back into the darkness again. Somehow he did it. Pulled the packet out of its container pouch, worked the fingers of his one usable hand until he shredded open the end of the covering. The tablets inside spilled out, but he had three or four of them in his grasp. Laboriously he brought his hand up, mouthed them all together, chewing their bitterness, swallowing them as best he could without water. Water, the lake, for a moment he was back in time, feeling for the water bulbs he should be carrying. Then the unconscious movement of his questing fingers brought a sudden stab of raw red agony and he moaned. The tablets worked, but he did not slide back into unconsciousness again as the throbbing torture became something remote and untroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff, managed to sit up. Sun flashed on the metal barrel of a needler which lay in the trampled dust between him and another figure, still very still, with a pool of blood about the head. Vi waited for a steadying breath or two, then started the infinitely long journey of several feet which separated him from Hume. He was panting heavily when he crawled close enough to touch the hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled with congealing blood. As Vi turned the hunter's head, it rolled limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to afford Vi any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken, but he was still alive. With his good hand Vi thrust his numb and useless left one into the front of his belt. Then awkwardly he tried to tend Hume. After a close inspection he thought that the mass of blood had come from a ragged tear in the scalp above the temple and the bone beneath had escaped damage. From Hume's own first aid pack he crushed tablets into the other's slack mouth, hoping they would dissolve if the hunter could not swallow. Then he relaxed against the cliff to wait for what he could not have said. Was party had gone on into the valley. When Vi turned his head to look down the slope he could see nothing of them. They must have tried to push on to the lake. The flitter was at the top of the cliff, as far out of his reach now as if it were in planetary orbit. There was only the hope that a rescue party from the safari camp might come. Hume had set the directional beam on the flyer when he had brought her down to serve as a beacon for the patrol if and when Starnes was lucky enough to contact a cruiser. Hmm. Hume's mouth moved, cracked the drying, bloody mask on his lips and chin. His eyes blinked open and he lay staring up at the sky. Hume. Vi was startled at the sound of his own voice, so thready and weak and by the fact that he found it difficult to speak at all. The others had turned. Now the eyes were on him and there was a spark of awareness in them. Was? The whisper was as strained as his own had been. In there, Vi's hand lifted from Hume's chest indicating the valley. Not good. Hume blinked again. How bad? His attention was not for his own hurt. His eyes searched Vi and the ladder glanced down at his side. By some chance, perhaps because of his struggle with peak, Was's beam had not struck true the main core of the bolt passing between his arm and his side, burning both. How deeply he could not tell. In fact, he did not want to find out. It was enough that the tablets had banished the pain now. Seared a little, he said. You've a bad cut on your head. Hume frowned. Can we make the flitter? Vi moved, then relaxed quickly into his former position. Not now, he evaded, knowing that neither of them would be able to take that climb. Beam on. Hume repeated Vi's thoughts of moments before. Patrol coming? Yes, eventually the patrol would come. But when? Hours? Days? Time was their enemy now. He did not have to say any of that. They both knew. Needler. Hume's head had turned in the other direction. Now his hand pointed waveringly to the weapon in the dust. They won't be back, Vi stated the obvious. Those others had been caught in the trap. The odds on their return without aid were very high. Needler. Hume repeated more firmly and tried to sit up, falling back with a sharp intake of breath. Vi edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of his boot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up to where he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his knee, Hume spoke again. Watch for trouble. They all went in, Vi protested. But Hume's eyes had closed again. Trouble, maybe. His voice trailed off. Vi rested his hand on the stock of the Needler. Ooh! That beast wail, as they had heard it in the valley, somewhere from the wood, Vi brought the Needler around so that the sights pointed in that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothing he could do. A scream filled with all the agony of a man in torment caught up on the echoes of that other cry. Vi sighted a wild waving of bushes. A figure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands and knees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Again the beasts cry and a shouting. Vi watched a second man back out of the trees, still facing whatever pursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube. Leaves crisped into a black hole. Curls of smoke arose along the path of that blast. The man kept on backing, past the inert body of his companion, glancing now and then over his shoulder at the slope up which he was making a slow but steady way. He no longer raided the bush, but there was the crackle of a small fire outlining the ragged hole his beam had cut. Back two strides, three. Then he turned, made a quick dash, again facing around after he had gained some yards in the open. Vi saw now it was was. Another dash and an about face, but this time to confront the enemy. There were three of them as monstrous as those Vi and Hume had fought in the same place and one of them was wounded, swinging a charred forepaw before it and giving voice to a wild frenzy of roars. Was leveled the ray tube, centered sights on the beast nearest to him. The man hammered at the firing button with the flat of his other hand and almost paid for that second of distraction with his life. For the creature made one of those lightning swift dashes Vi had so luckily escaped. The clawed forepaw tore a strip from the shoulder of Was Tunic, left sprouting red furrows behind, but the man had thrown the useless tube into his face, was now running for the gap. Vi held the needler braced against his knee to fire. He saw the dark quiver in the upper arm of the beast and it halted to pull out that sliver of dangerously poisoned metal, crumpled it into a tight twist. Vi continued to fire, never sure of his aim, but seeing those slivers go home in thick legs in outstretched forelimbs in wide, pendulous bellies, then there were three blue shapes lying on the slope behind the man running straight for the gap. Was hit the invisible barrier full force, was hurled back to like gasping on the turf, but already raising himself to crawl again to the gateway he saw and could not believe was barred. Vi closed his eyes. He was very tired now, tired and sleepy. Maybe the pain pills were bringing the secondary form of relief, but he could hear just beyond the man who beat at that unseen curtain, first in anger and fear and then just in fear, until the fear was a lonesome crying that went on and on until even that last feeble assault on the barrier failed. We have here the tape report of Ross Hume, the out-hunter of the guild. Vi watched the officer in the black and silver of the patrol, a black and silver modified with a small green eye badge of XT with level and hostile gaze. Then you know the story. He was going to make no additions nor explanations. Maybe Hume had cleared him. All right, that was all he would ask to be free to go his way and forget about Jumala and Ross Hume. He had not seen the hunter since they had both been loaded into the patrol flitter in the gap. Ross had come out of the valley, a witless, dazed creature, still under the mental influence of whoever or whatever had set that trap. As far as Vi knew, the VP had not yet recovered his full senses. He might never do so. And if Hume had not dictated that confession to damn himself before the patrol, he might have escaped. They could suspect, but they would have had no proof. You continue to refuse to tape. The officer favored him with one of the closed jaw looks Vi had often seen on the face of authority. I have my rights. You have the right to claim victim compensation, a good compensation, Lancor. Vi shrugged and then winced at a warning from the tender skin over ribs. I make no claim and no tape, he repeated. And he intended to go on saying that as long as they asked him. This was the second visit in two days and he was getting a little tired of it all. Perhaps he should do as Prudence dictated and demand to be returned to Nahuatl. Only his odd, unexplainable desire to at least see Hume kept him from making the request they would have to honor. You had better reconsider, authority resumed. Rights of person. Vi almost grinned as he recited that. For the first time in his pushed-around life, he could use that particular phrase and make it stick. He thought there was a sour twist to the officer's mouth, but the other still retained his impersonal tone as he spoke into the internship calm. He refused to make a tape. Vi waited for the other's next move. This should mark the end of their interview, but instead the officer appeared to relax the restraint of his official manner. He brought a Viv-Root case from an inner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vi, who gave an instant and suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one of the small tube, snapped off the protecto nib, and set it between his lips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabin door pushed open, and Vi sat up with a jerk as Rass Hume, his head banded with a skin-core covering, entered. The officer waved his hand at Vi with the air of one turning over a problem. He were entirely right, and he's all yours, Hume. Vi looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official hands, why wasn't the hunter under restraint? Unless, because they were aboard the patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closer confinement was necessary. Yet the hunter wasn't acting the role of prisoner very well. In fact, he perched on a wall-flip seat with the ease of one completely at home, accepted the Viv-Root Vi had refused. So you won't make a tape, he asked cheerfully. You act as if you want me to. Vi was so completely baffled by this odd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively. Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing you in the position where you could give us that tape, I must admit some disappointment. Give us, Vi echoed. The officer removed the Viv-Root from between his lips. Tell him the whole sad story, Hume. But Vi began to guess. Life in the starfall, or as Port Drift, either sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vi's had suffered the burnishing process. A set up? A set up, Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the patrol officer a little defensively. I'm by his well tell the whole truth. This didn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons for wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the credits involved. He moved his plaster-flash hand. When I found that LB from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day dreaming, I worked out this scheme. But I'm a guildman, and as it happens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the masters and told him the whole story, why I hadn't taped on the records my discovery on Jamala. When he passed along the news of the LB to the patrol, he also suggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I had thought it out. That started a chain reaction. It happened that the patrol wanted was, but he was too big and slick to be caught in a case which couldn't be broken in court. They thought that here was just the bait he might snap at, and I was the one to offer it to him. He could check on me, learn that I had excellent reason to do what I said I was doing. So I went to him with my story, and he liked it. We made the plan work just as I had outlined it, and he planted Rovald on me as a check. But I didn't know, yet T.C. was a plant also. The patrol officer smiled. Insurance, he waved the Vivroot, just insurance. What we didn't foresee was this complicating alien trouble. You were to be collected as a castaway, brought back to the center, and then, once Was was firmly enmeshed, the patrol would blow the whole thing wide open. Now we do have Was, with your tape, we'll have him for good, subject to complete reconditioning. But we also have an XT puzzle, which will keep the services busy for some time, and we would like your tape. Vi watched Hume narrowly. Then you're an agent? Hume shook his head. No, just what I said I am. An out-hunter who happened to come into some knowledge that will assist in straightening out a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for the Kogan clan, but to help bring down a veep of Was's measure does aid in reinstating one's self-esteem. This victim compensation, I could claim it, even though the deal was a setup. You'll have first call on Was's assets. He has plenty invested in legitimate enterprises, though we'll probably never locate all his hidden funds. But everything we can get open title to will be impounded. Have something to do with your share? Inquire the officer. Yes. Hume was smiling subtly. He was a different man from the one Vi had known on Jumala. Premium for the Guild is 1,000 credits down, 2,000 for training, and say another for about the best field outfit you can buy. That'll give you maybe another two or 3,000 to save for your honorable retirement. How did you know? Vi began, and then had to laugh in spite of himself as Hume replied. I didn't. Good guess, eh? Well, zoom out your recorder, Commander. I think you're going to have some very free speech now. He got to his feet. You know, the Guild has a stake in this alien discovery. We may just find that we haven't seen the last of that valley after all, recruit. He was gone, and Vi, eager to have the past done with, and the future beginning reached for the dictation mic. End of Chapter 13. End of Star Hunter by Andre Norton.