Postmarked the Stars

18.PURSUIT TO THE RAT NEST

“We must depend,” the alien continued, “upon that weakness of your breed, that, seeing one of their kind in distress, they must straightway come to his assistance, emotion outweighing caution. We are giving them a piteous sight indeed.”

Dane thought he detected black humor in that, as if the alien considered this a source of laughter for his breed. But was he taking into consideration that this was a too well-set stage—that anyone with an ordinary amount of suspicion answering a distress call would be wary of a so well-lighted and arranged scene of disaster? Supposing Cartl’s counter impulse had broken through the earlier interference and—But Dane must not build upon hope, only accept what lay starkly before him now. If those who answered the call for help, always supposing they did, were not suspicious—

The alien was walking away.

“They can do it,” Meshler croaked, as if his throat were dry and the words rasped painfully from it. “From the air this must look all right. And if we try to warn them—”

“We have no hope anyway,” Dane answered. “I heard them talking.” Dane could not believe Meshler ever thought the jacks would keep their word.

The diffuse lamps were on, set in such a way as to suggest that at least one able-bodied man had escaped the crash of the flitter and was endeavoring to provide a guide for a rescue craft. The skill in placing that limited illumination was such that both Dane and Meshler were fully revealed. Any move the Terran might make would be instantly visible to those in ambush.

But the men waiting there had tanglers, not blasters. Did that mean that the enemy was running low on charges for the deadly weapons and were saving what they had? And how many of the monsters remained?

With the robos frozen when those were turned loose—Resolutely Dane tried to cut that picture out of his imagination and think about the immediate future and what might be done for the two of them in the here and now. Only he could see nothing at all!

He would like more water. Water—no, do not think of water, which was now as far from him as the Queen herself. The Queen, the LB—what had happened to his own star-going world? Apparently the box was still in the place where it had been buried, or else it would not be acting as a draw on the monsters. So its radiation must be able to pass the safeguards Stotz had set on it, acting as a contact beam.

Dane was so deep in his thoughts, thoughts that could lead nowhere, that he was not at first aware of the cold metal sliding under one of his hands as it rested on the ground, but the persistent nudging of that touch drew his attention at last.

The Terran dared not look down. Not only was he afraid that might awaken his dizziness, but also, if what he guessed was in progress, through some wild stroke of luck, he must not allow those in ambush to suspect. Stealthily he moved his hand, raising it a little. Instantly the object that had been nudging him pushed between palm and earth, first a barrel, and then the butt, worked carefully around so that his fingers could close on it.

A stunner! The brach! The alien from Xecho must be hidden by the wreck and was so supplying him with a weapon. It was far inferior to a blaster, to be sure, but better than the tanglers in ambush, though he could not be sure how much of a charge was left in it.

Another nudge against his hand. Dane touched the barrel of a second arm. But this one was gripped tight, held so for only a moment, and then withdrawn, as if the brach only wanted him to know that there was a second weapon. Dane remembered how the creature had faced him on the Queen—he knew how to use a stunner. If Dane could only communicate—suggest that the alien work around the flitter and use the stunner on the two in ambush. But that was impossible.

He tried to feel for the paws that must hold the second weapon, but there was nothing. He might have thought it a fever dream, except that he still had the first stunner.

The dark was drawing in fast, and the diffuse lamps were bright in the dusk. It was what prowled out there that fretted the nerves. A stunner—what good would a single stunner be when the breakthrough came? Don’t think of that now. Could he reach either of the men in ambush? Dane edged his head around, kept his eyes half closed, yet was able to see a little from beneath drooping lids. Suppose the rescue craft came—might he take out at least one of the jacks before they could use their tanglers? And would Dane dare—or would he be answered by blaster fire from the shadows where the rest of the enemy had gone?

How many jacks were there? The alien, who appeared to be in command, at least six others—more probably. It was a wild, crazy, fruitless plan, but it was all Dane had to cling to.

The keen edge of expectation can last only so long, and waiting is a fret that saws it very dull. Dane had known such waits before action in the past, but never had he been so helpless before.

The night was not silent. There were the ominous sounds made by the things that prowled about, kept in check by their masters. Somehow, hearing them was worse than seeing them.

But at last, through those growls, snarls, hissing, there came another sound—the steady beat of a flitter engine. Dane, stretching his head farther up and back, tried to sight nose lights, but the craft must be coming from the north, and he faced south.

“Coming—” Meshler rasped. The ranger tried to heave his body out from under the wreckage, which held him tight. “Can’t you do something—warn them?”

“Don’t you think I would if I could?” Dane retorted. But there was no sense in moving or revealing his weapon until he could make that really count.

The sound died away, to Dane’s surprise, and then he was sure the pilot was wary, was going to run a survey of the scene before landing. Would suspicion keep him aloft? With a sinking of spirit Dane could not deny, he thought he had guessed right, for the muted drone of the engine grew fainter and vanished. Would that be a signal for the enemy to loose the monsters, since their trap had been rejected? But apparently the jack leader had patience and confidence in both his scheme and in his knowledge of human motivation, for those in ambush did not move. And his confidence was vindicated when once more that hum came through the night, now from the south, where the flitter had vanished.

This time Dane could see the nose lights, green as the glowing eyes of a night hunter. The machine dipped very low, pointing almost directly at Meshler and him. Then the craft went into descend, the drone of the motor louder. Dane looked at the one jack he could see from his position. The man was tense. He held the tangler so that the adhesive stream, which would congeal instantly on contact with flesh, would spurt into the small portion of ground anyone must cross to reach Dane and Meshler.

The Terran could not see beyond the lights. He did not doubt, however, that the rest of the enemy company was on the move, drawing in to be ready for attack when the flitter touched ground, but not until they were sure, he supposed, that all were out of the craft. Otherwise the pilot could lift, leaving them empty-handed.

What followed was almost as if his thoughts had been broadcast, picked up by esper. The forehatch opened before the tripoint of the landing gear touched the ground, and a figure leaped free from the flitter. He landed on his feet and ran, not straight for the two by the wreck, but in an evasion pattern, as if he knew of the ambush. At the same time, Dane dared to move. He rolled to one side, taking the jack by surprise—or perhaps the other was astounded that the flitter, having discharged only one, gave an upward bounce to go on hover over the wreck.

Dane fired, using his own body to partly screen his action. And though he had no time for a good aim, the near arm of the man with the tangler fell to his side. He lost his grip on the weapon and skidded forward trying to regain it. The Terran had not knocked out the enemy, but he had rendered him a one-armed warrior for several hours at least. The runner reached Meshler, sliding over the last bit of space between

them, squirming around to fire his own stunner. And he had better aim. Its beam struck the man still flopping after the lost tangler in the head, dropping him instantly.

Fluid lines spun by a tangler in the hands of the other ambusher spun out through the air. He fired on a net setting, and those fine threads would automatically seek the nearest human flesh to which they had been conditioned. Unfortunately for him, in order to reach the newcomer who had hunkered down beside Meshler, he had to edge a little into the open. And both Dane and the man from the flitter fired at the first inches of arm and shoulder he was forced to reveal for that shot.

The tangler still spun, its sticky output fountaining now straight up as it fell from his hand. A moment later those strands found a target, the man himself, spreading avidly about his head and shoulders.

“How bad is it?” Rip’s voice broke through Dane’s wonder at the shot, which might have been aimed by fortune herself.

“A knock on the head. But they’re ready to send their monsters at us. And there’re the settlers in the stones—”

“I think they will have other things to occupy them,” Shannon answered. “As for worrying about their monsters—” He pulled from the front of his thermo jacket one-handedly, keeping the stunner on ready in the other, a box. Pushing in a plunger at its top, he said, “Where are the monsters?”

“That direction the last I saw—” Dane leaned away from the wreckage. The world still had a tendency toward a sideslip, but he fought that off.

“Good enough.” Rip got to his feet before Dane could protest against so exposing himself. He drew back his arm for such a throw as sped a sleep-gas bomb and sent the box flying out into the dark. Dane felt a strange crawling sensation along his skin, and the pain behind his eyes awoke to a new agony.

“Sonics,” Rip explained briefly. “That is tuned to the antline’s frequency. Let’s hope it picks up everything else they’ve turned loose from their misbegotten menagerie.”

A moment later he dropped between Dane and the ranger as a tracer of blaster fire cut along the wreckage at what had been the level of his head and shoulders. The sear breath of that fire was a wave over all three of them. But, while Dane tried not to expect that another beam would crisp them, a second lance did not flash. Instead, there was confusion out in the night—cries, more tracers of fire, none however aimed in their direction.

“That does it,” Dane heard Rip say close to his ear as they sprawled shoulder to shoulder on the ground. “They’ll have plenty to think about beside us—”

“What—?” Rip did not let him finish the question. He was quick with an answer, as if he believed reassurance would be a good restorative.

“We didn’t come straight in, you know. Landed some Patrolmen, two rangers, and a couple of port guards by grav-jump belts. We then provided the distraction while they went into position behind. That’s their force moving in now. The sonics will set the monsters on the run away from here—”

“That box from the Queen—they said it had drawn the monsters north—” Dane cut in.

“Just as well. They can be picked off then as they trail in that direction. Now, what about you?” Rip levered away the piece of wreckage that had been left to cover Meshler. Once his tangle bonds were revealed, it was easy enough to dissolve them. The ranger, groaning as he swung cramped and stiffened arms and legs, crawled out.

The flitter, which had hovered over them, was setting down again, not too far away. But this time there was no bounce to send it aloft, instead, the hatch opened, and a couple more men dropped out.

“Captain Jellico!” Dane recognized the first. The second wore the uniform of the Patrol, but it was modified on the collar by the winged, star-studded staff of the medic service, and the stranger carried an aid kit in one hand.

“What have you been doing to and for yourself, Thorson?” The captain went down on one knee and drew Dane up a little.

“Watch out, sir!” Dane caught at Jellico’s sleeve and tried to pull him farther down. “They’ve blasters.”

“And they’ve plenty of use for them elsewhere,” the captain returned. “Let’s have a look at you—”

In spite of Dane’s protests, he found himself lying under the competent hands of the medic, who reported a little later, as he gave Dane a restorative shot, “Skull intact, but you took a bad knock. And this”—he threw away a handful of metal scraps—“gave you some cuts. Now, sniff this.”

He broke an ampul under Dane’s nose. A sharp scent stung the Terran’s nostrils, clearing his head, and the pain became only a faraway suggestion of ache. He lay resting, the medic having gone to the stones and whomever there might need him. But though the captain vanished during the time his hurts were being assessed, Rip was still near.

“Where did the captain come from?”

“Long story,” Shannon answered. ‘Too long to tell now. But Cartl got his message through. And we were already on the move south. We heard enough of the second call from here to know it was probably a trap. So the Old Man was prepared.”

“Cartl said the news came through that the crew was in prison, charged with sabotage.”

“It began that way, until there were too many things to add up for even the thick-headed port police. Then they began to listen to us, a lot of questions were asked, and there were several answers to each one. The Patrol took a couple of local councilors into custody and had them probed. That was a serious step to take—might have lost the officers in charge their jackets and space rights if their suspicions hadn’t been verified.

“But it isn’t only a cleanup here—the thing’s bigger than just Trewsworld. And if the Patrol hadn’t been already nosing around, perhaps we wouldn’t have had our hearing so promptly. It all goes back to the Trosti foundations—”

“Thorson”—he was interrupted by Jellico as the captain came into the light—“how many men did you see here?”

“Six, seven, most of Terran or settler stock, I think. But their leader was an alien. They needed a flitter badly—had to get back to their camp. They were planning a withdrawal off-world—”

But the captain no longer seemed to be listening to him. Jellico gave a pull of his thermo hood, drawing it forward a little, and Dane caught sight of a com set in its side, much like the arrangement he himself had used to talk to the brach.

The brach! Why was it he kept forgetting the alien who had twice saved their lives—three times if you could count the breaking of the force field? It was almost as if something deliberately willed memory to sink to the back of his mind.

Now from behind the wreck trotted the creature from Xecho, walking on three legs. The fourth was folded up against his belly holding the second stunner. From the flitter dropped another brach, running with speed to meet her mate. They touched noses and then swung about, shoulder to shoulder, to face the Terrans.

Captain Jellico swung up his wrist, peeling back his glove to lay bare another mike, resembling the personna coms used by explorers.

“Finnerstan, some kind of a small airborne craft just took off—heading south. The brachs report it has one of the jacks on board. My guess, judging by what they are able to scan, is that it is the jack leader. And he must be heading for their command post. Intercept—”

There was no reply except a confirm click from the wrist mike. Dane sat up and waited apprehensively for his head to punish him. But, thanks to the medic, he was able to move, if weak. Rip got to his feet and reached down a long arm. And, pulling on it for support, Dane made it, too.

“Heading for the basin—”

“Basin? What basin?” Jellico demanded.

Dane muddled through the story of the force field prison, of the jack headquarters beyond. Jellico pushed his hood a little back and pulled at his lower lip. His expression—which was not really an expression but a stillness of feature—was one Dane knew of old to be the prelude to action.

“They had a flitter before,” he said, “that was brought down by the settlers. That was what they set this trap for, to get another flitter. They had to get back—they have a spacer there, and they wanted to take off.”

Captain Jellico came to sudden life. “Finnerstan, they have a ship waiting for planet lift—at a base to the south. Have you anything to patrol that way?”

The reply came as a squeak. Jellico frowned, holding the com close to his ear.

“The sonic,” Rip half whispered to Dane. “It interferes. And I don’t think they will be able to broadcast back to the port with that on. If they shut it off—”

“Exactly!” But whether Jellico meant that in answer to Shannon or to what the squeak conveyed, Dane was not sure.

“Meshler should know the location of the basin,” Dane offered. But looking around, he could not see the ranger.

“We have detects. They just won’t work around the sonics. Come on!”

Dane and Rip, the two brachs trotting ahead, as if they had had some forewarning, fell in behind Jellico moving to the flitter. But with his hand already on the hatch, the captain turned to look at Dane.

“You’re on sick call, Thorson.”

Dane shook his head and then wished that he hadn’t, as a warning thrust of pain suggested such gestures were not for him at present.

“I’ve been there—” It was a thin plea; Meshler would be the better guide. But somehow he wanted to see this through to the end. And when three men in Patrol uniforms and one of the spaceport policemen came running, he was vindicated, for when the ranger was asked for, the report was that he had gone back to the park to see if any vehicles could be brought to transport the wounded.

In the end they were a mixed expedition. The two brachs had squeezed far to the back of the flitter, crouched down side by side, as if fully determined to stay where they were, daring anyone to pull them out. For the rest there were three Patrolmen, their leader, Finnerstan, who came up just before they slammed the hatch, the spaceport policeman, two rangers, plus Jellico, Rip, and Dane.

It was rather a tight fit, and the captain himself had the pilot’s seat, Finnerstan beside him, the rest of them packed in the back. This was no cargo flitter, rather a troop carrier from the port, so that they at least had seats—hard though those were—and did not have to squat.

Dane was behind Jellico, and as the captain lifted the flitter into the air, he asked without turning his head, “Which direction?”

“South and west—the best I can do, sir.”

Finnerstan turned a little around to give him a measuring stare. “There is nothing there. We combed that district for months—”

“They are in a basin,” Dane returned, “and have rigged a distort over it. From above you can’t see anything—”

“A distort!” Finnerstan sounded incredulous. “But on such a scale as that—it is impossible!”

“From what I have heard and seen”—Captain Jellico’s tone was cold—“these Trosti people have proved a lot of impossible things possible. I imagine once they are all run to earth, there are going to be a lot of preconceived scientific ideas turned inside out, back to fore. A distort, eh? How did you find it then?”

“We followed a crawler track.”

“That gives us something—if we have daylight when we get near enough. But we have to make time. I don’t like the idea of something flying south. Pilot arrives with a warning, and they’ll lift off-world. Then—” He spoke to Finnerstan. “You may have finished their scheme here and now, but all you will have left are the pieces they have left behind. I can imagine they will leave precious few of those. What they can’t lift with them, they’ll destroy. And that’s the last thing we must let them do. Once we’re out of range of that sonic, you’d better code in a call. See if you can get help from the port. The Queen isn’t armed well enough to take on a ship in space. What about your cutter?”

“She can try,” but Finnerstan did not sound too certain. And Dane thought that with the curious devices these jacks appeared to have for their equipment, he could well understand the other’s apprehension.

If Finnerstan thought dark thoughts, they did not prevent him from experimenting with the flitter’s com until it was clear. Then he sent out a call, repeating it several times in code numbers, until a click of acknowledgement came. He dropped the mike back in its holder and said, “The cutter will space and go on patrol. Maybe she’ll be in time—They are widening their radar, so anything taking off from this continent will register.”

“Time,” Jellico echoed. “Well, we have no way of buying time unless we can anchor them some way. But there is no use making plans until we are sure we have something concrete on which to base them.”