The Beast Master

1

“Sir, there is a transport leaving for that sector tomorrow. My papers are in order, are they not? I think I have all the necessary permits and endorsements –”

The young man who wore the green of a Galactic Commando, with the striking addition of a snarling lion’s mask on the breast of his tunic, smiled with gentle detachment at the Commander.

That officer sighed inwardly. Why did they always dump these cases on his desk? He was a conscientious man, and now he was a troubled one. A fourth-generation Sirian colonist and a cosmopolite of mixed races by birth, he secretly believed that no one had fathomed this youngster – not even the psych-medics who had given the boy clearance. The Commander shuffled the papers and glanced down again at the top one, though he did not have to read the information on it, knowing it all by heart.

“Hosteen Storm. Rank: Beast Master. Race: Amerindian. Native planet: Terra of Sol –”

It was that concluding entry that made all the difference. The last desperate thrust of the Xik invaders had left Terra, the mother planet of the Confederacy, a deadly blue, radioactive cinder, and those here at the Separation Centre had to deal with veterans of the forces now homeless –

All the land grants on other worlds, the assistance of every other planet in the Confederacy, would not wipe from the minds of these men the memory of a murdered people, the reality of their own broken lives. Some had gone mad here at the Centre, turning in frantic rage on their allies from the colonial worlds. Or they had used their own deadly weapons on themselves and their fellows. Finally every Terran outfit had been forcibly disarmed. The Commander had witnessed some terrible and some heartbreaking sights here during the past months.

Of course Storm was a special case – as if they weren’t all special cases. There had been only a handful of his kind. Less than fifty, the Commander understood, had qualified for the duty this young man had performed. And of that fifty very few had survived. That combination of unusual traits of mind that produced a true Beast Master was rare, and they had been expendable men in the last frenzied months before the spectacular collapse of the Xik invaders.

“My papers, sir.” Again that reminder, delivered in the same gentle voice.

But the Commander dared not let himself be rushed. Storm had never shown any signs of violence – even when they had taken the chance, as a test, of giving him the package from Terra that had been delivered too late at his base after he had departed for his last mission. In fact, the youngster had cooperated in every way with the personnel of the Centre, helping with others the medics believed could be saved. He had insisted upon retaining his animals. But that had caused no difficulty. The staff had watched him closely for months, prepared for some paralysing stroke of delayed shock – for the outburst they were sure must come. But now the medics had reluctantly agreed they could not deny Storm’s release.

Amerindian, pure blood. Maybe they were different, better able to stand up to such a blow. But in the Commander’s mind a nagging little doubt festered. The boy was too controlled. Suppose they did let him go and there was a bad smash, involving others, later? Suppose – suppose –

“You have chosen to be repatriated on Arzor, I see.” He made conversation, not wanting to dismiss the other.

“Survey records, sir, state that Arzor possesses a climate similar to my native country. The principal occupation is frawn herding. I have been assured by settlement officers that, as a qualified Beast Master, I may safely count on employment there –”

A simple, logical, and satisfactory answer. Why didn’t he like it? The Commander sighed again. A hunch – he couldn’t refuse this Terran his papers just on a hunch. But his hand moved slowly as he pushed the travel permit into the stamper before him. Storm took the slip from him and stood up, smiling aloofly – a smile the Commander was certain neither reached nor warmed his dark eyes.

“Thank you for your assistance, sir. I assure you it is appreciated.” The Terran sketched a salute and left. And the Commander shook his head, still unconvinced that he had done the right thing.

Storm did not pause outside the building. He had been very confident of getting that exit stamp, so confident he had made his preparations in advance. His kit was already in the loading area of the transport. There remained his team, his true companions who did not probe, with the kindest of motives, or try to analyse his actions. It was enough that he was with them, and with them only was he able to feel normal again, not a specimen under clinical observation.

Hosteen Storm of the Dineh – the People, though men of a lighter shade of skin had given another name to his kinsmen, Navajo. They had been horsemen, artists in metal and wool, singers and desert dwellers, with a strong bond tying them to the barren but brightly coloured land in which they had once roamed as nomad hunters, herders, and raiders.

The Terran exile shut away that memory as he came into the storehouse that had been assigned to him for his small, odd command. Storm closed the door, and there was a new alertness in his face.

“Saaaa –” That hiss, which was also a summons, was answered eagerly.

A flapping of wings and talons, which could tear flesh into bloody ribbons, closed on his padded left shoulder as the African Black Eagle that was scouting “eyes’ for Sabotage Group Number Four came to rest, sleek head lowered to draw its beak in swift, slight caress along Storm’s brown cheek.

Paws caught at his breeches as a snorting pair of small warm bodies swarmed up him, treating his body like a tree. Those claws, which uncovered and disrupted enemy installations, caught in the tough fabric of his uniform as he clasped the meerkats in his arms.

Baku, Ho, and Hing – and last of all – Surra. The eagle was majesty and winged might, great-hearted and regal as her falcon tendencies dictated. The meerkats were merry clowns, good-humoured thieves who loved company. But Surra – Surra was an empress who drew homage as her due.

Generations before, her breed had been small, yellow-furred sprites in the sandy wastes of the big deserts. Shy cats, with hairy paws, which kept them from sinking into the soft sand of their hunting grounds, with pricked fox ears and fox-sharp faces, possessing the abnormal hearing that was their greatest gift, almost unknown to mankind, they had lived their hidden lives.

But when the Beast Service had been created – first to provide exploration teams for newly discovered worlds, where the instincts of once wild creatures were a greater aid to mankind than any machine of his own devising – Surra’s ancestors had been studied, crossbred with other types, developed into something far different from their desert roving kin. Surra’s colour was still sand-yellow, her muzzle and ears foxlike, her paws fur sand-shoes. But she was four times the size of her remote forefathers, as large as a puma, and her intelligence was higher even than those who had bred her guessed. Now Storm laid his hand on her head, a caress she graciously permitted.

To the spectator the ex-Commando might be standing impassively, the meerkats clinging to him, his hand resting lightly on Surra’s round skull, the eagle quiet on his shoulder. But an awareness, which was unuttered, unheard speech, linked him with animals and bird. The breadth of that communication could not be assessed outside a “team”, but it forged them into a harmonious whole, which was a weapon if need be, a companionship always.

Baku raised her wide wings, moved restlessly to utter a small croak of protest. She disliked a cage and submitted to such confinement only when it was forced upon her. The thought Storm had given them of more ship travel displeased her. He hastened to supply a mental picture of the world awaiting them – mountains and valleys filled with the freedom of the true wilderness – all he had learned from the records here.

Baku’s wings folded neatly once again. The meerkats chirruped happily to one another. As long as they were with the others, they did not care. Surra took longer to consider. She must wear collar and leash, restraints that could bring her to stubborn resistance. But perhaps Storm’s mind-picture promised even more to her than it had to Baku. She padded across the room, to return holding the hated collar in her mouth, dragging its chain behind her.

“Yat-ta-hay –” Storm spoke softly as always, the sound of the old speech hardly more than a whisper. “Yat-ta-hay – very, very good!”

The troop ferry on which they shipped out was returning regiments, outfits, squads to several different home planets. That war, which had ended in defeat for the Xik invaders, had exhausted the Confederacy to a kind of weary emptiness, and men were on their way back to worlds that lay under yellow, blue, and red suns firm in the determination to court peace.

As Storm strapped himself down on his bunk for the take-off, awaiting the familiar squeeze, he heard Surra growl softly from her pad and turned his head to meet her yellow gaze. His mouth relaxed in a smile that this time did reach and warm his eyes.

“Not yet, runner on the sand!” He used again that tongue that now and forever here after must be a dead language. “We shall once more point the arrow, set up the prayer sticks, call upon the Old Ones and the Faraway Gods – not yet do we leave the war trail!”

Deep in his eyes, naked now that there was no one but the big cat to see, was the thing the Sirian Commander had sensed in him. The galaxy might lie at peace, but Hosteen Storm moved on to combat once again.

There was a company of Arzoran men on board, third- and fourth-generation descendants of off-world settlers. And Storm listened to the babble of their excited talk, filing away all the information that might be useful in the future. They were frontiersmen, these fighters from a three-quarter wilderness world. Their planet produced one product for export – frawns. Frawn meat and frawn-skin fabric, which had the sheen of fine silk and the water-repellent quality of ancient vegetable rubber, were making modest fortunes for the Arzor men.

The frawns moved in herds across the plains; their shimmering blue, heavily woolled foreparts and curving horned heads sloping sharply back to slender, almost naked hindquarters gave them a top-heavy look, which was deceitful since the frawn was well able to protect itself. There was no meat elsewhere in the galaxy to compare with frawn steak, no fabric to match that woven from their hair.

“I’ve two hundred squares cut out down on the Vakind – running straight back to the hills. Get me a crew of riders and we’ll –” The fair-haired man Storm knew as Ransford held forth eagerly.

His bunk mate nodded. “Get Norbies. You don’t lose any young stock with them riding herd. They’ll take their pay in horses. Quade uses Norbies whenever he can get them –”

“Don’t know about that,” cut in a third of the Arzoran veterans. “I’d rather have regular riders. Norbies aren’t like us –”

But Storm lost the thread of the conversation in the sudden excitement of his own thoughts. Quade was not a common name. In all his life he had only heard it once.

“Don’t tell me you believe that blather about Norbies being hostile!” The second speaker had challenged the third sharply. “Me and m’ brother always sign Norbies for the roundup, and we run the tightest outfit near the Peaks! Two of ‘em are better at roundin’ herd than any dozen riders I can sign up at the Crossin’. And I’ll name names right out if you want me to –”

Ransford grinned. “Climb down off your spoutin’ post, Dort. We all know how you Lancins feel about Norbies. And I’ll agree with you about their bein’ good trackers. But there has been trouble with stock disappearin’ – as well you know.”

“Sure. But nobody ever proved that Norbies made them disappear. Bush anyone around and he’ll try to loosen your teeth for you! Treat a Norbie decent and square, and he’s the best backin’ you can get in the outcountry. The Mountain Butchers aren’t Norbies –”

“Mountain Butchers are herd thieves, aren’t they?” Storm asked, hoping to steer the conversation back to Quade.

“That they are,” Ransford returned pleasantly. “Say, you’re the Beast Master who’s signed up for settlement, aren’t you? Well, if all the stories we’ve heard about your kind of trainin’ are the straight goods, you’ll be able to light and tie right off. Mountain Butchers are a problem in the back country. Start a stampede in the right stretch of land, and they can peel off enough young stock durin’ it to set up in business. A man and his crew can’t cover every bit of the range. That is why it pays to hire Norbies, they know the trails and the broken lands –”

“Where do the Mountain Butchers sell their stolen goods?” Storm asked.

Ransford frowned. “That’s something every owner and rider, every frawn-protection man on the planet would like to know. There’s just one space port, and nothin’ passes through that without being checked double, sidewise and across. Unless there’s some hidden port out in the hills and a freebooter runnin’ cargo out – why, you’ve as good a guess as I have as to what they want the animals for. But they raid –”

“Or Norbies raid and then yell about outlaws when we ask pointed questions,” the third Arzoran commented sourly.

Lancin bristled. “That isn’t so, Balvin! Don’t Quade hire Norbies – and the Basin country swings along by Brad Quade. He and his folks has held that district since First Ship time and they know Norbies! It’d take an eruption of the Limpiro Range to make Quade change his mind –”

Storm’s gaze dropped to his own hands resting on the mess table – those brown, thin hands with the thread of an old scar across the back of the left one. They had not moved, nor could any of the three men sitting with him see that sudden change in his eyes. He had the answer he wanted. Brad Quade – this man of importance – whom he had come so far to meet. Brad Quade who had a blood debt to pay to other men on a world where life did not and could not exist, a debt Storm had come to collect. He had sworn an oath as a small and wondering boy, standing before a man of power and knowledge beyond that of other races calling themselves “civilized”. A war had intervened, he had fought in it, and then be had journeyed halfway across the galaxy –

“Yat-ta-hay –” But he did not say that aloud. “Very, very good.”

Immigration and custom inspection were only a formality for one with Storm’s papers, though the Terran was an object of interest to the officers at the space port as he loosed his animals and Baku. Beast Team tales had been so exaggerated across deep space that Storm believed none of the port personnel would have been surprised if Surra had answered in human speech or Baku waved a stun ray in one taloned foot.

Men on Arzor went armed, though the lethal blaster and the needier were both outlawed. A stun ray rod hung from all adult male belts and private differences were settled speedily with those, or with one’s fists – a custom Storm could understand. But the straggle of plasta-crete buildings about the space port was not the Arzor he wanted. The arch of sky overhead, with the tinge of mauve to give it an un-Terran shade, and the wind that swept down from the distant rust-red ripples of mountains hinted of the freedom he desired.

Surra held her head into that wind, her eyes slitted, and Baku’s wings lifted a little at its promise. Then Storm halted, his head snapped around, his nostrils dilated as Surra’s could. The scent borne on that wind – he was pulled by it, so strongly that he did not try to resist.

Frawn herds ranged widely, and men, who perhaps on the other worlds of their first origin had depended upon machines for transportation, found that the herder here must be otherwise equipped. Machines required expert tending, supply parts that had to be imported at astronomical prices from off-world. But there remained a self-perpetuating piece of equipment that the emigrants to the stars had long known at home, used, discarded for daily service, but preserved because of sentiment and love for sheer grace and beauty – the horse. And horses, imported experimentally, found the plains of Arzor a natural home. In three generations of man-time, they had spread wide, changing the whole economy of both settler and native.

The Dineh had lived by the horse and with the horse for centuries, back into the dim past. Love and need for the horse was bred into them. And the smell of horse now drew Storm as it had when as a child of three he had been tossed on to the back of a steady old mare to take his first riding lesson.

The mounts he found milling about in the space port corral were not like the small tough pony of his native desert land. These were larger, oddly marked in colour – either spotted regularly with red or black spots on white or grey coats and with contrasting dark manes, or in solid dark colours with light manes and tails – strikingly different from the animals he had ridden in the past.

At the shrug of the Terran’s shoulder Baku took wing, to perch on the limb of a tree, a black blot amid the yellow foliage, while Surra and the meerkats settled down at the foot of the bulbous trunk, allowing Storm to reach the corral fence alone.

“Nice bunch, eh?” The man standing there pushed up his wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, plaited from native reed straw, and grinned in open friendliness at the Terran. “Brought ‘em in from Cardol four-five days ago. Got their land legs back now and I can road ‘em on tomorrow. They ought to make fellas set up and take notice at the auction –”

“Auction?” Storm’s attention was more than three-quarters claimed by a young stallion trotting around, his tail flicking, his dancing hoofs signalling his delight in his freedom to move. His sleek coat was a light grey, spotted with rich red dots coin-sized and coin-round, bright on the hindquarters, fading toward the barrel and chest, with his mane and tail copying that same warm colour.

The Terran did not, in his absorption with the horse, note the long glance with which the settler measured him in return. Storm’s green uniform might not be known on Arzor – Commandos furnished a very minor portion of the Confed forces –and he probably wore the only lion mask badge in this part of the galaxy. But that searching examination assessed more than his clothing.

“This is breeding stock, stranger. We have to import new strains from other planets where they shipped horses earlier. There won’t be any more of the pure Terran breed to buy now. So this bunch will be driven down to Irrawady Crossin’ for the big spring auction –”

“Irrawady Crossing? That’s in the Basin country, isn’t it?”

“You hit it, stranger. Plannin’ to light and tie on some range, or take up your own squares?”

“Light and tie, I guess. Any chance of a herd job?”

“You must be a veteran, come in on that troopship, eh? But I’d say you’re off-world, too. Can you ride?”

“I’m Terran.” Storm’s answer fell into a sudden silence. In the corral a horse squealed and reared, and the ex-Commando continued to watch the red and grey stallion. “Yes, I can ride. My people raised horses. And I am a Beast Master –”

“That so?” drawled the other. “Prove you can ride, boy, and you’ve signed yourself on with my outfit. I’m Put Larkin; this here’s my own string. You take your pay in mounts and get your workin’ horse into the bargain.”

Storm was already climbing the rail wall of the corral. He was more eager than he had been for over a year. Larkin caught at his arm.

“Hey, those aren’t gentled any –”

Storm laughed. “No? But I must prove I’m worth my pay.” He swung around to watch the stallion he had marked in his heart for his own.

2

Reaching down, Storm jerked at the fastening of the corral gate just as the young horse approached that point. The red and grey mount came trotting out without realizing for an important second or two that he was now free.

With a speed that left Larkin blinking, the Terran leaped down beside the hesitant horse. His hands were fast in the red mane, drawing the startled animal’s head down and around toward him. Then he breathed into the stallion’s expanded nostrils, keeping his grip in spite of an attempted rear.

The horse stood shivering when Storm loosed his first hold, to run his hands slowly along the arching neck, up the broad nose, cupping them over the wide eyes for an instant, coming down again to smooth body, legs, barrel. So that at last every inch of the young horse had experienced that steady stroking pressure of the gentling brown hands.

“Got a length of rope?” Storm asked quietly. Larkin was not his sole audience now, and the horse trader took a coil of stout hide twist from one of the other spectators, tossed it to the Beast Master.

The Terran looped it about the horse just behind the front legs. Then in what looked like a single, swift movement he was mounted, his knees braced under the loop, his hands resting lightly on the mane. The stallion shivered again under the grip of the rider’s legs, neighed a protest.

“Look out!” At Storm’s warning the stallion whirled, plunged away into the open with a bound that did not dislodge his rider. The Terran leaned forward so that the coarse hairs of the mane whipped into his face. He was crooning the old, old words that had tied horses and his race together for the countless years of the past, letting the mount race out his fear and surprise.

At last, when the space port lay behind as a scattering of white beads on the red-yellow earth of this land, the Terran used pressure of his knee, the calm authority of his mind, the gentle touch of hand, the encouragement of voice, to slacken the pace, to turn the now trotting horse back to the corral.

But Storm did not halt by the knot of waiting men, heading instead for the globular trunked tree where his team lazed. The stallion, catching the alien and frightening scent of cat, tried to shy. But Storm spoke soothingly. Surra got to her feet and strolled forward, her leash trailing across the beaten earth. When the stallion would have attacked, the Terran applied knee pressure, the murmur of voice, the weight of mental command, as he had learned to control the team.

So it was the cat that raised forepaws from the ground, sitting well up on her haunches so that those yellow slits of eyes were not far below the level of the foam-flecked muzzle. The stallion’s head tossed restlessly and then he quieted. Storm laughed.

“Do you hire me?” he called to Larkin.

The horse trader stared his wonder. “Boy, you can sign on as breaker any time you’ve a mind to stack your saddle in my camp! If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes I’d have said some harsh things about double-tongued liars! That there animal’s your trail horse, if you want to fork him all the way to the Crossin’. And what are these here?”

“Baku, African Black Eagle.” The bird mantled at the sound of her name, her proud fierce eyes on Larkin. “Ho and Hing – meerkats –” That clownish pair sniffed high with their pointed noses. “And Surra – a dune cat – all Terran.”

“Cats and horses don’t rightly mix –”

“So? Yet you have seen these two meet,” countered Storm. “Surra is no wild hunter, she is well-trained, and as a scout also.”

“All right,” Larkin was grinning. “You’re the Beast Master, son, I’ll take your word for it. We hit the trail this afternoon. Got your kit?”

“I’ll have it.” Storm rode the stallion back to the corral to turn him in with the rest of the herd.

The trail herd was compactly organized by a man who knew his business. Storm had high standards, but he approved of what he saw some two hours later when he joined the party. Ransford and Lancin accompanied him from the veterans’ muster-out, willing to hire on as riders for the sheer pleasure of plunging at once into their normal routine of life. Joining with the Terran they bought a small two-wheeled cart for their kit, one that could be hooked on to the herd supply wagon. And when that was packed the meerkats climbed to the top for a ride, while Baku and Surra could be carried or range as they wished.

Storm accepted Lancin’s advice in shopping for his own trail equipment, following the veteran’s purchases at the space port stores. At the last he changed into the yoris-hide breeches, lined with frawn fabric, tough as metal on the outside and almost as durable as steel, worn with high boots of the same stuff in double thickness. A frawn shirt of undyed silver-blue took the place of his snug green tunic, and he left the lacings on the breast untied in imitation of his companions’ informal fashion, enjoying the freedom of the new soft wear.

Before he left the Centre he had obediently exchanged the deadly blaster of service issue for a permitted stun ray rod and the hunting knife of the frontiersman. And now as he settled the broad-brimmed hat of local vintage on his thick black hair and looked into the mirror of the dressing room, Storm was startled at the transformation clothes alone could make. He had further proof of that a short time later when he joined Larkin unrecognized.

Storm smiled. “I’m your breaker – remember?”

Larkin chuckled. “Boy, you look like you were born centre-square down in the Basin! This all your kit? No saddle?”

“No saddle.” The light pad he had contrived, the simple headstall, were his own devices. And no one who had watched his taming of the stallion questioned his choices when he again bestrode the red and grey horse for the ride out.

On Arzor, galactic civilization was an oasis built around the space port. As they left that cluster of structures behind and moved south into the haze of the late afternoon, Storm filled his lungs thankfully, his eyes on that range of mountains beyond. There was a flap of wings and Baku spiralled up into the mauve sky, tasting in her turn the freedom of the new world, while Surra lay at ease on the cart and yawned, lazing away the hours before the coming of night, her own special time for exploring.

The road swiftly became a track of earth-beaten hard stone, but Storm knew that Larkin intended to cut across the open lands, making use of the quickly growing wet-season grass for the herd. This was spring and the tough yellow-green vegetation was still tender and thick. In three months more or less the mountain-born rivers would dry up, the lush grass carpet would wither, and trail herds must cease to move until the coming of fall produced a second wet period to revive the land for another short space of a few weeks.

When they camped that night Larkin appointed guards, with a changing schedule, in four-hour shifts.

“Why guards?” Storm questioned Ransford.

“Might not be needed this close to where the law runs,” the veteran agreed. “But Put wants to get his schedule working before we do hit the wilds. This herd’s good stock, worth a lot in the Basin. Let the Butchers stampede us and they could gather up a lot of the loose runners. And, in spite of what Dort Lancin says, there’re a lot of Norbie clans who don’t care too much about working for their pay in horses. Outer fringe tribes raid to get fresh blood to build up their studs. Breeding stock such as this will bring them sniffing around in a hurry. Then there are yoris – horse is tasty meat as far as those brutes are concerned and a yoris kills more than just its dinner when it gets excited. Let that big lizard stink reach a horse and he high tails it as fast as he can pick up those hoofs and set ‘em down!”

Surra aroused from her nap, stretched cat fashion, and then came to Storm. He hunkered down to meet her eye to eye, in his mind outlining the dangers to be watched for. She was already familiar, he knew, with the scent of every man in the herding crew, and with every horse, either ridden or running free. Whatever or whoever did not belong about camp during the hours of the night would have Surra’s curiosity to reckon with. Ransford watched her pad away after her briefing.

“You put her on patrol too?”

“Yes. I don’t think any yoris can beat Surra. Saaaa –” He hissed the rallying call and Ho and King tumbled into the firelight, climbing over his legs to rear against his chest and pat him lovingly.

“What are they good for?” Ransford asked. They wear pretty big claws, but they’re small to be fighters –”

Storm fondled the grey heads with their bandit masks of black about the alert eyes. “These were our saboteurs,” he replied. “They dig with those claws and uncover things other people would like to keep buried. Brought a lot of interesting trophies back to base, too. They’re born thieves, drag all sorts of loot to their dens. You can imagine what they did to delicate enemy installations in the field –”

Ransford whistled. “So that’s what happened when the power for those posts on Saltair failed and our boys were able to cut their way in! Say – you ought to take them up to the Sealed Caves. Maybe they could get you in there and you’d be able to claim the government reward –”

“Sealed Caves?” At the Centre, Storm had learned what he could of Arzor, but this was something that had not appeared on the Emigrant Agency’s record tapes.

“They’re one of the tall tales of the mountains,” Ransford supplied. “You ought to hear Quade talk about them. He knows a lot about the Norbies, went through the drink-blood ceremony with one of their big chiefs. So they told him about the caves. Seems that either the Norbies were more civilized once – or else we weren’t the first off-worlders to find Arzor. The natives say there are cities, or what used to be cities, back in the mountains. And that the “old people” who built them went inside these caves and walled up the doors behind them. The big brains down at Galwadi got excited about it one year – sent in some expeditions. But the water is scarce up there, and then the war blew up and stopped all that sort of thing. But they posted a reward for the fella who finds them. Forty full squares of land and four years import privileges free.” Ransford wriggled down into his blankets and pillowed his head on his saddle. “Dream about it, kid, while you’re riding herd circle.”

Storm deposited the meerkats on his own blanket roll where they crept under cover. Baku, one leg drawn up into her under-feathers in the bird of prey’s favourite sleeping position, was perched on the rim of the baggage cart. And he knew that both the animals and the bird would remain quiet unless he summoned them to action.

The stallion that he had named Rain-On-Dust because of its markings was too untried for night herding. So the Terran pad-saddled a well-broken mount Larkin had assigned him as second string. He rode into the dark without any uneasiness. For the past years the night had provided him with a protective shield too many times for him to worry now.

Storm was close to the end of his tour of guard duty when he caught Surra’s silent alarm – that swift mind flicker, cutting as keenly as her claws. There was trouble shaping to the northeast. But what – or who –?

He turned his mount in that direction, to hear a squall of cat rage. Surra was giving tongue in open warning now, and Storm caught an answering shout from the camp. He snatched his night beam from the loops on his belt, flashed it on full strength ahead of him, and caught in its path a glimpse of a serpentine scaled head poised to strike. A yoris!

The horse under him plunged, fought against his control, screaming in terror as the musky scent of the giant lizard reached them and the harsh hissing of the yoris hurt their ears. Storm gave attention to his own coming battle, having little fear for Surra. The dune cat was a good and wary fighter, used to strange surprises on alien worlds.

But with all his skill Storm could not force the horse to approach the scaled menace. So he jumped free, into the taint of reptile reek, borne downwind, wafting on to the herd beyond, where hoofs pounded hard on the earth. The loose horses were stampeding.

That part of Storm’s mind that was not occupied with the action at hand, speculated on the oddity of this attack. From all accounts the yoris was a wary stalker, a clever wily hunter. Why had the creature headed in tonight with the wind to carry its scent ahead to frighten the meat it hungered for? There was no yoris hatched that could match speed with a panic-stricken horse, and the lizard had to depend upon a surprise attack to kill.

Now, cornered and furious, the scaled creature squatted back upon its haunches, its fearsomely taloned forelegs pumping like machine pistons in its efforts to seize Surra. If the enraged eight-foot reptile was brute strength at bay, the cat was fluid attack, teasing, tempting, always just a fraction out of reach. Storm whistled an urgent call to pierce the hissing of the lizard.

He did not have long to wait. Baku must already have been roused by the clamour. Though the night was not the eagle’s favourite hunting time, she came now to deliver the “kill” stroke of her breed. Talons, which were sickle-shaped, needle-sharp daggers, struck at scales while wings beat about the eyes of the yoris. The lizard flung up its head trying to snap at the eagle, exposing for just the needed instant the soft underthroat. Storm fired a full charge of his stun rod at that target. Meant to shock the nerves and render the victim momentarily unconscious, the impact of a full clip on the throat of the yoris was like the swift sure jerk of a hangman’s noose. It choked, beat the air with struggling forefeet, and collapsed.

Storm, knife in hand, leaped forward, moved by the battle reflexes drilled into him. Viscid blood spurted across his hand as he made certain that particular yoris would never hunt again.

Though the yoris was dead, it had lived long enough to bring the orderly herd close to disaster. Had the attack occurred when they were deeper into the wastes, Larkin would have had little chance of retrieving many of the horses. But, though the stampede carried the animals into the wilderness, the mounts were fresh off the space transports and not yet wholly acclimated, so the riders had hopes of rounding them up, though to do so they must now lose valuable days of travel time.

It was almost noon on the morning after the stampede that Larkin rode up to the supply wagon, his face gaunt, his eyes very tired.

“Dort!” He hailed the veteran who had come in just before him. “I’ve heard there’s a Norbie hunting camp down on the Talarp. Some of their trackers could give us twice as much range now.” He slid down from his overridden mount and stalked stiff-legged to the wagon to eat. “You talk finger-speech. Suppose you ride over and locate them. Tell the clan chief I’ll pay a stud out of the bunch for his help – or a couple of yearling mares.” He sighed and drank thirstily from the mug the cook handed him.

“How many did you boys bring in this morning?” he added.

Storm gestured toward the improvised corral they had thrown up to hold the strays as they were driven back.

“Seven. And maybe we’ll have to break a few of them for riding if the rest don’t find more of the regular stock. The few we have can’t take all this work –”

“I know!” Larkin snapped irritably. “You wouldn’t believe those four-footed idiots could run so fast and so far, would you?”

“I could – if they were deliberately driven.” The Terran awaited the results of that verbal bomb.

While both men stared at him, he continued. That yoris attacked with the wind at its back –”

Dort Lancin expelled his breath in an affirmative grunt. “The kid’s got a point there, Put! You could almost believe that lizard wanted to mess us up like this.”

Larkin’s eyes were hard, his mouth a thin, unsmiling line. “If I believed that –!” His hand went to the grip of his stun rod.

Dort laughed angrily. “Who you goin’ to put to sleep, Put? If some guy planned this deal, he’s out there combing the breaks for strays right now, not standing around to wait for you to catch up with him. You’d never set eye on his trail –”

“No, but the Norbies could. Storm, you’re green and from off-world, but you’ve a head on your shoulders. You ride with Dort. If you find any more strays, pick ‘em up. Maybe that educated cat of yours can hold ‘em for you in some cutback. If there was any funny stuff behind that yoris attack, I want a Norbie scout nosin’ around to uncover it.”

Surra could match the pace of the tired horses as they headed toward the distant river bottoms. And Baku rode the air currents above, a fourth and far-searching pair of eyes. By all rights the eagle should locate the native camp first. Storm knew that was true when the black wings spread in a glide and Baku perched on a rock outcrop, her dark plumage very visible against the red of the stone. Having so attracted the Terran’s attention, she took off again, leading them more to the southeast.

The horses, scenting water, quickened pace, winding through a thicket of pallid “puff” bushes where the cottony balls of weird blossoms hung like fur muffs on the leafless branches. Surra, her coat hardly to be distinguished from the normal shade of the alien grass, trotted ahead, sending into the air in terrified leaps some of the odd rodent inhabitants of that limited world.

Dort suddenly drew rein, his hand flung up in warning, so that Storm obeyed his lead. Surra was belly flat and hidden in the grass and Baku came earthward, uttering a sharp, imperative call.

Ok so far”I take it we’re sighted?” suggested Storm quietly.

“We are. But we won’t see a Norbie unless he wants it that way,” Dort returned. “Yaaaah –” he called, dropping his reins on the horse’s neck and raising his hands, palm out.

A physical peculiarity of Norbie throat structure prevented any vocal speech that could either be understood or imitated by the off-world settlers. But there was a well-developed form of communication and Dort employed it now. His fingers moved swiftly, though Storm could hardly separate the signs he made. But his message was understood, for a shadow detached itself from the trunk of a tree and stood out, giving Storm his first sight of a native apart from a tri-dee picture.

The Terran had pored over all the films concerning Arzor at the Centre. They had been exact and colourful, meant to entice settlers to the frontier world. But there is a vast difference between even a cleverly focused and very lifelike tri-dee and the real thing.

This Norbie was tall by Terran standards, very close to seven feet, looming over Storm himself by close to a full twelve inches. And he was exceedingly lean for his height, with two arms, two legs, regular, even handsome humanoid features, a skin of reddish-yellow not far removed from the shade of Arzoran earth. But there was the one distinctive physical attribute that always centred off-world attention to the forehead at a first meeting between Norbie and alien visitor – the horns! Ivory white, they were about six inches long, curling up and back over the hairless dome of the skull.

Storm tried to keep his eyes from those horns, to concentrate instead on Dort’s flying fingers. He must learn finger-talk himself as soon as he could. Then, baffled, he turned his attention to the native’s dress and weapons.

A wide band of yoris hide was shaped into a corselet, which covered the Norbie’s trunk from armpit to crotch, split at the sides over the curve of the hip to allow free leg movement.

The legs in turn were covered with high-legginged boots not unlike those worn as a protection against the thorn shrubs by the settlers. The corselet was doubled in thickness at the waist by another strip of scaled hide serving as a belt, supporting several pocket pouches decorated with designs made by small red, gold, and blue beads, and the ornamented sheath of a knife close to a sword in length, while in his six-digit hands the hunter carried a weapon Storm already knew. It was longer than any Terran bow he had seen, but it was a bow.

Dress, armour, and ornament were combined in one last article of apparel, a wide collar extending to shoulder point on either side, and almost to the waist in front, fashioned entirely of polished yoris fangs. If those had all been taken by this one Norbie, with only a bow and a knife as weapons, then the hunter would have to be respected in any company of fighting men in the galaxy!

Dort dropped his hands to his saddle horn as the native signed a reply. Then he stiffened as the Norbie set arrow shaft to bowstring with a speed that startled the Terran.

“Look out for your cat!”

Storm hissed Surra’s call. She arose out of the masking grass and came to him, the arrow trained upon her unrelentingly. Dort was trying frantic sign-talk. But Storm had his own method of reassurance. Swinging from the saddle pad, the Terran motioned and Surra moved closer, rubbing with feline affection against his legs. Storm went down on one knee and the cat set her forepaws on his shoulders, touching her nose lightly to his cheek.

3

Storm heard a bird-trill and glanced up to meet the astonished yellow eyes of the Norbie, their vertical pupils expanding visibly. The native spoke again in his thin, sharp twitter, a surprising sound to come from the throat of that large body as his fingers flicked a question at Dort.

“Call in that eagle of yours, too, if you can, Storm. You’re rnakin’ a big impression and that can be good for us –”

The Terran scratched Surra under the jaw and behind the ears and then stood up. Spreading his feet a little apart and tensing his shoulders for the shock of Baku’s landing weight, he whistled.

Wide wings beat the air as Baku dropped in a series of spectacular turns. But when those powerful talons gripped Storm’s shoulder they did not pierce flesh. Under the merciless beams of the Arzor noon sun the blue-black plumage had a metallic sheen, and the patch of bright yellow feathers about the cruel blue-grey curve of the beak stood out as if freshly daubed with paint.

“Saaaa –” The Terran’s warning alerted both cat and bird. Feathered head and furred one moved to his signal, and two pairs of predatory, glittering eyes regarded the Norbie with intelligent interest.

That’s done it!” Dort was relieved. “But keep ‘em under control when we go into the camp.”

Storm nodded, staring at the spot where the native had stood only seconds earlier. The Terran prided himself on his own scoutcraft and ability to become a part of the landscape, but this Norbie was better than the best he had ever seen.

“Camp’s down on the river bank.” Dort came out of the saddle. “We walk in. Also –” He drew his stun rod from its holster and fired the ready charge into the air. “You don’t enter with a loaded rod, it’s not considered manners –”

Once more Storm followed the settler’s direction. Baku took off into the sky and Surra paced a yard or so before them, the tip of her tail twitching now and then to betray her interest in her surroundings. There was the scent of strange cooking and stranger living smells, as well as small sounds, coming up slope.

A Norbie camp was not pitched on formal lines. Lengths of kalma wood, easily shaped when wet and iron stiff when dried, had been bent by each householder to form the framework for a hemisphere tent. The hides stretched over that frame were piebald mixtures patched together from the fruits of the individual family’s hunting. Blues of frawn pelts were joined by clever lacing to the silver-yellow scales of young yoris skins, banded in turn with the red fur of river rodents. The largest tent had a complete border about its base and door flap of jewel-bright bird skins set in a pattern of vivid colour.

Storm could see no women as they came down to the cluster of tents. But before each of the dwellings stood Norbie males, young and old, each armed. The scout who had met them on the trail was waiting at the flap of the bird-trimmed lodge.

As if unaware of the silent audience, the off-world men threaded their way to that tent and Dort halted before the chieftain. Storm stood quietly a little behind him, allowing none of his interest in his surroundings to show. Silently he counted some twenty of the rounded tents, and he knew that each housed a full family, which could number up to fifteen or more natives, since a man married into his wife’s clan and joined her family as a younger son until the number of his children increased to make him the head of his own family. Judging by Norbie standards this was a town of some size – of the zamle totem – for a stylized representation of that bird of prey was painted on the name shield before the chieftain’s lodge.

“Storm” – Dort spoke softly as his hand signed a greeting to the impassive natives – “call in that bird of yours again. These are-”

“Zamle clansmen,” the Terran nodded. “So they’ll be favourably impressed by my bird totem?” Again he whistled to summon Baku, bracing himself for the bird’s landing. But this time matters were not to go on smoothly. For, as the eagle came, she screamed a challenge in a way unlike her usual manner. And she did not come to Storm, but threw her body back, presenting her ready talons to the tent as if that hide and fur erection were an enemy.

Storm, startled, hurried forward. Baku had grounded now, walking across the open space before the Norbie chieftain in a crouch, her feathers standing up, wings trailing half open on either side of her black body. She was in a red rage, though the Terran could not see what had aroused her. That is – he did not, until a streak of living green burst from the tent in reply to the eagle’s scream of challenge. Luckily Storm got there first, catching Baku by the legs before she could strike at her attacker.

Screeching in a frenzy the eagle beat her wings, tried to turn her talons on her handler, while Storm exerted all his strength of shoulder and arm to keep her fast, striving at the same time to enforce his mental control as well as the grip of his hands. The Norbie chief had caught up his own feathered champion and was engaged in a similar battle until one of his clansmen flung a small net over the angry zamle. When the green bird had been bundled back into the tent and Baku had been calmed, Storm tossed her onto his riding pad, confining her with jesses so she could not leave that perch until he freed her.

Breathing hard he turned to find the Norbie chief beside him, intent on the eagle. The native’s fingers flew and Dort translated.

“Krotag wants to know if this bird is your totem.”

“It is.” Storm nodded, hoping that that gesture meant the same on Arzor as it had on Terra.

“Storm!” Dort’s excitement broke through the control he had kept on his voice. “Do you have a wound scar you can show in a hurry? Scars mean something here. That will prove you’re a warrior according to their standards – as well as a man with a real fightin’ totem. The chief may even accept you as an equal.”

If scars would help, the Terran was only too willing to oblige. He jerked at the loosely looped lacing of his shirt, pulling the silky material down to bare his left shoulder and display a ragged white line that marked his meeting with a too alert sentry on a planet whose sun was only a faint star in the Arzor night heavens.

“I am a warrior and my fighting totem has saved my life –” He spoke directly to the Norbie chieftain, as if the other understood and did not need Dort’s translation by finger. The other answered in his twittering speech as he moved his hands. Dort grinned.

“You’ve done it, fella. They’ll make drink-talk with us now, seein’ as how you’re a real warrior.”

Krotag’s camp supplied them with five experienced tracker-hunters and Larkin was well pleased, though it was plain the natives considered the stampede as an opportunity graciously arranged for their benefit by the Tall-Ones-Who-Drum-Thunder-in-the-Mountains as a means of adding to their clan wealth in horses.

Now as the riders and the Norbies worked in pairs to bring back the widely scattered animals, it became more and more apparent that Storm had been right in his suggestion that the stampede had been planned. Though even the natives found no identifiable traces of the raiders, it was clear that the horses had been separated into small bands and adroitly concealed in canyons and pocket valleys.

The clues to the identity of the stampeder or stampeders were so conspicuously absent that Storm heard some muttering to the effect that Krotag’s men, now virtuously engaged in hunting the mounts, might well have hidden them in the first place, so they could claim the stallion and the three or four footsore mares Larkin promised them for their services.

Storm wondered about that a day or so later as red dust churned up by trampling hoofs arose about him until he pulled to one side of the bunch he was helping to head in to the gather point. The Terran adjusted the scarf he had tied over nose and mouth, watching another rider who was a distant dot, yet plain because of his white horse. That was Coll Bister. And by all rights Storm owed Bister some gratitude, for it was he who had found and brought in Rain, the horse the Terran now rode. But the ex-Commando couldn’t find any liking for the man. He was one of those most outspoken against the Norbies and in addition he had shown covert hostility toward Storm, for no reason that the Beast Master could understand.

As usual the Terran had kept aloof in the herd camp, using his animals as an excuse for bedding down a little apart from the others. But his skill with horses had won him more ready acceptance than most off-world newcomers could claim. Larkin had turned over to him the breaking of additional mounts to take the place of work horses lost in the stampede, and the men not out on the hunt often gathered to watch him gentle them.

Had he wanted to, Storm might have enjoyed a favourite’s position. His particular gifts, his even temper, and his willingness to carry his share of the tedious herd work, were all qualities the riders could readily appreciate. They were willing to accept Storm’s reticence, which had hardened at the Centre into an encasing shell. To the frontiersmen that ancient planet on which their stock had first been bred was an exotic mystery. It was a great tragedy that Terra was now gone, and naturally a Terran would feel it deeply. The death of his home world tended to lend Storm something close to exiled majesty in Arzoran eyes.

Only with Larkin and Dort Lancin did Storm approach a relationship stronger than just the comradeship of the trail. Dort was teaching him finger-talk and pouring out for his benefit all the Norbie lore he himself had absorbed over the years, displaying toward the Terran the proprietorship of the instructor for an apt pupil. With Larkin the bond was horse, a subject on which both men could talk for hours at the night’s camp-fire.

So he knew Larkin and Dort and liked them in that pallid way that was the closest he was able to come to friendship with one of his own kind nowadays. But Bister was beginning to present a problem, one which he did not want to face. Not that Storm had any fear of physical combat should the other push his dislike that far. Bister bore all the signs of being a top bully, but in a fair fight – in spite of Bister outweighing and over-towering him – Storm was certain of victory.

In a fair fight – Storm’s tongue licked dust from his lips behind his scarf. Why had that thought crossed his mind? And why did it bother him just now to see Bister sitting there as if waiting for him to ride up?

Although Storm had never pushed a fight, neither had he ever directly avoided trouble when it was necessary to face it – not before. Why didn’t he want to come to grips with the problem Bister would present to him sooner or later?

Another rider drew level with Rain and a yellow hand lifted from a braided yoris hide hackamore to sign a greeting. Though the Norbie had followed Storm’s example and drawn a scarf over the lower half of his thin face, the Terran recognized Gorgol, youngest of the scouts Larkin had hired.

“Plenty dust –” The native made signs slowly out of courtesy for Storm’s beginner’s learning. “Ride dry –”

“Clouds – over mountain – does rain come?” Storm signalled back.

The Norbie’s head swung so he could look over his lean shoulder at the red rises now to the east.

“Rain comes – then mud –”

Storm knew that Larkin feared mud. Rain in these wastes, the heavy downpours of spring, could make a sticky morass of all level ground, producing dangerous quagmires.

“You bird totem warrior –” That was a statement, not a question. The Norbie youth rode with an easy grace, matching the pace of his smaller black and white mount to Rain’s stride until he cantered beside the Terran as if they were practising such a manoeuvre for some exhibition.

Storm nodded. Gorgol’s left hand went to a cord about his own neck on which hung two curved objects, black and shiny. There was a shy self-consciousness about the native as he dropped his hand again to sign:

“I no warrior yet – hunter only. Have been in high peaks and killed an evil flyer –”

Storm asked the proper question in return. “An evil flyer? I not of this world – I know not evil flyer –”

“Big!” The Norbie’s fingers spread to their farthest extent making the sign for great size. “Bird – evil bird. Hunt horse –hunt Norbie – kill!” His forefinger and thumb scissored in the emphatic sign for sudden and violent death, then rose again to tap the trophies swinging against the corselet which covered his breast.

Storm stretched out his hand in polite question and the boy pulled the thong from his neck, passing it to the Terran for examination. The objects strung on it were plainly a bird’s claws. And, using the length of Baku’s talons in relation to her thirty-four inches as comparison, the creature that had borne them must indeed have been huge, for each claw measured the length of Storm’s hand from wrist to the end of the longest finger. He returned the necklet to its proud owner.

“You great hunter,” Storm nodded vigorously to underline his finger statement. “Evil flyer must be hard to kill.”

Gorgol’s face might be half hidden by the scarf mask, but his whole person expressed pleasure as he answered.

“I kill for man deed. Not warrior yet – but hunter, yes.”

And well he might boast, Storm thought. If this boy had killed the monster he described while hunting alone – and the Terran had learned enough of Norbie customs from Dort to know that idle boasting was no part of native character – he had every right in the world to claim to be a hunter.

“You be frawn herder?” the Norbie continued.

“No. I have no land – no herd –”

“Be hunter. Kill evil flyer – kill yoris – trade their skins –”

“I stranger,” Storm pointed out, making the signs slowly as he launched bravely into expressing more complicated ideas. “Norbies hunt Norbie lands – off-world men do not so hunt –”

The hunting law was one of the few rigidly enforced by the loosely knit government of Arzor, as the Terran had been warned at the Centre and again at the space port. Norbie rights were protected. Herd riders could kill yoris or other predatory creatures attacking their stock. But any animal living in the mountains, or in the native-held sections of the plains was taboo as far as the settlers were concerned.

Gorgol objected. “You bird totem warrior – Krotag’s people bird totem – you hunt Krotag’s land – no one say no –”

Far within Storm a feeling stirred faintly, some emotion, frozen on that day when he had returned from a hazardous three months of duty behind the enemy lines to discover that he was a homeless man. He moved restlessly on the saddle pad and Rain snorted nervously, as if the stallion, too, had felt that painful tug. The Terran’s face, beneath his mask, was set in passionless endurance as he fought against that feeble response to Gorgol’s impulsive offer.

“You’re pullin’ it late –” Bister’s dust-hoarsened voice rasped not only on Storm’s ears but on his awakened nerves. “Sure got you a big bunch this time. The goat here lead you to where he had ‘em all salted away nice and neat?”

That new aliveness in Storm rose in answer to the prod of antagonism. He did not like Bister, but he no longer accepted that passively as just another unpleasant fact of his present existence. There might be cause for him to do something positive to counter the other’s needling. The Terran did not know that over the edge of the scarf his eyes, usually better controlled, now gave him away. Coll Bister was more alert to small points than he seemed.

The settler pulled his own scarf away from his mouth and spat. “Maybe you don’t believe these goats have brains enough to plan it all out – eh?”

Storm was more interested in the idle swing of Bister’s right hand. A quirt dragged from the man’s thick wrist, a quirt with an extra-long length of a doubled yoris-hide lash.

“We wouldn’t have found as many horses as we have if Krotag’s men weren’t nosing them out for us.” Storm’s position on the riding pad looked lazy, his hands were well away from the weapons at his belt. But he sensed, with a good moment’s grace in which to act, what was coming, as if he had sucked that knowledge out of the air along with the grit and dust.

That dangling right arm rose as the last straggler of the stray bunch trotted by. It could be that Bister was aiming to snap his quirt at the tired yearling. But Storm did not believe that. A sudden pressure of knee sent Rain forward so that the yoris-hide strap did not strike Gorgol’s bare thigh, but landed in a stinging slap on Storm’s own better protected leg.

Bister had not been prepared for that, nor for what happened next. Storm’s well-timed retaliation sent the bigger man to the ground – the arm that had wielded the quirt temporarily numb to the elbow. With an inarticulate roar of rage Bister struggled to his feet only to go down again, sent sprawling by a Commando blow delivered by the edge of Storm’s open hand. The Terran had thought out his strategy in advance.

To his surprise Bister did not get up to rush him again. Instead when the big man did rise to his feet he stood still, his chest heaving, his face flushed, but making no move to continue the fight.

“We’re not through –” he spat. “I’ve heard about you, Storm. You Commandos can kill a man with your bare hands. All right. Wait until we get to the Crossin’ and let’s see you stand up to a stun meetin’! I’m not done with you – nor with those goat pals of yours neither!”

Storm was bewildered enough to be shaken out of some of his self-confident complacency. Bister’s restraint now did not fit into the type of character he appeared to be. Neither, Storm was certain, was it a case of the Arzoran rider being just all bluster and no bite. Looking down at that flushed face, into the dark eyes raised to his, Storm wondered if he had completely misread Coll Bister. The man was not in the least afraid, he was confident – and he hated! So why had he refused to continue to fight now? The Terran watched the other swing up into the saddle. He would allow Bister to call the next move in the game – until he learned more about the stakes.

“Remember –” Bister’s fingers were busy with his face scarf, ready to jerk the mask up over his square jaw once again – “we aren’t through –”

Storm shrugged. Bister doubtless could bear watching, but there was no advantage to be gained from allowing the other to think so.

“Ride your side of the trail,” he returned shortly, “and I’ll ride mine, Bister. I’m not out to rope trouble.”

The other cantered off and Storm turned to find Gorgol watching that retreat. The Norbie drew level with the Terran once more and his eyes held an unmistakable note of inquiry as he signed:

“He challenged but he did not fight – why?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Storm said and then made more halting finger-talk. “I know not. But he does not like Norbies –” He thought it best to give a warning that might save the boy future trouble with the trail bully.

“So do we know. He thinks we steal horses – hide and then find them for Larkin. Maybe that good trick for Nitra – for wild men of the Peaks. Not for Krotag’s men. We make bargain with Larkin – we keep bargain.”

“Somebody hid those horses, made yoris come to stampede,” Storm observed.

“That true. Maybe outlaws. Many outlaws in mountains. Not Norbies, but raid on Norbie land. Norbie fight – kill!”

Gorgol sent his horse on after the disappearing bunch of strays and Storm followed at a slower pace. The Terran had his own motive for coming to Arzor, for riding into this Basin country. He certainly did not want to become involved in others’ quarrels. Larkin’s stampede had just happened and Storm could do no less than help the trader out, but he was not going to pursue his trouble with Bister, or get pulled into any fight between the settlers and the Norbies.

The threatened rain broke upon them with a wild drumming of thunder that evening. After its first fury it turned into a steady, drenching downpour. And from then on Larkin’s riders had little time to think of anything except the troubles of the trail.

Surra crawled under a tarp on the wagon to join the meerkats, growling her stubborn refusal for any venture into the wet, and even Baku sought shelter. This steady fall of moisture was beyond the team’s past experience and they resented it, a state of mind Storm came to share as, ankle deep in mud, he helped to fill the softer spots of the trail with branches and grass, or rode into the swirling waters of a river to rope and guide loose horses along a line of stakes the Norbies had set up to mark a questionable ford.

By the end of the second day of rain the Terran was sure they could not have advanced a mile without the aid of the native scouts. The mud did not seem to tire the Norbies’ wiry, range-bred horses, though it constantly entrapped the off-world stock. The natives did not display any weariness either as they dashed about ready with a dragrope or an armload of brush to fill in a bad mudhole.

But on the third day it began to clear, and word was passed that two more days’ travel should bring them into the auction town – news they all greeted with relief.

4

The soil had absorbed water like a sponge. Now the heavy heat of the sun drew out in return luxuriant foliage such as Storm would not have guessed this waste could produce. The horses had to be restrained from grazing lest they founder. And the Terran also needed to keep close watch on Ho and King who relished digging in the easily excavated earth. It was almost impossible to believe that after six more weeks of such plenty this country would again be close to desert.

“Pretty, eh?” Dort set his mount to climb a small hillock, joining Storm. The yellow-green ground blanket ahead was patterned with drifts of white, golden, and scarlet flowers. “But wait a month or so and” – he snapped his fingers – “all dried and gone. Just sand and rocks, some of the thorn bushes, and the rest a lot of nothing. Fastest changing country you ever saw!”

“Surely the grazing can’t disappear that fast in the Basin. Or do you have to move the frawn herds continually?”

“No. Give any of this land water and it’ll grow all you need. There’s year “round water in the Basin, and a different kind of grass with long tough roots. You can drive a trail herd through here spring and fall. But you can’t hold animals on range in this district. Prawns are big eaters, too – need a wide range. My dad has seventy squares and he runs about two thousand head on ‘em “round the year.”

“You were born on Arzor, Dort?” Storm asked his first personal question.

“Sure was! My dad had a little spread down Quipawa way then. He was born here, too. We’re First Ship people,” he ended with a flash of pride. “Three generations here now and there’re five spreads runnin’ under our ear notch – my dad’s, me an” my brother’s, my sister and her man’s over in the peninsula country, my Uncle Wagger and his two sons – they have theirs, the Borggy and the Rifts, over on the Cormbal Slopes.”

“A good world to come back to –” Storm’s gaze swept over the level land eastward to those mountains that had called him since he had first sighted them.

“Yes.” Dort glanced at Storm and then quickly away again. “It’s good country – wide. A man can ride free here. Me – when I was in the forces and saw Grambage and Wolf Three and some of those other worlds where people live all stuck together – well, it wouldn’t suit me.” Then, as if his curiosity pushed him past politeness, he said:

“Seems like you knew a country like this once, you act right at home –”

“I did – once. Not the same colours – but desert and mountains, short springs to make a waste bloom – dry, dead summers – hot sun – open range –”

That burn-off wasn’t war – it was plain murder!” Dort’s face was flushed, anger against the irredeemable past alight in his eyes.

Storm shrugged. “It is done now.” He lifted his reins and the stallion single-footed it down the other side of the hillock.

“Say, kid,” Dort caught up with him again, “you’ve heard about the land grants open for veterans –”

“I was told – ten squares to a qualified settler.”

“Twenty to a Terran,” the other corrected. “Now me and my brother, we’ve got us a nice spread on the eastern fork of the Staffa and beyond that the land is clear to the Paszo Peaks. If you aren’t going to stay on with Larkin and run herd, you might ride on with me and take a look in that direction. It’s good country – dry around the edges maybe – but the Staffa doesn’t give out even in high-sun season. You could bite out your twenty squares clear up to the Peaks. Quade has a section there –”

“Brad Quade? I thought his holdings were in the Basin –”

“Oh, that’s his big spread. He’s First Ship family, too, though he did a hitch in Survey and has gone off-world other times. He’s imported horses and tried Terran sheep here. Sheep didn’t last, the groble beetles infected them the first year. Anyway, he set up the Peak place for his son –”

“His son?” Storm’s dark face remained expressionless, but he was listening very closely now.

“Yes. Logan’s just a kid and he and Brad don’t rub along together too smooth. The kid doesn’t like just herding – goes off with the Norbies a lot and is as good as one of their scouts at tracking. He tried to get in the forces here, raised merry Hades down at the enlistment centre when they wouldn’t take him because of his age. So Brad gave him this wilder grant down at the Peaks about two years ago and told him to take out his fight on taming that. Haven’t heard how he’s made out lately.” Dort laughed. “Home news took a while catching up with our outfit while we were star shootin’.”

“Hey!” Larkin’s shout was a summons to them both. “Ride circle, you two, we want them bedded down here –”

Storm rode to the right while Dort took the left. To bed down here meant they would wait to hit the Crossing late tomorrow. Larkin wanted to rest the horses before the auction. As he rode, the Terran was thinking. So Brad Quade had a son, had he, a fact which altered Storm’s plans somewhat. He had been willing to confront Quade where and when he found him and have their quarrel out. He still wanted to see Quade, of course he did! Why did the fact that his enemy had a family make any difference? Storm pushed that last puzzle to a dead end without solving it.

He carried through his duties with his usual competence, glad to be busy. The rest of the men were in a festive mood. Even the Norbies twittered among themselves and made no move to leave the camp after they collected their pay. Here the party would split up – the veterans who had joined for the trip at the space port would now ride on to their own spreads or light and tie for the big owners who were coming to buy at the auction, which was also an informal hiring depot. This was one of the two big yearly gatherings that broke the usual solitude of the range seasons, and was a mixture of business, fair, and carnival, attracting the whole countryside.

“Storm.” Larkin sat down by the Terran where he was settled cross-legged near the fire, the meerkats wrestling playfully before him, Surra lazily tonguing her paws at his back. “You planning to take up land? Law gives you rights to a nice piece –”

“Not now. Dort was talking about the Staffa River country – running up to the Peaks. I may ride on to see it –” One excuse for remaining foot-loose was as good as another, the Terran thought wearily.

Larkin brightened. “That’s good grazin’ land – the Peak country. I’ve been thinkin’ some of that lately myself. Me, I’ve been doin’ pretty well at importin’ horses. But there aren’t goin’ to be many more brought in from off-world. Sure, we can buy ‘em like these – or other fancy stuff from Argol. But that’s a lighter breed, not suited to range work. The old Terran stock is gone. So I’ve a plan runnin’ around in my head. I’d like to round me up some good basic stock – some of these we got right out here in the herd, and some range stuff of at least two generations Arzoran breeding, plus a few mounts out of the Norbie camps. Mix ‘em and see what I can do “bout buildin’ up a new strain –a horse that needs less water, can live off scrub-feed ground, and follow a frawn drift without givin’ out at the end of one day’s trottin’. Now, son, you’re a master hand with animals. You ride down there and cast an eye over the Peak country. If you’re willin’ – look me up here at the fall auction and we’ll see about a partnership deal –”

Again that tug deep inside, a blow at the wall he had built around himself. Three times now Storm had been offered a possible future – by Gorgol, by Dort, and now by Larkin. He shifted slightly and used the evasive tactics he had developed as protective armour at the Centre.

“Let me see the land first, Larkin. We can talk it over in the fall-”

But long before fall he should meet with Brad Quade – Brad Quade and maybe his son Logan into the bargain.

Partly to get away from his own thoughts, Storm allowed Dort to persuade him to visit the Crossing at night, leaving his team in camp and riding with Lancin and Ransford into a town that made him blink a little, it was so unlike other villages.

Arzoran settlements such as this one were almost a hundred Terran years old now. Yet there was a kind of raw newness about them that Storm had not seen elsewhere. Between the half-yearly explosions of auction week, Irrawady Crossing was close to a ghost town, though it was the only village in several thousand squares of range land. Tonight the town was roaring, wide open. Life here was certainly far removed from the peace Storm had known on Terra, or the regimentation and discipline of the Centre.

The four from the trail camp had no more than stabled their horses when they witnessed the end of a personal argument, both men having drawn stun rods with speed enough to drop each other flat and unconscious. And they skirted another crowd moments later, watching another dispute being settled bloodily by fists.

“Boys playful tonight, aren’t they?” inquired Dort, grinning.

“Anybody here ever try to activate a stun gun with a blast bolt?” Storm asked. He was astonished at the grim chill of Ransford’s reply.

“Sure – that’s been done – by outlaws. But any fella who tried to blast wouldn’t last long. We don’t hold with murder. If the boys want to play rough with a stun – and that sure leaves an almighty headache to follow a guy for hours – or try to change another fella’s looks with fists, that’s their right. But blastin’s out!”

“I saw a couple of riders mix it up with Norbie long-knives once,” volunteered Dort. That was a nasty mess and the winner was sent down to Istabu for psychin’. “Course Norbies duel it out to the death when they give a “warrior” challenge. But that’s accordin’ to their customs and we don’t bother ‘em about it. Nobody is allowed to interfere with the tribes –”

Ransford nodded. Tribe wars are somethin’ like religion to a Norbie. A boy has to get him a scar in personal combat before he can take a wife or speak up in council. There’s a regular system of points for a man to gather “fore he can be a chief –all pretty complicated. Hey, fella, take it easy!”

A man caromed into Dort, nearly carrying the veteran off his feet. Dort fended him off with a good-natured shove. But the other whirled, moving with better coordination than his weaving progress predicted. Storm went into action as the rod came from the other’s holster, not trained at the bewildered Dort, but directly at Storm.

The ex-Commando moved with trained precision. His rising hand struck the man’s wrist, sending the stun rod flying before a finger could press the firing button. But the other was not licked. With a tight little strut he bounced forward, to meet a whirlwind attack. The stranger was out on his feet before any of the men passing really understood that a scuffle was in progress.

Storm, breathing a little faster, stood rubbing one hand against the other, looking down at the now unconscious rider. Did local etiquette demand that he now dispose of his late opponent in some manner, he wondered. Or did one just leave a loser where he fell?

He stooped, hooked his hands in the slumberer’s armpits, and dragged him with some difficulty – since he was a large man and now a dead weight – to prop him against the side of a neighbouring building. As the Terran straightened up he saw a shadowy figure in the dusk turn and walk abruptly away. There was no mistaking Bister’s outline as he passed the garish lights of a café. Had this rider been sent against Storm by Bister? And why couldn’t, or didn’t, Coll Bister fight his own battles?

“By the Great Horns!” Dort bore down on him. “What did you do then? Looked as if you only patted him gentle like, until he went all limp and keeled over like a rayed man! Only you didn’t pull your rod at all.”

“Short and quick,” commented Ransford. “Commando stuff?”

“Yes.”

But Ransford showed none of Dort’s excitement. Take it easy, kid,” he warned. “Make a parade of bein’ a tough man and a lot of these riders may line up to take you on. We don’t use blasters maybe, but a man can get a pretty bad poundin’ if a whole gang moves in on him – no matter how good he is with his hands –”

“When have you ever seen the kid walkin’ stiff-legged for a fight?” Dort protested. “Easiest-goin’ fella in camp, an” you know it! Why did you jump that guy anyway, Storm?”

“His eyes,” the Terran replied briefly. “He wanted to make it a real fight.”

Ransford agreed. “Had his rod out too quick, Dort, and he pulled it for the kid, too. He was pushin’. Only don’t push back unless you have to, Storm.”

“Aw, leave the kid alone, Ranny. When did he ever make fight-talk on the fingers?”

Ransford chuckled. “It wasn’t the fingers he used for his fight-talk – mostly the flat of his hand. I’m just warnin’ him. This is a hot town tonight and you’re from off-world, Storm. There’re a lot of chesty riders who like to pick on newcomers.”

Storm smiled. That I’m used to. But thanks, Ransford, I’ll walk softly. I never have fought for the fun of it.”

That’s just it, kid, might be better if you did. Leave you alone and you’re as nice and peaceful as that big cat of yours. But I don’t think she’d take kindly to anyone stampin’ on her tail, casual-like. Well, here’s the Gatherin’. Do we want to see who’s in town tonight?”

Lights, brighter than the illumination of the street, and a great deal of noise issued out of the doorway before them. The structure assembled under one roof, Storm gathered, all the amenities of bar, theatre, club, and market exchange, and was the meeting place for the more respectable section of the male population – regular and visiting – of Irrawady Crossing.

The din, the lights, the assorted smells of cooking, drinks, and horse, as well as heated humanity, struck hard as they crossed the threshold. Nothing he saw there attracted Storm and had he been alone he would have returned to the camp. But Dort wormed a path through the crowd, boring toward the long table where a game of Kor-sal-slam was in progress, eager to try his luck at the game of chance that had swept through the Confed worlds with the speed of light during the past two years.

“Ransford! When did you get back?”

Storm saw a hand drop on the veteran’s shoulder, half turning him to face the speaker. It was a hand almost as brown as his own. And above it, around that equally brown wrist –! Storm did not betray the shock he felt. There was only one place that particular ornament could come from. For it was the ketoh of the Dineh – the man’s bracelet of his own people developed from the old bow-guard of the Navajo warrior! And what was it doing about the wrist of an Arzoran settler?

Without realizing that he was unconsciously preparing for battle, the Terran moved his feet a little apart, bracing and balancing his body for either attack or defence, as his eyes moved along the arm, clothed conventionally in frawn fabric, up to the face of the man who wore the ketoh. The stranger and Ransford had drawn a little apart, and now in his turn Storm shifted back against the wall, wanting to watch them without being himself observed.

The face of the settler was as brown as his hand – a weather-burned brown. But his were not Navajo features – though the hair above them was as black as Storm’s own. And it was a strong, attractive face with lines of good humour bracketing the wide mouth, softening the almost too-firm line of the jaw, while the eyes set beneath rather thick brows were a deep blue.

Storm was not too far away to hear Ransford’s return cry of “Quade!”

He had caught the hand from his shoulder and was shaking it vigorously. “I just got in, rode herd for Larkin down from the Port. Say, Brad, he’s got some good stuff in his new stud string –”

The wide mouth curved into a smile. “Now that’s news, Ranny. But we’re glad to have you back, fella, and in one unbroken piece. Heard a lot of black talk about how bad things were going out there – toward the end –”

“Our Arzor outfit got into it late. Just one big battle and some moppin’ up. Say – Brad, I want you to meet –”

But Storm took two swift steps backward, to be hidden by a push of newcomers, and Ransford could not see him. For once it was useful to be smaller than the settler breed.

“Queer –” The veteran’s voice carried puzzlement. “He was right here behind me. Off-worlder and a good kid. Rode herd down for Larkin and can he handle horses! Terran –”

“Terran!” repeated Quade, his smile gone. Those dirty Xiks!” His words became highly flavoured and combined some new expressions Storm did not recognize. All worlds, it seemed, developed their own brand of profanity. “I only hope the devils who planned that burn-off were cooked in their turn – to a crisp! Your man deserves every break we can give him. I’ll look him up – any good horseman is an asset. I hear you’re going out to the Vakind –”

They moved on but Storm remained where he was, surprised and not a little ashamed to find that the hands resting on the belt about his flat middle were trembling a little.

A meeting such as this did not match with the nebulous plans he had made. He wanted no curious audience when he met Quade – and then each of them should have a blaster – or better still – knives! Storm’s settlement with his man must not be one of the relatively bloodless encounters of Arzoran custom but something far more decisive and fatal.

The Terran was about to go out when a bull-throated roar rising above the clamour in the room halted him.

“Quade!” The man who voiced that angry bellow made Brad Quade seem almost as slender as a Norbie.

“Yes, Dumaroy?” The warmth that had been in his voice while he spoke with Ransford was gone. Storm had heard such a tone during his service days – that inflection meant trouble. He stayed to watch with a curiosity he could not control.

“Quade – that half-baked kid of yours has been ridin’ wild again – stickin’ his nose in where it isn’t wanted. You pull herd guard on him, or someone’s goin’ to do it for you!”

That someone being you, Dumaroy?” The ice thickened into a glacial deposit.

“Maybe. He roughed up one of my boys out on the Peak Range –”

“Dumaroy!” There was the snap of a quirt in that and the whole room was silent, men edging in about the two as if they expected some open fight. “Dumaroy, your rider roughed up a Norbie and he got just what he deserved in return. You know what trouble with the natives can lead to – or do you want to have a knife feud sworn on you?”

“Norbies!” Dumaroy did not quite spit, but his disgust was made eloquently plain. “We don’t nurse Norbies on my spread. And we don’t take kindly to half-broke kids settin’ up to tell us how to act. Maybe you goat-lovers up here like to play finger-wriggle with the big horns – We don’t, and we don’t trust ‘em either –”

“A knife feud –”

Dumaroy interrupted. “So they swear a knife feud. And how long will that last if my boys clean out their camps and teach ‘em a good lesson? Those goats run fast enough when you show your teeth at ‘em. They sure have the finger-sign on you up here –”

Quade’s hand shot out, buried fingers in the frawn fabric that strained across the other’s wide chest.

“Dumaroy –” He still spoke quietly. “Up here we hold to the law. We don’t follow Mountain Butcher tricks. If the Peak country needs a little visit from the Peace Officers, be sure it’s going to get just that!”

“Better change your rods to blast charges if you ride on another man’s range to snoop.” Dumaroy twisted out of the other’s hold with a roll of his thick shoulders.

“We tend to our own business and we don’t take to meddlers from up here. If you don’t want to have your pet goats tickled up some, give them the sign to keep away from our ranges. And they’d better not trail any loose stock with ‘em either! And, if I were you, Quade, I’d speak loud and clear to that kid of yours. When Norbies get excited, they don’t always look too close at a man’s face before they plant an arrow in his middle. I’m serving notice here and now” – his glance swept from Quade to the other men about him – “the Peaks aren’t goin’ to be ruled from the Basin. If you don’t like our ways – stay out! You don’t know what’s goin’ on back in the hills. These tame goats who ride herd around here aren’t like the high-top clans. And maybe the tame ones will learn a few lessons from the wild ones. Been a lot of herd losses in the last five months-and that Nitra chief, old Muccag, he’s been makin’ drum-magic in the mountains. I say somethin’ bigger than a tribe war is cookin’. And we ain’t goin’ to have goats camped on our ranges when the arrow is passed! If you’ve any sense, the rest of you, you’d think that way too.”

Storm was puzzled. This had begun as a personal quarrel between Quade and Dumaroy. Now the latter was attempting to turn the encounter into an argument against the natives. It was almost as strange as Bister’s early actions. He sensed an undercurrent that spelled danger.

5

The Terran was so intrigued by that problem that he did not see Quade turn until he was aware, suddenly, that the Basin settler was staring at him. Those blue eyes were searching, oddly demanding, and there was a shadow of something that might have been recognition in them. Of course that was impossible. To his knowledge he and Quade had never met. But Arzoran was coming toward him and Storm stepped back, confident that outside in the half-light of the street the other could not find him unless he willed it.

But Storm did not move so fast that a startled cry of warning did not reach him. Had it not been for that call and perhaps the fact that his attacker was overeager, the Terran might have gone down with a Norbie long-knife driven home between his shoulders, to cough out his life in the dusty roadway. But the ex-Commando had lived long enough under constant danger so that once more his reflexes took over, and he dived to the right, bringing up against the wall of a building, as someone rushed past him. That half-seen figure flashed into the obscuring dark of an alleyway, but the light reflected from a naked blade as he went.

“Did he get you?”

Storm swung around, his hand on his own knife hilt. The light from the Gatherin’ showed him Brad Quade standing there.

“Saw that knife swing,” Quade elaborated. “Did he mark you?” Storm stood away from the wall. “Not at all,” he answered in the same gentle voice he had used at the Centre. “I have to thank you, sir.”

“I’m Brad Quade. And you?”

But Storm could not force himself to take the hand the other held out to him. This was all wrong and he could not go ahead with a scene differing so far from the one he had visualized all these years. He had been pushed off base and he had to get fast, no matter how many would-be assassins lurked in the alley mouths of Irrawady Crossing. Would his name mean anything to Quade? He doubted it, but he could not really be sure. Yet he could not give a false one. His quarrel with this man was not one to be cloaked with tricks and lies.

“I’m Storm,” he replied simply, and bowed, hoping that the other would believe the meeting of hands was not a greeting custom of his kind, since manners varied widely from planet to planet and his accent ruled him off-world.

“You’re Terran!”

Quade was too quick, yet again Storm could not bring himself to deny anything.

“Yes.”

“Quade! Hey, Brad Quade! You’re wanted on the corn-talk –” a man hailed from the door of the Gatherin’. As the settler looked around Storm faded away. He was sure the other would not pursue him through the town.

Carefully, with attention alerted to any pitfalls or possible ambush sites ahead, Storm went back to the stable. But he did not breathe easily until he was mounted on Rain and riding out of the Crossing with the firm intention of keeping away from that town in the future.

Months before he had worked out an imagined meeting with Quade to the last tiny detail, a very satisfactory meeting. He, Storm, would select the proper time and place, make his accusation – to a man who did not fit the pattern of the Brad Quade he had seen tonight. This Quade was not at all the passive villain he had pictured him to be.

And their business could not be transacted on the crowded street of a frontier town just after Quade had probably saved his life. He wanted – he had to have – his own kind of a meeting.

Storm shied from following that line of reasoning. He did not honestly know why he had run – yes, he had run – from Quade tonight. He had come to Arzor only to meet Quade – but which Quade, the figure he had created to justify his action, or the man he had met? His actions were becoming as hard to understand as Bister’s –

No, Storm’s heel touched Rain and the horse obediently broke into a gallop. There was nothing wrong with his motives – Quade deserved what Storm had to bring him. What if the settler’s warning had saved his life? It wasn’t any personal wrong of his own he had come to avenge – he could not cancel Quade’s debt to the dead!

But the Terran did not sleep well that night, and he volunteered as a herd-holder as Larkin took the first of the string in to the crossing for showing in the morning. It was midday when the trader returned, well satisfied with the morning’s sales. And he brought a stranger with him.

Though Storm did not know the man, the earth-brown uniform he wore was familiar enough, being that of Survey. And he had met other men of that service, had studied under them, in the training camp of the Beast Masters. Nor was he greatly surprised when Larkin beckoned him over.

“Sorenson, archaeologist,” the Survey man introduced himself, the crisp galactic speech overlaid with the faint lisp of a Lydian-born.

“Storm, Beast Master, retired –” the Terran replied as formally. “What can I do for you, Specialist Sorenson?”

“According to Larkin you haven’t signed up with any outfit yet and you don’t plan to apply for a land grant just at present. Are you free for a scout engagement?”

“I’m off-world, new here,” Storm pointed out. But he was excited, this was a perfect answer to his immediate problems. “I don’t know the country –”

Sorenson shrugged. “I’ve Norbie guides, a settler pack master. But Larkin tells me you have kept your team intact – I know the work such a team can do and I can use you –”

“I have my team, yes –” Storm nodded toward his bedroll. Surra sprawled there, blinking in the sun, the meerkats chittering beside her, while Baku perched on the rim of the supply cart. “Dune cat, meerkats, African eagle –”

“Good enough.” Sorenson only glanced at the animals. “We’re heading into desert country. Have you heard of the Sealed Caves? There is a chance they may be located down in the Peak section.”

“I’ve heard, also, that they are a legend.”

“We got a little more accurate information recently. That territory’s largely unmapped and your services will be useful. We have a government permit for pot-hunting.”

“Sounds like a good deal, kid,” Larkin spoke up. “You wanted to look over the Peaks. You’ll get your pay from me in horses –and you can either sell ‘em at auction or you can keep that stallion you’ve been riding and take the black pack mare for your gear, and let me put up the other two. If you find a likely range down there, stick up your stakes and register it when you come back –”

“Also, you can take your scout pay in a government land voucher,” Sorenson added quickly. “Useful if you want to stake out in new country. Or use it for an import permit –”

Storm stirred. He felt pushed, and that aroused opposition. On the other hand, the expedition would take him away from the Crossing and from both the knifer – whoever he might be –and Quade until he could decide about the latter. Also – the Peak country held Logan Quade and he wanted to know more about that young man.

“All right,” he agreed, and then instantly wished that he had not, but it was too late.

“Sorry to hurry you, Storm” – Sorenson was all brisk efficiency now – “only we pull out early tomorrow morning. The mountain rains won’t last too much longer and we have to count on them for our water supply. That’s pretty arid country up there and we’ll have to leave it anyway at the beginning of the big dry. Bring your own camp kit – we will furnish the rest of the supplies –”

Over Sorenson’s thin shoulder Storm caught sight of a pair of riders rounding the wagon. Ransford – and Brad Quade! At the moment they were looking at the horses, but a slight turn of the head would bring Storm into the settler’s line of vision.

“Where do I meet you to move out?” the Terran asked quickly.

“East of town, by the river ford – that grove of yarvins, about five –”

“I’ll be there,” Storm promised and then spoke to Larkin. I’ll keep Rain and the mare as you suggest. We’ll settle for the auction price of the others when I get back.”

Larkin was grinning happily as the Survey man left. “Keep your eyes open around the Peaks, son, and stake a good stretch of land. Give us three-four years and we’ll have us some colts that’ll beat anything even imported from Terra! That pack mare – she’s the best of the lot for a rough trip, steady old girl. Any of your kit you want to store, just leave it in the wagon, I’ll see to it –”

Storm was too impatient to wonder at Larkin’s helpfulness. He wanted to be out of sight before Quade came away from the improvised corral. But escape was not to be so easily achieved. It was Ransford who hailed him.

“Storm!” That shout was so imperative the Terran dared not ignore it and waited for the other to come up. “Look here, kid, Quade told me about your being jumped by a knife-man in town – what kind of trouble are you in anyway?”

“None – that I know of –”

But the other was frowning. “I tried to find out somethin’ about that rider you put to sleep – but nobody knew him. Sure it wasn’t him waitin’ for you?”

“Might have been – I just sighted a shadow with a knife – never saw his face,” Storm longed to get away. Quade was dismounting and he was sure the settler would join them.

“I put Dort to askin’ around some,” Ransford continued. “He knows men in about nine-tenths of the outfits here for the auction. If anyone is out to get your hide, he’ll hear about it – then we can take some action ourselves –”

Why was everyone so interested in his affairs? Storm wanted desperately, at that moment, to snake Rain out of the picket lines, call his team, and ride off alone into the wilderness. He did not want such solicitude, in fact it scraped raw some nerve he had not known he possessed. He asked nothing but to be left alone, to go his own way. Yet here was Larkin – and Ransford – and Dort – and even the Norbie, Gorgol, all with splendid little plans, or concern, or helpful hints for him. Storm could not understand why – any more than he knew why Bister wanted to make trouble for him.

“If anyone is gunning for me,” he returned as well as he could without betraying his rising irritation, “it won’t do him any good after tomorrow morning. I’ve signed up as scout for a Survey expedition and am leaving town.”

Ransford gave a sigh of relief. “That’s usin’ your head, kid. Maybe this hothead got a skinful of tharman juice last night and when he sobers up he’ll have forgotten all about it. Which way you headed?”

“To the Peaks.”

The Peaks –” That echo came from Quade. Then the settler added in a language Storm had never thought to hear another speak again:

“Where do you ride, man of the Dineh?”

“I do not understand you,” Storm answered in galactic one-speech.

Quade shook his head, his blue eyes measuring Storm astutely.

“You are Terran,” he switched to the common tongue of the spaceways, “but also you are Navajo –”

“I am Terran – now a man of no planet,” Storm replied shortly. “I do not understand you.”

“I think that you do,” Quade countered, but there was no abruptness in that, only a kind of regret. “I overheard you saying that you had signed on as a scout with an expedition into the Peak country. That’s good land down there – look it over. My son has a holding in that district.” His eyes dropped to his hands, twisting his reins. “If you see him –” But Quade did not finish that sentence, ending with another suggestion altogether. “I’d like him to meet you – you are Terran and Navajo. Well, good luck, Storm. If you ever need anything, try my range.” His foot was already in the stirrup and he swung into the saddle, moving off before the Terran could answer – if he had wanted to.

“If you do see Logan,” Ransford broke the silence, “I hope he’s not in trouble up to his chin. That boy’s as hard to ride herd on as a pack of yoris! Pity – Quade’s the easiest man livin’ to rub along with – if you’re straight and doin’ your job right. But he and his own kid can’t be together more”n a week before fire’s bustin’ out all over the range! Nobody can understand why. Logan Quade’s crazy about huntin’, and he with the Norbies a lot. But the kid never did a crooked thing in his life and he’s as decent as his old man. They just can’t seem to live together. It’s a shame, “cause Quade is proud of the boy and wants his son for a partner. If you hear anything good about the kid, tell Quade when you come back – it’ll mean a lot to him – and he’s taken a big likin’ to you, too. Well, good luck, kid – sounds as if you’ve got yourself a good deal. Survey pays well and you can turn their write-off in for an import permit or somethin’ like.”

Storm was disturbed. He wanted none of the information Ransford had supplied. What did Quade’s personal affairs matter to him? In that second brief encounter with his chosen enemy he felt he had lost some advantage he needed badly as a bolster for the future. He had accepted Quade, the enemy, but this other Quade was infringing more and more on his carefully built-up image. He hurried about his preparations for the trip, thankful for the occupation.

Surra sat on his left, the meerkats snuffled, poked, and pried under and around his busy hands as Storm sorted, piled, and made up two packs of his personal belongings. One he must leave with Larkin, the other comprised the kit he would need on the trail. There remained now just one small bundle to explore.

He had left that roll to the last, doubly reluctant to slit the waterproof covering sewed about it on another world, keeping its contents intact for two years. Now Storm sat quietly, his hands resting palm down upon the package, his eyes closed, exploring old roads of memory – roads he had managed to avoid exploring at the Centre. As long as he did not cut the waxed cord, as long as he did not actually see what he was sure must be inside – just so long was he in a way free of the last acceptance of defeat – of acknowledging that there was never to be any return.

What did these men of another race here in camp – or those in the town – or those at the Centre who had watched him so narrowly for months – that Commander who had so reluctantly stamped his freedom papers – what did any of them know of the voices of the Old Ones and how they could come to a man?

How could they understand a man such as his grandfather – a Singer learned in ancient ways, following paths of belief these other races had never walked, who could see things not to be seen, hear things that no others could hear?

Between Storm and the clear beliefs of his grandfather – that grandfather who had surrendered him to schooling as a government ward only under force – there was a curtain of white man’s learning. Good and bad, he had had to accept the new in gulps, unable to pick and choose until he was old enough to realize that behind the outer façade of acceptance he could make his own selection. And by that time it was almost too late, he had strayed far from the source of his people’s inner strength. Twice after he had been taken away by the authorities, Storm had returned to his people, once as a boy, again as a youth before he left Terra on active service. But then always between him and Na-Ta-Hay’s teaching there had been the drift of new ways. Fiercely opposed to those, his grandfather had been almost hostile, grudging, when Storm had tried to recapture a little of the past for himself. Yet some of it had clung, for now there sang through his mind old words, older music, things half-remembered, which stirred him as the wind from the mountains whipped him outwardly, and his lips shaped words not to sound again on the world from which this bundle had been sent.

Slowly, Storm sawed through the tough cord. He must face this now. The outer wrappings peeled off, and Ho and Hing crowded in with their usual curiosity, intrigued by the strange new smells clinging to the contents.

For there were scents imprisoned here – he could not be imagining that. The tightly woven wool of the blanket rasped his fingers, he saw and yet did not want to see the stripes of its pattern, red, white, blue-black, serrated concentric designs interrupting them. And to its tightly creased folds clung the unmistakable aroma of the hogan – sheep smell, desert smell, dust and sand smell. Storm sucked it into his lungs, remembering.

He shook out the blanket, and metal gleamed up at him as he thought it might. Necklace – blue-green of turquoise and dull sheen of silver – ketoh bracelet, concha belt – all masterpieces of the smith’s art – the ceremonial jewellery of a Dineh warrior. Old, old pieces he had seen before, made by brown fingers, dust long before he had been born – the designs created by the artists of his race.

Seeing those, Storm knew he had been right in his surmise. Not only had Grandfather somehow known – but he had found it possible to forgive the grandson who had walked the alien way – or else he could not resist the last mute argument to influence that grandson! It might have been his own death that Na-Ta-Hay had foreseen – or perhaps the death of his world. But he had sent this legacy to his daughter’s son, striving to keep alive in the last of his own blood a little of the past he had protected so fiercely, fought so hard to hold intact against the push of time and the power of alien energy.

And now out of the night did there come a faint sound of a swinging chant? That song sung for the strengthening of a warrior?

“Step into the track of the Monster Slayer. Step into the moccasins of him whose lure is the extended bowstring, Step into the moccasins of him who lures the enemy to death.”

Storm did not put the contents of this last packet with the things to be left in Larkin’s care. He took up the jewellery, running his fingers across the cool substance of silver, the round boss of turquoise, slipping the necklace over his head where it lay cold against his breast under his shirt. The ketoh clasped his wrist. He rolled the concha belt into a coil to fit into his trail bag.

Then he got to his feet, the blanket folded into a narrow length resting on his shoulder. He had never worn a “chief blanket in all his life, yet its soft weight now had a warm and familiar feel, bringing with it the closeness of kinship – linking the forgotten hands that had woven it to Hosteen Storm, refugee on another world, lost to his people and his home.

Lost! Dumbly Storm turned to face the east, toward the mountain ranges. He threw his hat down on the blanket roll, baring his head to the tug of the wind from those high hills, and walked forward through the night, doubly lighted by the two small moons, coming out over a little rise that could not even be named “hill”. He sat down, cross-legged. There had always been a strong tie between the Dineh and their land. In the past they had chosen to starve in bad times rather than be separated from the mountains, the deserts, the world they knew.

He would not remember I He dared not! Storm’s hands balled into fists and he beat them upon his knees, feeling that pain far less than the awaking pain inside him. He was cut off – exiled – And he was also accursed, unless he carried out the purpose that had brought him here. Yet still there was this other hesitation in him. Without realizing it, he reverted to age-old beliefs. He must have broken his warrior’s magic. And so he could not meet Quade until he was whole again, once more armed against the enemy – the time was not yet ripe.

How long he sat there he did not know. But now there were streaks of orange-red in the mauve sky. It was not the same promise given by the sun to Terra, but with it came the feeling that his decision had been rightly made.

Storm faced the band of growing colour, raising his arms and holding up into that light first his bared knife and then his stun rod – the arms of a warrior – to be blessed by the sun. He pointed them first at the life-giving heat in the sky and then at the earth, the substance from which the Faraway Gods had fashioned the People in the long ago. He had not the right, as had a Singer, to call upon those forces he believed existed, and possibly, this far from the land of the Dineh, the Faraway Gods could not, would not listen. Yet something within Storm held the belief that they could and did.

Beauty is around me – This one walks in beauty – Good is around me – This one walks in beauty –

Perhaps the words he recalled were not the right ones, perhaps he did wrong to pre-empt the powers of a Singer. But he thought that the Old Ones would understand.

6

The wind that had drawn Storm to this little height died away. With a soft, coaxing whine Surra pressed against his leg and bumped her head against the hand that had dropped from his knife hilt. He heard the chittering of the meerkats in the grass. Above, a perfectly shaped black silhouette on the dawn sky, Baku mounted to greet the new day in the freedom of the upper air. Storm breathed deeply. His feeling of loss and loneliness dimmed as he returned to the trail camp to make his farewells.

A short appraisal of Sorenson’s preparations told the Terran that the Survey man was as competent as Larkin about the details of packing. The party was a small one: Sorenson himself, the settler pack master, Mac Foyle, and three Norbies, among whom Storm was not too surprised to find Gorgol. He raised his hand in greeting to the young native hunter, as he led his pack mare along to be lined with the others.

Foyle eyed this addition to the train with some astonishment, for the meerkats clung to the top of the mare’s pack and in addition she bore an improvised perch rigged for Baku. Surra trotted on her own four paws, well able to match the ambling pace of the pack animals.

Those are a couple of tricky riders you got there,” Foyle hailed the Terran. “What are they, young fella? Monkeys? I heard tell of monkeys but I’ve never seen ‘em.”

“Meerkats,” supplied Storm.

“From Terra, eh?” Foyle tested a lashing, looked over the mare’s rig with approval, and then brought up his own riding horse. “Smart lookin’ little tykes – what are they good for?”

Storm laughed. “Digging mostly. See their big claws? Those can make the dirt fly when it’s necessary. They also bring back what they take a fancy to. You might call them thieves sometimes –” He snapped his fingers at Ho and King and they blinked back at him, uncaring.

“Heard about you and your animals back in town. Your name’s Storm, isn’t it? Heard tell, too, how you knocked out one of Gorlund’s riders just pattin’ him on the head – or so the boys were sayin’.”

Storm smiled. “Commando tricks, Foyle. That rider was loaded and wanted to stretch himself a little, only he did it a bit too wide and in the wrong direction –”

Foyle examined him with a frank stare that climbed from boot soles to the top of his hat. “Bet the boys weren’t far wrong either about your bein’ thunder and lightnin’ all rolled up into one. You aren’t so big a fella, but it’s the small ones, light on their feet, who can really cause trouble. I’d like to have seen that dust-up, I surely would!” Foyle jerked the lead rope of the first pack horse and that animal obediently fell into line behind.

They went down slope to the river where Surra balked on the bank, spitting her displeasure at the thought of water and wet fur. Storm soothed her and tossed a rope end, to be caught in her teeth after a last cat-curse. Then, with the dune cat swimming along with the horses, they crossed the Irrawady to the field above which the eastern mountains reached into the faint lavender of the sky.

Sorenson not only knew how to organize an expedition, he could also lead it. And Storm soon learned that this was the third and not the first time the Survey Service man had attempted to find the Sealed Caves.

“Water’s the problem,” he explained. “You can travel this country in the spring, or for about four short weeks in the fall, and live off it. The rest of the time you have to pack water and food for your horses. And that just can’t be done, except at ruinous expense, which rny department won’t authorize on mere rumour alone. We had one successful season before the war, opened a small dig on the Krabyaolo, that’s the edge of the Peak country. And a piece of carving was unearthed there that caused an explosion in rarefied circles. So the authorities will grant us a pittance now and then for these short trips. Let me discover something really worthwhile and they might set up a permanent work camp. I’ve been told that the water supply is better in the direction we’re heading this trip –”

”This thing you found – what made it so important?”

“Did you ever see any Lo Sak Ki work?” Sorenson counter-questioned.

“Not that I know of –”

That’s a unique type of carving found in the Lo Sal provinces on Altair Three – very intricate patterning, shows evidence of a long development of civilized art, undoubtedly the result of a lengthy period of experiment and refinement. And it’s native to Altair Three. Only this piece we found repeated at least two of Lo Sak Ki basic designs.”

“I don’t suppose there are too many different designs possible,” ventured Storm. “And with about two thousand planets producing art work – twenty-five other nonhuman races of high intelligence into the bargain, as well as all the dead civilizations we have uncovered in space – designs could be repeated without being related.”

“Logical enough. But see here –” The Survey man used his quirt as a pointer to indicate the ketoh on the Terran’s wrist. “I take it that is Terran, also that it may represent some lesser known tribal work there, perhaps it has ceremonial significance –”

“It was developed from a bow guard once worn by my people when they were roaming desert raiders –”

“And were those people a dominant nation on your world in the days when separate nations did exist there?”

Storm laughed. “I believe they considered themselves to be so – in error. They did rule a small section of one continent for a few years. But no, they were not a dominant race. In fact their country was overrun by a white-skinned race, representing a mechanized, technical civilization, who considered them barbarians.”

“It follows then you would not have found such a bracelet to be an object universally known and worn on Terra?”

“No.”

“So what would have been your reaction if say on – Where did you serve during the war, Storm?”

“Lev – Angol –”

“Lev? Good. Suppose while you were on Lev you investigated a mound of rubble and found buried in it the twin to your bracelet – knowing, of course, that no other galactic trooper had been there recently, that no Terran of the present era could have dropped it. What then would have been your conclusions?”

“Well, either a Levite had imported it or there had been a Terran there once –”

“Just so. But if all other evidence argued that it had been there since before the era of Terran space flight?”

“Either there was earlier Terran space flight than is known to our records, or Terra had off-world visitors herself.”

Sorenson nodded vigorously. “You see, you cling instinctively to the idea that your bracelet must have come from Terra. Not once have you suggested that an alien developed something of the same design.”

Again Storm laughed appreciatively. “You make out a good case, sir. Perhaps it’s all a matter of native pride –”

“Or perhaps your instinct is entirely right, and there was space travel at an earlier date. So – here we have a similar problem, a design, well known to a very limited section of Altair Three, is found half the galaxy away in ruins attributed by native legend to a nonnative race. May we not assume that others prospected through the star lanes before Terra colony ships and explorers went out to the same paths? If so, why haven’t we met them or their descendants? What ended their empire or their confederacy? War? Decadence? Some plague spread from system to system by their ships? Perhaps our answer lies in the Sealed Caves, if we can find them!”

“You are sure you have a good lead this time?”

“Better than just a lead, we have a guide waiting for us in the Valley of Twisted Horns, a man who says he has found at least one cave. Most of the Norbies avoid that section. But their wizards do go in at certain seasons of the year for ceremonial purposes, and war parties can add to their effectiveness by making magic there against their enemies. They believe that a ritual performed near the Caves can render a warrior twice as impervious and the enemy twice as vulnerable, whether that enemy is within striking distance or three days’ journey away at the time. Youngsters who want to claim warrior status travel to the Peaks. That young Gorgol joined us for that reason. The place has religious significance. And Bokatan, our guide, is a clan wizard. He’s made three such journeys and now he believes that the Sealed Caves people want to issue forth again and that an off-worlder must open the gate for them – hence our expedition has his blessing.”

“Has Bokatan power enough to impress other Norbies with that idea?” questioned Storm. “We could run into trouble if he hasn’t.”

“I believe he has. The alien laws have always frustrated digging here on Arzor. We are not allowed to cultivate the tribes unless they make the first overtures, and we cannot enter their territories unless invited. But this time we’re on safe ground. I had to swear to observe a formidable set of conditions before I received my permit and then Bokatan testified for me. A few off-world men have lived as licensed yoris hunters in Norbie territory, and from them, and the settlers for whom the Norbies will work, we have to pick up all we know about their customs. And there are tribes back in the hills who have had no contact with off-worlders or settlers at all, whose whole way of life may differ radically from those we do know something about –”

“You can’t live in a Norbie camp without government permission?”

“Oh, I guess it has been done, but the invitation has to come from the Norbie clan involved.”

Storm eyed the ranges ahead. He would fulfil his contract with the expedition. But afterwards what was to prevent his cutting loose and striking down south on his own? He had the team and he had learned how to live off the land in far more hostile countries than this one, including some where not only the natives were deadly enemies but also the land itself provided fatal pitfalls for the unwary.

As they travelled, Storm fitted into the wilderness and the duties of a scout as a hand would slip into a well-worn glove. He perfected his finger-talk with Gorgol’s eager aid and the assistance of the other Norbies. But repeated failures taught him the truth of what he had heard – that an off-worlder could not hope to learn and use the vocal speech of the natives. His efforts to imitate their twittering actually seemed to hurt their ears.

In spite of their lack of a common oral speech the Norbies adopted him in a way they did not accept Sorenson or Foyle. The Terran tried their bows, displaying his familiarity with that type of weapon, only he discovered that he could not string one made for an adult Norbie. Gorgol’s was lighter and when Storm’s trial shaft centred in the heart of a deerlike browser, the Norbies ceremoniously presented him with a smaller weapon of his own and a quiver containing five arrows with fire-bright heads, points brilliant enough to have been chipped from gem stone.

“Warrior arrows,” Gorgol told him via fingers. “No use second time after they have been dipped in man-blood. You warrior –you can use.”

The young native tried to persuade Storm to follow the Norbie custom of tattooing a bright scarlet band about the old scar on his shoulder, urging that any warrior would be proud to display such marks at the evening fire when Norbie men stripped off their corselets, showing for the awe of their untried fellows their marks of valour.

It was usual that Gorgol and Storm were paired as scouts, Baku circling overhead, and Surra ranging in a crisscross pattern to cover both flanks. The meerkats rode in skin bags slung across Rain’s back, scrambling out at every halt to go exploring on their own, but returning readily to Storm’s call, usually dragging some prize – a succulent root or brightly coloured stone – which had taken their fancy, as loot.

This acquisitive habit of theirs was a never-ending source of amusement for the whole party, and there was a demand at each evening’s camp for Storm to turn out the bags where the meerkats stored their treasures and reveal what Ho and Hing had thought worth retrieving that day.

Twice they turned up worthwhile items. Once it was an “eye” stone – an odd gem sometimes found in dried river beds. It was shaped like a golden drop, the colour of dark honey, with a slitted line of red fire through its middle, not unlike one of Surra’s eyes – save for the colour. And it changed shades when moved from light to dark – the red slit lightening to yellow, the honey becoming greenish.

But it was the other find, made on the tenth day after they had left Irrawady Crossing, that excited the Norbies. Emptied out of Ho’s bag, among other gleanings, was an arrowhead. It was barbed and unlike the others Storm had seen in use by the expedition scouts, for the crystal from which it was fashioned was a milky white. Since the natives would not personally handle any of the meerkats’ plunder, the Terran picked it up, balancing it on his hand. Hunting points were always of green-gold stone, war arrows clear crystal with a blue cast – at least those carried by the camp Norbies were. This one’s delicate point had been snapped off, but otherwise it was a beautiful piece of fletcher’s art.

Dagotag, the leader of the Norbies, examined it carefully as Storm held it out, but he did not offer to touch it. He sucked in his breath loudly, a Norbie preliminary to serious pronouncement, and then made fast finger-talk.

That be Nitra – over-the-mountains-men. Warrior – this be war arrow. Come to collect honours for Nitra warrior talk – kill strangers –”

They be enemy you?” Storm signed.

Dagotag nodded. “Enemy us – we Shosonna people. Maybeso enemy you faraway men. Nitra never see faraway men – big trophy bow hand –”

The Nitra eat THE MEAT?” Sorenson shaped a sign forbidden save in times of stress, and punctuated his question by spitting ritually into the fire three times.

“Not so!” Dagotag’s fingers flew. Take trophy – hang bow hand of enemy in wizard house. But no eat THE MEAT. Only evil men do so. Nitra – good fighters – not evil ones who listen to black spirits in the night!”

“But they might fight us?” Storm persisted.

“Yes – if they track us. But this point – it may be old – of another season. Only we must watch –”

Every Norbie had reached for his skin bedroll and was bringing out his well-protected package of personal war arrows to place the customary five such shafts in their quivers beside the ordinary hunting points.

Storm spoke to Sorenson. “We’ll have plenty of. warning if they do try to scout us. I have yet to see any living thing creep by Surra undetected.” He tossed the enemy arrowhead into the air and caught it. Dragged out of a man’s flesh, those cruel, brittle barbs were clearly meant to be left in the wound on the way. It was as wicked a thing as a blaster. Where Ho had found it and how long it had lain there were the important questions. Was it truly the relic of some long-ago raid, or had its owner discarded it that very day because it was broken?

He ordered the dune cat on guard, certain that no scout of the Nitra could win past her. And tomorrow Baku would comb the wastes ahead of them with better eyes than any human or humanoid possessed. The party was reasonably safe from a surprise attack, but there was the matter of an ambush, which could be so easily staged in this country, where the trail threaded through canyons and narrow defiles, along twisted traces where it was sometimes necessary to dismount and lead one’s horse. And the farther they bored into the mountains, the worse the going became. He could well understand that only a strong lure could drag anyone into this desolate country.

After Sorenson and Mac turned in, Storm brought out his own bow and arrows. The fire had not yet died down and he held those glittering points in its glow. One by one he touched each to his wrist and pressed, saw the answering drop of blood cloud the crystal tip. Then, when all had been so painted, Storm let the blood fall in a thick dollop to the ground. The age-old offering to secure strong ‘medicine” for a new war weapon was made. Why did he offer it now – and to what spirit of the Arzoran wilderness?

“Why you do so?” The slender hand in the firelight sketched that inquiry.

He did not know the Norbie word for fortune or luck – but he used the finger vocabulary he did have and tried clumsily to explain:

“Give blood – arrow shoot straight – enemy feel. Blood pay for good arrow –”

That is true! You faraway man – but you think Norbie. Maybeso Norbie inside man – he fly far – far – be caught faraway – want to get back to his own clan – enter in faraway baby – so come back now. True – true –” The yellow-red fingers tapped lightly on the back of Storm’s hand close to that tiny wound. “Here – outside – you be faraway man. Inside, you Norbie come home again!”

“Perhaps –” Storm agreed lest he give offence.

“The sealed ones will know. They came far – far – too. Maybeso they like you –”

Gorgol spoke with the confidence of one who was acquainted with the mysterious, legendary people, and Storm asked another question:

“Gorgol knows the sealed ones?”

His question loosed a flood of story. Gorgol – three seasons back as far as Storm could determine – had left his tribe on his man-trip, to prove himself a lone hunter able to stand with the adult males of Krotag’s following. After Norbie custom he had either to engage an enemy tribesman on his own – if he were lucky enough to find a roving warrior of some clan traditionally at war with his people – or kill without aid one of the four dangerous forms of wildlife. Since his “inside man” had suggested such a path in a dream, Gorgol had headed to the eastern mountains, working his way along the same general direction the expedition was now travelling.

There he had come across the spoor of an “evil flyer”, the giant bird-thing the Norbies regarded with a wholesome aversion for its unclean habits and respect for its ferocious fighting spirit. Since he could hope for no better kill to establish himself among the men, Gorgol had spent the better part of five days tracking the creature to its nesting ledge high in the mountains. But he had been too eager at his first shot and had wounded it only.

The bird, after the manner of its species, had attacked him, and there had followed a running fight down the side of the nesting peak into a valley where Gorgol had laid an ambush that had successfully finished the flyer. Though he had been injured in the final encounter, he was not too badly wounded.

He thrust his leg out into the firelight now, tracing for Storm the blue line of a ragged scar fully ten inches long.

Disabled by his hurt, Gorgol had been forced to stay in the valley of the ambush. Luckily the season was still one of rains and the big dry had not yet begun so there was a trickle of water from the heights. And during his imprisonment in the narrow cut he had discovered a walled-up cave opening, together with other objects made by intelligent beings who were neither Norbie nor settler.

He had left those finds behind him when at last he could hobble, not wishing to vex the sealed ones. But since that day he had remained certain that he had chanced upon one of the doors of the Sealed Caves.

“The sealed ones – they good to men who keep their laws. Put in Gorgol’s head how to kill flyer – send water drip to drink while leg bad. Old stories say sealed ones good to Norbies long, long ago. I say this too. Maybeso I die there did not their magic help me! Their magic big –” His hand expanded in the large sign. “They do much – sealed away from sun they sleep – but still they do much!”

“Could you find this valley again?”

“Yes. But not go there unless sealed ones allow. I follow bird. Sealed ones know I come not to disturb them, not to dig them up. They excuse. Go to wake them – maybeso they not like. Must call – then we go.”

Storm heard the conviction in that and respected it. Each man had a right to his own beliefs. But this did back up Soren-son’s story that the wizard Bokatan had offered to guide them because he believed that the sealed ones themselves were in favour of it. And since the country of Gorgol’s hunting adventures was in the same general direction as the territory into which the expedition was heading, perhaps they were going to find the mysterious Sealed Caves after all.

7

The sun was a warm hand pressing on his bared shoulders as Storm lay on top of an outcrop, his long-vision glasses trained on the pass ahead. He had shed his easily sighted frawn shirt many days ago, having discovered that his own brown skin was hard to distinguish from the rocks.

Now the path of the expedition had narrowed to one choice, a defile leading between climbing walls, a perfect country for ambush. Properly they should travel it by night, except that the footing was none too good and they dared not risk a fall for either man or horse. Already the party followed well-tried Terran precautions for advance into enemy territory, stopping in the early afternoon to graze their horses and feed themselves, and then moving on for an hour after sunset, so that their night camp site was far from the place where they had first – to any spy-scout – bedded down. Whether such elementary tactics would mislead experienced native raiders was another matter.

Storm was certain that they were under observation, though he had no real proof except the alert uneasiness of the team. And he depended upon bird and cat for his first warning against any attack.

Now Baku did come in, voicing a harsh scream, to send winging out of the brush below a whole covey of panic-stricken grass hens. There was someone coming through the defile, a Norbie riding alone on a vividly spotted black and white horse. And the white star on its forehead was dabbed with red, a circle centred by a double dot – If this newcomer was not the wizard Bokatan, then he had acquired Bokatan’s favourite mount, which had been described to Storm in advance. This would not be too impossible. Storm remained where he was, his bow ready.

“Hoooooooooo!” The call was the twitter of Norbie speech prolonged into a high-pitched hoot. Out of the rock, seemingly, Dagotag arose to meet the wizard. At least the party now had their promised guide.

Before nightfall they had crossed the invisible border of the taboo land, to camp that night on the banks of a swollen stream. The water was red with silt, whirling along uprooted bushes and even small trees. Sorenson surveyed it critically.

“You can have too much of a good thing. We have to depend upon the mountain rains for water. But, on the other hand, flash floods in these narrow gorges can wipe out a party such as ours in a matter of seconds. Tomorrow we’ll have to parallel this as long as we can to water the horses. Let us hope the level begins to drop instead of to rise –”

Before noon the next day, not only was the flood dwindling but Bokatan pointed them away from it, using as a guide for their new direction something that excited them all. There was no mistaking the artificial origin of that low black ridge, running at right angles to the north-east.

Storm measured it roughly with his hand, finding it about a foot wide, though raised only a few inches from the ground. It was wedge-shaped with the narrower edge straight up. To the touch it was not stone, nor metal, at least no stone nor metal he had ever seen before. And its purpose remained a mystery. A knife blade made no impression, but under prodding fingers the substance had a faintly greasy feel, though neither dry soil nor leaves clung to its surface. Nor would Surra put paw on it. She sniffed dubiously at the ridge, plainly avoiding contact, sneezing twice and shaking her head in her gesture of distaste.

“Like a rail,” Mac commented, and whacked the first pack horse on, though that animal, too, picked a way that did not bring it close to the black ridge.

Sorenson stopped to snap tri-dee prints of the thing though Bokatan urged the party to hurry. “Up!” his fingers counselled. “Up and through the hole in the earth before sun sets – then you may look upon the valley of the sealed ones –”

Already the cliffs rose so high that the light of the sun did not penetrate to the floor of the canyon through which they passed, and gathering shadows thickened almost to dusk as they rode along by the black rail.

Death defiles, that old belief of his people haunted Storm, while his modern training denied it. A man who touched the dead, or their possessions, dwelt under a roof where death had been, was unclean, accursed. This black ridge was like a thread wrought by the dead to draw others into the house of the dead – He blinked, shrugged the blanket about his shoulders, dropping a little behind the rest as he fumbled in his belt pouch for an object he had fashioned during their noon halt.

The Terran did not dismount, but leaned far from his riding pad, holding that small sliver of wood plumed at one end with two of Baku’s feathers. It had been shaped with the aid of one of his war arrows after immemorial custom, and now he aimed its point at the alien rail – if rail it was. The prayer stick caught and held in some infinitesimal crack of the substance, standing unwavering, its feathers triumphantly erect.

One magic against another. Storm clicked his tongue to Rain and the horse trotted on to catch up, just as a turn in the canyon brought them to what Bokatan could well term the “hole” in the earth.

If they had not been able to see the brightness of sunlight ahead, Storm would have protested against entering the place. For the tunnel opening was like an open mouth, fanged at the upper arch with regular pointed projections of the same substance as the rail that had led them here. What purpose those projections had originally served, the explorers could not guess. Now they resembled nothing so much as teeth ready to close upon the unwary. And Storm envied Baku who could wing aloft and cross the mountain barrier in the free air.

Though the tunnel was a short one, open at both ends, within it the air was stale to taste and smell, as if no cleansing wind had ever flown through. Surra took the passage in a rush, the horses pounding after her, until they burst out into the brilliant blaze of the sun again, to find themselves at one end of a much larger valley.

“This is a leg-breaking do, if I ever saw one!” Mac exploded – rightly. For before them was a choked stretch of debris, tumbled blocks of the black material overgrown with generations of vines and brush.

Sorenson dismounted. “Some kind of a building – perhaps a gatehouse for defence –” He was reaching for his tri-dee camera when Bokatan pushed to the fore.

“Into the valley now – night come here – bad –”

Reluctantly Sorenson agreed. Storm was already afoot, his horse’s reins hooked over his arm, ready to help Mac with the pack train, while the Norbies strung out, scouting the easiest way through the maze before them. Storm, threading a narrow path between banks of the broken black material, decided this was an excellent trap, certainly not any trail to be travelled after dark.

“I’d like to know what happened here.” Mac puffed up to join the Terran, towing the grey lead horse of the pack train. “Looks like somebody got real mad and loosed a buster where it would do the most harm – don’t it now?”

Storm gazed at the ruins about them for the first time with interest in the debris itself, not just regarding it as an entanglement through which they must worm their way. He still did not care to make too close an inspection, but Mac’s suggestion was shrewdly taken. An earthquake might have reduced a stoutly built structure to this, but mere lapse of time – no. And outside of a convulsion of nature there remained only war. Yet nowhere in the tradition of the Norbies was there any reference to war as the reason for the withdrawal of the sealed ones.

“Yes – a buster –” Mac scrambled ahead. “Or maybe a good, big flood.”

“Or a series of floods –” That was Sorenson catching up as they paused to rest the horses. “Look there!” Now that he pointed out the high watermarks on the wall of the valley the others could not miss them.

“Do you suppose that tunnel acts as a drain?” hazarded Storm.

“If it wasn’t originally intended for that use, it must serve now – and has done so for a good many years. There’s a large lake in the valley according to Bokatan – a few flash floods and the overflow must seek an outlet –”

The ruins sprawled for half a mile of hard going. Then they came into the course of a dry river bed fronting a sharp slope. The black rail ran straight ahead, to be hidden in the earth of the slope that perhaps had accumulated since the builders of the black wedge had laid it down.

Up the slope they trudged and stood on the verge of a broad dam, which controlled the stagnant-looking, brown water of quite a sizeable lake. And beyond the opposite shore of that dank lake was the rest of the valley.

Dotted in the lake itself and along its shores were mounds of weathered and overgrown debris. The remains of a city? Sorenson sighed and pulled off his hat, wiping his arm across his flushed dusty face.

“We may not have found the Caves,” he said slowly, “but we have found something. Go ahead and make camp, boys, I want all the shots of this I can get before the light is gone!”

They made camp on an inlet of the lake and Storm took over the job of dampening down the ground with insect repellent. He noticed that the Norbies did not range far away and that the natives piled their hide night shelters well within the circle of the fire glow.

Mac surveyed the wealth of mounds. “If we’re going to dig, we have plenty of places to choose from. Only maybe you “n” me “n” Sorenson’s goin’ to have to do most of it. Norbies don’t ever take kindly to usin’ shovels –”

“About all we can do on this trip is map.” Sorenson came down at last to join them. “Maybe open a test trench or two. A couple of small finds to impress the directors would help out a lot. But if this site is as good as it looks, we’d need a more permanent camp and a dozen years to really clean it out. Bokatan” – he appealed to their guide – “this water,” he signed, ‘does it go with the coming of the big dry, or does it stay?”

The Norbie’s hands spread in a gesture of bafflement. “Bokatan come only in wet times – no see in dry. But water much –no think go away when big dry comes –”

“I’m inclined to believe that,” Sorenson said happily. That means we can think about year around work here.”

“If you don’t get too much water,” Storm returned. “From the evidence of those high watermarks there have been floods clear across this space.”

The Survey man refused to be dismayed by that. “If necessary we can pitch camp back against the cliffs to the north. There is an upward slope toward that end of the valley. Surely the whole place is never altogether under water. We’ve had high rains for the past month and see the size of the lake?”

He was given a chance to test his deductions before dawn the next morning, for the same kind of drenching rain that had bogged the trail herd came to flood the camp. In a hurry, they moved away from the rapidly rising lake. To take refuge on top of one of the mounds of debris was a temptation, but such a move could only prove more dangerous in the end.

While the steady downpour cut the danger of attack from a Nitra war party, the rain bothered the Norbies. Water and war were both gifts of the Thunder Drummers, but this was not good land in which to be caught by water, and, when they witnessed one landslip along the cliff wall, they pressed back to the upper and unknown northern end of the valley.

Three of the Norbies rode in search of higher ground that might lie above the old flood-level marks, and Storm and Mac, working together, pushed the pack horses steadily away from the lake, following the upward slope. Sorenson and Bokatan struck off in the direction of the reputed Caves, for the Survey man was determined to learn all he could if there was danger of their having to pull out entirely.

Usually tractable enough, the pack horses were hard to handle that morning. Storm wished he could have coaxed Surra to serve as an additional drover, but the big cat had disappeared on her own early in the rain and the Terran knew she was going to hole up somewhere out of the wet. Since he had given her no definite orders she would follow her own instincts. He had not sighted Baku since dawn.

Nearly all the horses had scrambled up a steeper rise when the Terran heard Mac shout excitedly. Hoping that the pack master had discovered a good stretch of higher territory, Storm whacked at the last horse in line, his own mare.

Then the world came apart about him. Storm had been under fire on the training range, he had witnessed – from a distance – the obliteration bombing of an enemy stronghold. But this was no man-made fury – it was the raw sword of nature herself striking unleashed.

The rain, now heavier than before, became a smothering blanket under a black sky. He could not even see Rain’s ears, head, plastered mane. The gush of water took away his breath, beat about his body.

Lightning – purple fire in jagged spears – thunder claps that left one deafened, battered – Storm’s horse reared, fought for freedom, wild with fear. Then the stallion ran through a wall of water and his rider could only cling blindly to his seat, lying along the horse’s neck gasping.

They were still in the dark but the rain no longer beat on them, only the fury of its rushing filled the world with sound. Lightning again tore at the sky. And above him, in that flash, Storm saw an overhang of earth break loose and fall. Half dazed, he jumped, stumbled to his knees, and went down, as mud cascaded on him, pressing him flat under its weight until he lost consciousness.

It was dark when the Terran opened his eyes and tried feebly to move – dark with an absence of all light that was as frightening as the silence that now walled him in. But, half-conscious as he was, Storm struggled for freedom. There was a break in the cover over him, and he levered up the forepart of his body.

None of his bones appeared to be broken. He hurt all over, but he could move arms and legs, wriggled the rest of him out of the mass of soil that had imprisoned him. Storm tried to remember just what had happened in those last moments before the world caved in.

He called – to be answered by a plaintive whinny, shrill and frightened. Storm called again through the darkness in soft-voiced reassurance, using the speech of the horse tamer, which he had used with Rain since the first moment he had laid hands on the stallion. And, as he spoke, he dug at the earth still encasing his legs, until he could stand up.

The Terran explored about him with outstretched arms – until he remembered the torch at his belt. Snapping its button, Storm aimed the beam straight up. The answering light was faint, oddly paled. He stood by a rock wall – and, as the beam swept down and away from that solid surface, it was swallowed up in a pocket of darkness that might mark the interior of a cave of some expanse. But caught in the torch’s beam was Rain, white foam roping his jaws, his eyes rolling wildly.

Storm moved to run his hand along the sweating arch of the horse’s neck, conscious now of the smell of this place. Just as they had found it in the entrance tunnel of the valley, so here the air was stale, musty. As he continued to breathe it the Ter-ran felt a growing sickness and an impulse to turn and batter his way out of this cave, or pocket, or whatever it was, that held them. He fought for self-control.

On his right was a second rock wall, and behind him the fall of moist earth in which he had been caught. Then the torch beam glistened at floor level. Runnels of water were sluggishly crawling toward him from under that mass of loose earth, gathering in the slight depressions of the rock floor. As Storm watched there was more movement, a slide of the soil, only this one uncovered a dim spot of light close to the roof – a hands-breadth of metallic grey that might mark the sky.

Storm snapped off the torch, spoke once more to Rain. With great care he climbed, a few inches at a time, to reach that breakthrough, once leaping clear to avoid being carried back by a second slip. But, at last, he got there, thankful to draw in lungfuls of the rain-washed air, clean and sweet without. The soft earth was easy enough to dig and he set about with his hands to enlarge the opening.

He came upon a rock that had to be dislodged with care, and marvelled at the chance or good fortune that had saved him and the stallion from such a bombardment, giving them their lives in spite of their imprisonment. Storm’s wonder at the narrowness of their escape increased as his nails scraped across an even larger stone, one wedged in the opening as a stopper might be driven into a bottle.

The Terran returned to clawing at the earth heaped about that rock, pushing outward when he could. Now and again he checked the seepage under the wall; the flow was increasing, if slowly. Could a stream, or part of the lake, be lapping outside?

He could not remember in which direction Rain had raced in panicked flight – west, north, or east –

A whole block of moist soil tangled with roots gave way before him and rain beat in to soak him in an instant. The moisture felt clean and good against his body, washing the mud and staleness of the place from him.

Worming his way back up, Storm thrust head and shoulders out of the hole. Visibility was limited by the rain, but what he could see made him gasp, for the whole area below bore no resemblance to anything he remembered.

A sheet of water, swirling angrily and pitted by the lash of the rain, lapped at the other side of the barrier on which he half lay. Uprooted trees tossed on that roiled surface and just below him was the body of the black pack mare, anchored to the shore by the weight of a rock that had crushed her head and one foreleg.

On the frail island of her body crouched a small shape with matted fur, clinging despairingly to the bobbing pack. And seeing that refugee, Storm shovelled swiftly at the earth. He ripped off his belt, stripping it quickly of knife sheath and stun rod holster, and on his third toss one end of the belt landed on the pack. The meerkat moved swiftly, climbing that improvised ladder to a point where Storm could scoop the small creature to safety.

It was Hing and she was uninjured as far as his examining hands could determine. What had happened to Ho he did not want to guess, for the bag in which Hing’s mate had ridden must now be trapped under the dead mare.

Whimpering, the meerkat clung to Storm, trying in plaintive little cries to tell her misery. He scraped the mud from her fur as best he could, and carried her into the cave to wrap her in the blanket With her snug he returned to their window on the outside.

It might be dangerous to try to dig out more of the cave-closing slide at present. Such efforts could only let in the lake waters to engulf them. For such work he needed better light and an end to the rain. And both of those might come in the morning. For the present there was nothing to do but wait out the hours. Surely the skies could not go on releasing such a weight of water forever!

The grey of the day became the dark of a starless, moonless night. Storm rested half across the wall, Hing curled against him, watching in vain hopes of seeing some light along the cliff walls that would signal the escape to safety of the others, some indication that he was not the only human survivor of the flood that filled the valley.

Storm must have fallen asleep at last, for when he roused, it was to find weak sunlight on his face. Hing sat by his shoulder making an exacting toilet, chittering with almost human disgust at the unhappy state of her usually well-groomed fur.

The water had fallen away outside, grounding some of the wrack that it had floated. Something as red-brown as the soil, with a wicked mouthful of teeth, was busy at the mare, feasting upon the bounty. Storm shouted and flung a clod of earth at the creature.

As the scavenger flashed to cover the Terran’s voice echoed weirdly from the heights. He shouted again, this time with a summoning call. Though he did that again and again, waiting eagerly between each shout until he counted twenty – there came no answer. So he set to work again digging until he was able to get out, skidding down to bring up short against the dead pack horse.

8

Having salvaged the mare’s pack and dumped it in the cave, Storm stationed Hing on guard over what might be the last supplies. The meerkat was not a fighter, but she would keep off the scavengers such as the one he had seen at work earlier that morning. That precaution taken, the Terran splashed out to explore, using a length of driftwood to anchor him on the slippery mud banks. Twice he disturbed scavengers and carrion birds and both times hurried to see what they fed upon. Once it was the horse Sorenson had ridden, and secondly it was a battered wild thing that must have been swept down the mountain stream. He stopped at intervals to call, to whistle for Baku – but there was never any answer.

As the sun rose higher, its rays sucked up the moisture and Storm was able to flounder about the end of the enlarged lake. The spread of murky water now covered five-sixths of the valley, including the entire lower end through which they had entered. And the Terran found no traces of any survivors, saw no camp smoke, had no answers to his frequent hails.

The mounds of debris were largely covered, only a few projecting above the surface of the flood. On one or two he sighted moving creatures, all small refugees from among the grass dwellers of the valley. He was about to turn back to the cave when he heard the beat of powerful wings and saw a black shape etched against the clear sky – a shape that could only be Baku. Storm whistled and the eagle dropped in her falcon swoop.

She skimmed above his head, thus delivering her usual signal to follow. But the path she pointed lay directly across the lake and Storm distrusted those dark waters full of floating drift and perhaps some unpleasant water-dwelling things he could not sight. He splashed along the verge, sometimes thigh deep, always sounding ahead with his pole. Baku had come to rest on one of the above-surface mounds, one which had been situated far up the dry portion of the valley before the storm. The Terran recognized it as an earlier landmark by a few feet of battered outcrop that still bore some resemblance to a wall. He shouted and Baku screamed in answer but did not rise. His testing pole plunged into a sudden deep and Storm knew he would have to swim to reach that islet. He took to the deeper water gingerly, striking out with care to avoid the flotsam, hating the smell of the mud-thick liquid that slid greasily about his body.

Then he caught at a block, found his feet, and climbed to the top of the island. He had expected to find traces of the flood. But what he faced now was a battlefield! Three dead men lay there, each with a war arrow in him, each lacking a right hand, Sorenson, Bokatan, and Dagotag. By the signs, they had died early that morning, perhaps when he was making his struggle to get out of the cave.

His age old racial fear of the dead warred in him with the need to know what had happened and the necessity of providing a last service for these whose lives he had shared during the past strenuous days. Storm walked slowly forward and something else stirred, lifted a tawny head on which the fur was matted with red. The Terran sprinted to the side of the dune cat.

Surra whined. The ragged wound on her head was ugly, but, as Storm discovered thankfully, not dangerous. It looked much worse than it was and the attackers must have believed her dead. Not for the first time the Terran wished that the team had speech in common, as well as their trained rapport. He could only survey the scene and try to deduce what had happened.

It was his guess that Sorenson and the two Norbies had been cut off by the flood and had taken refuge on this hillock that was by far the highest in the vicinity. The attack had come later, after the end of the storm. And the attackers had thoroughly looted the camp, stripped the bodies – all weapons were gone.

Storm brought out his small personal aid kit and went to work on Surra, cleansing her wound. She allowed him to handle her, giving only a little protesting cry now and then. He worked as slowly as he could, trying not to think of that other task ahead of him. But with Surra comfortable he forced himself to it, though he could not repress shudders as he straightened out Sorenson’s contorted body and placed the dead Norbies on either side of the Survey man. There was nothing with which to dig graves, but he broke off pieces of the rubble, working with dogged determination, piling the loosened stones and earth over the three, while the sun turned the hillock into a steam bath.

Surra called before he had finished and Storm looked up to see her wavering to her feet. Baku was alive, and Surra, and back in the cave he had Rain and King. He knew little of Norbie war customs, but he did not believe that the Nitra – if it had been those wild tribesmen who attacked here – would linger. They might well believe that they had wiped out all members of the exploring party. He must get Surra to the higher land at the north of the valley, which meant using Rain. Storm spoke gently to the cat, planting in his mind the idea that he must go but would return soon which she would sense.

The water had fallen swiftly so that this time he swam only a few feet as he backtracked. He returned to the cave to discover that Hing had been busy on her own, using her particular talent – digging – perhaps in search of edible roots carried down in the earthslide. Because of her activities he was able to clear a path for Rain. There were iron rations among the supplies he had in the pack and purified water in his canteen. Rain trotted down to suck up a drink from the flood and tear avidly at the waterlogged grass.

Towing the stallion loaded with the supply pack, Hing riding on top, and Baku overhead, Storm came back to the vicinity of the hillock. The sullenly retreating waters had now bared a stretch of washed gravel and boulders against the cliff wall about half a mile ahead, and he chose that site for his temporary camp. Leaving the pack with Hing and Baku on guard, he splashed over to the mound.

Rain had accepted Surra from the start as a running companion. The cat on four feet was a familiar part of his everyday world. But whether the stallion would allow her as a rider was another matter. Storm, mounted, manoeuvred the horse close to the mound, gentling Rain with hands and voice, and when the mount stood quietly, he called to the dune cat. She staggered to the edge of the drop and sprang, landing in front of the man with a sudden shock of weight.

Somewhat to the Terran’s surprise, Rain did not try to rid himself of the double burden. And Storm, with Surra draped awkwardly before him, headed the horse back through the roiled waters to the rapidly enlarging dry stretch beyond.

Once on the gravel bed Storm took stock of his supplies. Before leaving Irrawady Crossing he had pared his personal kit to bare essentials, depending upon Sorenson’s preparations for food rations. So what he had rescued from the mare was only a fraction of what they might need before they found a way out of the wasteland and gained some isolated settler’s holding or a temporary herd station. There were for weapons his stun rod, the bow the Norbies had given him, his belt knife. And for food, a packet of iron rations he had already drawn upon, a survival of his service days. He had his sleeping roll, the blanket from Terra, the small aid kit he had used for Surra, the torch, a hand heat unit with three charges, and a canteen. But he would have to boil his water from now on; the chemical purifiers had gone with the rest of the party’s supplies. However, Storm had done with far less when in the field and the team had learned to hunt game with dispatch and economy.

There was an oversized, rock-dwelling, distant cousin of a rabbit, which they had shot and eaten with good appetite on the trail, a deerlike browser, and the grass hens, which could be easily flushed out, though it took a number of them to satisfy a man. But all Arzoran animals moved with water, and he would have to make the river-fed plains before the big dry closed up the land.

Storm sat cross-legged by the bed of grass he had pulled for Surra’s resting. King muzzled against him, chittering mournfully to herself. Even the bag in which Ho had ridden was not to be found and she missed her mate. As the Terran stroked her coarse fur comfortingly, he studied the southern end of the valley. Between him and the gateway of the tunnel there was still a vast spread of water. He was walled off from that exit until the flood retreated still farther. Also – Storm pushed Hing down on his knees, reached for the vision lenses lying by him.

He swept that southern range, dissatisfied. There was something wrong there, though he could not decide just what it could be. He had a feeling that there had been a change in what he saw. His gaze travelled along the cliffs. There were places there where an active man could climb, but none where he could take Rain. No, unless there was a gateway in the north, then the tunnel remained their only exit. And to head north was to bore farther into the untracked wilderness.

To be alone was nothing new for Storm. In one way or another he had walked a lonely road for most of his life. And sometimes it was easier to live with his inner loneliness and just the team, than to exist in a human anthill such as the Centre. But there was something in this valley that he had never met before, not on any alien, enemy-held planet where he had learned to live in peril, where every move might betray him to an enemy and yet not to quick, clean death. This thing clung to the mounds of rubble – to the walls of rock, and the Terran knew that he had not been greatly surprised to find only the dead waiting on the hillock. This was a place that invited death. It repelled his senses, his body. Had it not been that Surra could not yet travel far, Storm would be seeking a way out right now.

The Terran wanted a fire, not only to dry what was left of his clothing and gear and as a source of physical comfort against the chill of the coming waterlogged night, but because fire itself was his species’ first weapon against the unknown – the oldest, and the most heartening. Slowly he began to speak aloud, his voice rolling into the chants, the old, old songs meant to be a defence against that which stalks the night, words that he believed he could not remember, but that now came easily in the ancient and comforting rhythms.

Baku, perched on a stone outcrop yards above Storm’s head, stirred. Surra raised her chin from her paws, her fox ears pricked. Storm drew his stun rod. His back was against the cliff wall, he had a shielding boulder on his right – only two sides to cover. With the other hand he worked his knife out of its sheath. Any attack would have to be hand to hand. Had a bowman stalked them the arrow would be already freed from its cord. And his stun ray could take care of a charge –

“Eruoooooo!” That call was low, echoing, and it was one he had often heard and could not repeat.

Storm did not relax vigilance, but neither did he press the control button of the ray, as a figure, which was hardly more than a flitting form against shadows gathering in this part of the valley where the western sun was already cut off by the cliffs, came running toward him. Gorgol, his right arm pressed to his chest, reached the gravel beach and dropped on the edge of Surra’s bed. His left hand moved in limited signs which Storm had to watch carefully to translate.

“Enemy – after flood – kill – all dead –”

“It is so,” Storm returned. “Let me see to your wound, warrior.”

The Terran pushed the young native back against the barricade boulder and examined the hurt hurriedly in the fading light. Luckily for the Norbie the arrow had gone cleanly through, and as far as Storm could judge none of the treacherous, glassy barbs had broken off in the flesh. He washed it with the last of the purified water and bound it up. Gorgol sighed and closed his eyes. The Terran brought out a block of concentrated ration, broke off a portion and pushed it into the Norbie’s good hand.

When Gorgol opened his eyes again Storm signed the all-important question.

“Nitra gone? Or still here?”

Gorgol shook his head in a determined negative. “No Nitra –” With the ration block clenched between his teeth, he moved his one set of fingers. “Not Nitra kill – not Norbies –”

Storm sat back on his heels, his eyes sweeping out over the mound-studded desolation. For an instant or two his vague fears of this place merged in a flash of imagination – the Sealed Cave people? Or some inimical thing they had left here on guard? Then he smiled wryly. Those men on the mound had been killed by arrows, the wound he had just tended was left by the same weapon. His racial superstitions were at war with all the scientific learning of his lost home-world.

“Not Norbies?”

“No Norbie, no Nitra –” Storm had made no mistake in his first reading of Gorgol’s signs. Now the native moved his other arm stiffly, forced his right hand to add to the authority of his left. “Faraway men come – your kind!”

But the arrows? That ritual mutilation of the dead –?

“You see them?”

“I see – I on cliff ledge – water high, high! Men come at end of rain – they wear this’ – he tapped the yoris hide corselet protecting his own torso – “like Norbie – carry bows – like Norbie –but not Norbie. Think Mountain Butchers – steal horses – steal frawns – kill – then say Norbie do. Mark dead like Norbie. They shoot – Gorgol fall like dead – only first Gorgol kill one!” His eyes gleamed brightly. “Gorgol warrior now! But too many –” He spread all his fingers to spell the size of the other party. “So when arrow find Gorgol he fall back – be dead – they no climb up to see whether really dead or no –”

“Mountain Butchers!” Storm repeated aloud and Gorgol must have guessed the meaning of the sounds for again he signed an eager assent.

They are still here?”

“Not so. They go –” Gorgol pointed north. “Think they live there. Not want men to know where they hide – so kill –”

Well, that was one more reason for not heading north when they tried to get out of here. But Gorgol was still making finger-talk.

“They have rider – he tied – maybe they make kill to feed evil spirits’ – he hesitated and then added that horrific sign Storm had first seen Sorenson make – “THE MEAT.”

Storm had heard of some Norbie tribes who, for purposes of a dark devil worship – or devil propitiation – ate prisoners they took under certain conditions. To most of the Arzoran tribes this custom was an abomination and there was a fierce and never-ending warfare waged between the ritual cannibals and their enemies. In Norbie minds the quality of evil was so associated with THE MEAT that it was natural for Gorgol to make the assumption he had just offered.

“Not so,” the Terran corrected. “Butchers not eat captives. This prisoner – he was from the plains?”

“Rider,” Gorgol agreed.

“Any settlers near here? We could find them – tell them about evil men – how they kill –”

Gorgol turned his head slowly so he looked south. “Many suns come up – go down – before reach settlers that way. Maybeso we can go. But not in dark – I not know this country – and Nitra be in hills. Man walk soft, so quick, be very careful –” But he glanced back at the Terran with a kind of level measurement the off-world man did not understand.

“With that I agree,” Storm spoke and signed together. The dark was almost on them now. He shared out bedding from his own roll, saw Gorgol was comfortable and then curled up on the grass beside Surra, sleeping as he had so many times before in perfect confidence that the super-acute hearing of the dune cat would warn him of any danger.

It was almost dawn when Storm did wake at her faint signal. He came not only awake but instantly alert, a trick he had learned so far in the past he was no longer conscious of knowing it. Whatever was coming had not aroused Surra’s fighting instincts, only her interest. He listened intently, hearing Gorgol’s heavy breathing, the rattle of hoof on gravel as Rain stirred. Then that other sound, a pattering noise so faint he could have missed it without Surra’s caution.

The light on the gravel bar was grey enough to distinguish objects and he was ready with the stun rod. He aimed at the dusky blot as soon as he was sure it was not a horse. The top-heavy outline against the rocks could be that of only one animal he had seen on Arzor, and they could certainly use the meat such a kill would provide. A minute later he was busy blooding the carcass of a yearling frawn, one which was plump enough to have enjoyed good foraging lately. Though what a frawn was doing alone in this wilderness was a mystery. The animals were plainsbred and ran in herds and they were never, under ordinary circumstances, either found in the mountain or alone.

Gorgol had an explanation when they squatted close to the fire Storm dared to light after he had heaped some rocks together as a screen. Chunks of frawn steak were spitted on sharpened sticks and the Norbie was giving their even browning careful attention.

“Stolen. Evil men put frawns in hiding – perhaps they lose this one when they drive many through – perhaps storm made herd stampede –”

Storm regarded the meat reflectively. There was a side problem to all this stealing horses and frawns. What in the world – or in Arzor – did the thieves intend to do with their plunder? The market for frawns lay off-world. There was only one space port and all animals loaded there had to be legally accounted for with sales and export papers. Settlers would be the first to detect any newcomer who could not account for his holdings clear back to the moment he set foot on Arzor. What was the profit in stealing meat on the hoof that you had no hope of selling?

“Why they want meat – no sell –” He passed that along to Gorgol, knowing the young native was acute enough to follow his chain of thought.

“Maybeso not sell-big land –” The Norbie waved his left hand wide. Take frawns far – horses, too. Norbie knows of places where Butchers hide. Norbie take horses from their secret places. Hurol, he of Gorgol’s own clan – he take three horses so last dry time. He big hunter – warrior –”

So the Norbies raided the secret caches of the Butchers. Now that scrap of information might lead to something. Suppose the Norbies should be encouraged in that useful occupation, one which appealed so to their own natural tastes? Put a Norbie afoot in the wastes and he could get along. Unhorse an off-worlder without supplies and it was a far different matter. But it all came back to this – how did the Butchers intend eventually to profit from their raids?

The situation might almost suggest a hidden space port to handle illicit trade. A hidden space port! Storm stiffened, his eyes very wide and level as he stared unseeingly at the fire. And Surra, catching from him that hidden tension, growled deep in her throat. There had been hidden space ports of a sort. He had uncovered one himself and brought in a mop-up squad to deal with it and those who manned it. Such a port established to milk a planet of food supplies –! Eagerly he responded to that familiar spur of the hunt.

Sure – the war was over – officially. He had spent that dreary year at the Centre to prove it. But suppose, just suppose that his wild suspicion were right! Then he had another chance –a chance to strike back once more at those who had taken away his world. Storm began to hum under his breath. In that moment his quarrel with Brad Quade was very far away – a thin wisp of a thing out of a half-forgotten story. If he were right –! Oh, Faraway Gods – let him now be right in his preposterous guess!

The Terran turned to Gorgol who had been watching him with close to the same narrow-eyed intensity that Surra’s thin pupils mirrored.

These Butchers – they have horses?”

“It is so,” signalled the other.

Then, as Hurol, let us see whether some of those horses may not carry us!”

Gorgol’s thin lips drew back in the half-smile of his people. That is good hearing. For these have killed our blood, and for that there must be a taking of hands in return –”

In that moment Storm realized how close he had been to making a grave error of judgment, one which might have finished his friendly relations with the native. Had he ridden south as had been his first plan, then he would have outraged custom that demanded a personal vengeance for those killed here. It was a small thing to weigh against the crime he suspected, but it was a good argument to use against that scrap of conscience that recalled the unfinished matter of Quade.

9

Much as he wanted to be on the move, Storm desired Surra to have another day of rest before he put her to the strain of the trail. And Gorgol’s wound also needed tending. After seeing to his patients, the Terran made his own plans for a scouting trip. First south, because he wanted to be sure that the Nitra were not between his party and that retreat route. But before he left, he made other preparations.

Grease from the frawn meat mixed with powdered red dust and a chalky stuff ground from some small soft pebbles provided him with a kind of paint and he went to work, streaking face and chest with splotches and broken lines – War paint or camouflage, it served equally well on both counts.

Gorgol watched the paint job with keen interest.

“You make warrior magic?”

The Terran glanced down at the stripes on his chest and smiled, but the movement of lips made no difference in the general ghastly effect of his new face mask.

“I make warrior magic – my people’s magic –”

On impulse he put over his head the circlet of the necklace and fastened about him, looped over his weapon belt, the concha – the embellished one of his inheritance. Then he considered weapons.

He could use a bow, having two hands. But Gorgol could not. And he would not leave the Norbie with no better defence than just his long-knife. Now he unbuckled the holstered stun rod. Storm knew that the natives had a deeply rooted prejudice against using another man’s weapons – believing that there was a mystical relationship between man and his arms. But there were also occasions of free gift in which the ‘magic” of the weapon could be transferred intact. He did not know the Norbie ceremony, but he could follow his own intuition.

As he had done on the morning he had started on this expedition. Storm held the sheathed weapon to the sky and then to the earth, before he extended it to Gorgol with the sign that signified the weapon was to be a permanent gift.

Gorgol’s slit-pupilled eyes widened, but he did not yet touch finger to the rod. Stun ray guns were imported from off-world, they cost what seemed to a native a fabulous amount in trade goods and Norbies seldom bought them, since it was too hard to get fresh clips to recharge them. But the gift of such a weapon was sometimes made by off-worlder to native and that was a very serious and honourable thing.

“Press here – aim so –” Slowly Storm went through the drill, but he knew that Gorgol had worked by the side of settler riders often enough to understand. The Norbie nodded and stood proudly as the Terran rebuckled the holster to the belt of the new owner.

Storm was about to sling his arrow quiver over his shoulder when Gorgol stopped him with an imperative gesture. One-handedly the Norbie transferred half of his hunting points to the Terran’s keeping. The war arrows were sacred and could not be given to another lest they fail him in some crucial moment. Now, equipped, painted, a true Navajo again outwardly, Storm saluted with upraised hand and padded away from the camp, Baku taking to the air to accompany him.

An unpleasant smell issued from the water still murky with mud. Where necessary, Storm splashed through shallows. But he worked his way around the drying outer rim of the valley, not attempting to swim the lake. There were dead animals, bloated, floating in the silted liquid. However, he found no trace of the party’s horses, of Mac and the third Norbie from the Crossing, or any of the party supplies. Had any of the mounts survived they must have been scooped up by the raiders.

As the Terran approached the southern end of the valley where the tunnel lay, he halted at regular intervals to sweep the ground ahead with his vision lenses. And now he could see that there was a change in the outline of the heights there. But it was not until Storm reached the wall of the lake and climbed a slime-encrusted mound of mud-cemented debris that he knew the worst.

The tunnel was gone, obliterated by a slide that would probably yield only to the powerful punch of a boomer, if there were one on Arzor, which he very much doubted. A man probably could climb those heights, fearing all the while to be trapped in another slip of the soft earth, but he could not get Rain through. It was certainly intended by someone or something that there was to be no easy escape southward. Storm felt a queer elation because he had already made his choice before he knew that the door had been slammed shut.

An hour or so later Gorgol accepted the information indifferently. Apparently it was of little matter that Baku was the only one that could now cross into the outer world with any ease. He, himself, was eager to head north. And Storm promised that they would leave Surra and Rain with their supplies in the cliff camp the next morning, he and Gorgol to try to trace the path the wandering frawn had used. For frawns were not climbers and it was certain that any trail the animal had followed into their valley was one a horse could negotiate.

Storm had considered himself, rightly by his standards, to be somewhat of an expert at trailing. But Gorgol was able to pick traces seemingly out of the surface of unmarked rock, guiding them to a thin crevice in the cliff walls where the prints of the frawn’s hoofs did show in drying mud. That crevice was narrow to begin with, and it climbed, but not too straightly. Above them Baku quested, sometimes totally lost to sight in the immensity of the sky where she faced no travel obstacles at all.

They came at last to a pocket-sized pass and Gorgol picked from between two rocks there a small hide pouch lined with frawn fabric, smelling of some aromatic herb.

“Faraway men chew – makes powerful dreams –” The Norbie passed the find to the Terran who sniffed inquiringly at the strong odour. It was not unpleasant, but he had never come across it before that he could remember. He was sorry for that ignorance as what he held might be an important clue to the true identity of the outlaws.

“Dream stuff grow on Arzor?” he asked

“Not so. Wizard use some found in Butcher camp. Made head shake – many dreams – evil. It is a spirit thing – not good.”

Storm tucked the find inside his belt. Undoubtedly it was a narcotic of some kind, perhaps with a stronger effect upon the Arzoran natives than upon the original off-world users.

“Through here – with horses –”

A small patch of earth was indented plainly by the prints of horsehoofs, though these were later overlaid with the frawn tracks bound in the other direction. And all the horses had been shod, proving they were not Norbie stock.

On the other side of the pass they found the reason for the wandering of the frawn, a yoris kill, the white bones of a full-grown frawn picked clean. But the killer had not profited greatly, though it had gone to its own death with a full paunch, because the huge lizard lay there too, its sickly yellow corpse thriftily skinned and left as a feast for a pack of small scavengers.

Gorgol slipped from one cover rock to the next, losing little of his agility because of the arm bound across his chest, venturing at length to squat beside that unsavoury carcass as the feasters fled. When Storm joined him the Norbie pointed to the reptile’s head.

That was a disturbing sight, not because the whole top of the saurian skull was completely missing, but because the Terran knew only one weapon that could cause a death wound such as that. And it was one completely outlawed at the end of the war.

“A slicer!” he breathed. More evidence that his wild guess of yesterday had some base in fact. He glanced at the bow in his own hand and grimaced. A bow against a stun ray was not too impossible odds – but a bow opposed to a slicer was no odds at all – in favour of the man equipped with the slicer!

The Norbie rose to his feet and looked around him. He picked up a stick and thrust it under that wreck of a head, turning up the skull to pry at the lower jaw. Under his probing a sudden stream of greenish liquid fountained high. Gorgol twittered in much the same tone of consternation Hing used upon occasion. Dropping his stick he made finger-talk.

“Yoris’ death poison – mating season now.”

That meant that the big, ugly reptiles were twice as vicious and far more deadly. During the mating season each of the males would have effective poison fangs to use against rivals, and yoris’ venom was often fatal – at least to off-worlders. From now on they must be prepared to kill the lizards on sight without waiting for any attack.

Leaving the carnage on the small plateau, Storm strode to the rim for a survey of what lay below. The land there presented a surprising vista, though perhaps he should have been prepared, having seen the ruins in the lake valley. As far as Storm could see the cliff walls were cut into a series of giant steps – really terraces – most of which were cloaked – or choked – with thick growths of vegetation. Leading from a point to the south, a road had been cut and cleared from level to level – perhaps the trail along which the outlaws drove their stolen animals. For the pass through which he and Gorgol had just come could not have accommodated a herd of any size.

The Terran unslung his lenses to study in detail the floor of this second valley. It was easy to pick out a sizable frawn herd at graze there, the curious loping gait of the animals making them seem almost top-heavy when they moved because of their heavily maned forequarters and high-held horned heads contrasted to the relatively weak nakedness of their sharply sloping hindquarters free of almost all but a tight fuzz of hair.

Frawns – but no horses. And no signs of riders either. The limiting walls of the valley itself perhaps provided an adequate barrier to drifting and cancelled the need for any herders –though with the yoris season at its height Storm would have considered guards necessary.

This valley was much wider than the outer one and only the lenses allowed Storm to see that the opposite walls were terraced in the same fashion as those below. The grass was luxuriant and high, and there were no signs of the flood that had devastated the neighbouring lowland.

Nor were there any other evidences of what Storm sought. This place might be only a convenient hiding place for stolen herds. If it had not been for the wound on the dead yoris –

Gorgol’s hand pressed the Terran’s arm. Obedient to that warning, Storm turned his lenses swiftly back to the valley floor. The frawns were no longer grazing. Instead the bulls were tossing their heads, galloping awkwardly to the right, while the cows and young were falling back into a tight knot, heads pointing outward, the typical defence position of their species.

Horsemen! Three of them. And the horses they rode were a dark-skinned stock, a different breed from those of Larkin’s string, wiry, smaller animals, such as those Storm had seen in the Norbie camp. However, the men who rode them were not natives. Nor did they wear the almost universal Arzoran settler dress of yoris-hide breeches and frawn-fabric shirts.

Storm went down on one knee, swinging around to follow that group of riders with his powerful glasses. His first sight of those dull black tunics – the black that always looked as if it were coated with grey dust – had confirmed all his suspicions. This was it! Those enemy uniforms, the hidden business in stolen frawns, everything clicked together with a satisfying snap. No wonder they had wiped out the Survey party, striving at the same time to make the deed seem a native massacre! Blame everything on the wild Norbies. A beautiful cover, a situation made to order for the Xiks.

“Saaaa –” Gorgol had learned to imitate the call Storm used for the team, the only sound he had in common with the Terran. The native was energetically stabbing his forefinger into the air northward in a demand for Storm to shift his attention to that point.

The frawns were still bunched, not relaxing their vigilance. However, their very ordinary reaction to the invasion of their feeding grounds was not what interested the native. Some of the force of the storm had stripped a path down the mountain, clearing a haphazard lane of yellow-red earth that ended in a mound on the next to the last terrace. And, hugging that, almost indistinguishable from the ground on which he lay, another was watching the same scene. With the aid of Storm’s lenses that spy leaped into full view, and the Terran saw the long, lean body of a Norbie who must be completely concealed from sight as far as anyone on the floor of the valley was concerned. There was something odd about the fellow’s head. Those horns, curving back across the hairless pate, they were not ivory white as Gorgol’s, as those of all the other Norbies Storm had seen, but dyed a blue-green,

He looked to Gorgol for enlightenment. The young Norbie had flattened himself out on an overhanging rock from which he could get the fullest view of the other native, his chin supported on the injured arm, his features impassive, but his cat-eyes were much alive. Then his lips drew flat against his teeth in the humourless grin that signified anger or battle excitement among his kind, and his other hand, resting on the rock next to the Terran, made the finger-sign for Nitra.

Was that a hidden scout travelling alone? Or did he act as the advance ranger for a war party? Norbie custom allowed for either answer. A youngster out on a personal hunt for a warrior trophy could prospect these ranges on his own. Or a raiding party might have marked down this hidden valley and its secret herds and decided to make the Butchers their prey. From these terraces with their thick cover an ambush attack by expert bowmen could cause a good deal of trouble.

Gorgol’s fingers moved again. “One only –”

Though the Terran could not speak Gorgol’s language, nor the native do more than imitate the team call, Storm had discovered that he could convey information in a sketchy way, or ask a question with extravagant movements of his lips and be half-understood. He held his lenses still but turned his head to ask:

“War party?”

Gorgol dipped his chin and moved his head from side to side in emphatic negation.

“One only.”

Storm longed for Surra. He could have set the dune cat to shadow that warrior, make sure in her own way that he was the only one of his kind along the terraces. Now the Terran’s own plan for trailing those three riders must be revised. Without Surra to run interference it would be folly to venture down into the lower reaches of the valley and perhaps be cut off from the pass. Yet he wanted to see where those riders were headed.

The Terran worked his way along the small plateau, passing once more the very dead yoris, to reach the northernmost tip. There he dared to get to his feet and lean back against a rust-red finger of rock, sure that he was a part of the stone to anyone who was more than a few rods away.

This valley was surely a wide expanse, roughly in the outline of a bottle, of which the south was the narrowest part. And the outlaws could, and probably had, camouflaged everything at ground level. He could pick out no buildings, no indication that this was anything but virgin wilderness.

Except for that one thing planted there, stiffly upright, sending small sparks of reflected sunlight through a masking of skilfully wrought drapery, a piece of work that made Storm grant those below very full marks.

He judged that sky-pointing length narrowly, knowing that its landing fins must now be sunk well below the surface of the meadowland. That meant that a great amount of labour had been expended – as well as pointing to the fact that the pilot who had ridden down his ship’s tail flames into that constricted area had been a very expert one. From the appearance of the drapery it must have been some time since the ship had been landed and apparently built into the general surroundings. If he could see the thing stripped, he might be able to identify the type – though with that slender outline it was no cargo carrier – Storm believed it might be a scout or a very fast courier and supply ship, the kind a man might latch onto during the break-up immediately before surrender for a fast getaway. Whatever its kind, Storm knew that on its scarred side he would find only one symbol. But was he now spying on a secret and well-established colony, set up while the Xiks were still powerful, or just a hideaway for holdouts who had fled the order to lay down their arms?

Gorgol came up beside him. “Nitra go –” He flicked a finger north. “Maybeso hunt for trophies –” His hand remained outspread, his gaze centred on the half-hidden ship. Then his head snapped around and his astonishment was very plain to read.

“What?” he signed.

“Faraway sky thing.” Storm used the native term for space ship.

“Why here?” countered Gorgol.

“Butchers – evil men bring –”

Again the thin-lipped fighting grin of Norbie anger stretched Gorgol’s mouth.

“Faraway sky thing no come Norbie land.” He strained the fingers of his right hand to join the left in making that protest “Norbie drink blood faraway men – talk straight – swear oaths of warriors. Faraway ship thing only come one place on land – not near mountains where Those-Who-Drum-Thunder be angry! Faraway men not talk straight – here sky thing too!”

Trouble! Storm caught the threat in this. The Norbies allowed the space port to be located well away from the mountains that to them were sacred. And the treaty that had made the settlers’ holdings safe to them allowed only that one place of landing and departure for off-world ships. To let the rumour get started that there was a second port right in the heart of their mountains would be enough to break every drink-blood tie on Arzor.

Storm let his lenses swing from their strap, held out his hands to focus Gorgol’s attention.

“I warrior –” He underlined that statement by drawing his index finger along the faint scar line on his shoulder. “Gorgol warrior –” With the same finger he touched the other’s bandaged forearm gently. “I get warrior scar, not from Nitra, not from other tribe like mine – I get wound fighting evil men –of that tribe!” He made a spear of his finger, stabbing the air toward the grounded space ship. “Gorgol wounded by those evil men – from there!” Again he pointed. “They are of those who eat THE MEAT –” He added the worst symbol the sign language contained.

Gorgol’s yellow eyes held the Terran’s unblinkingly before he signed:

“Do you swear this by Those-Who-Drum-Thunder?”

Storm drew his knife from his belt, pushing its hilt into the Norbie’s hand and then drew it up by the blade until the point pricked the skin encircled in the necklace on his breast.

“Let Gorgol push this home if he does not believe I speak true,” he signed slowly with his free hand.

The Norbie drew back the knife, reversed it with a flip of his wrist and proffered the hilt to the Terran. As Storm took the blade from him, he replied, “I believe. But this – bad thing. Faraway man fight evil men his kind – or oath broken.”

“It is so. What I can do, I shall. But first we must know more of these men –”

Gorgol looked down into the valley. “Nitra hunts – and the night comes. In the day we can move better – you have not the eyes that see in darkness –”

Storm knew an inward relief. If the Norbie had wanted to keep up with the scout, now it would have been hard not to agree. But this suggestion coming from the native fitted in with the Terran’s own wishes.

“Big cat –” Storm suggested, “get well – be able to hunt Nitra while we watch evil men –”

Gorgol agreed to that readily, having seen Surra in action. And with a last detailed examination of the concealed ship, which told him no more than he had learned earlier, Storm started back to the outer valley, to plan an active campaign.