11
"It is open for you!" Hume broke the quiet first. His eyes were verybleak in his bony face.
Vye stood up, took one step and was on the other side of the curtainwhere Hume's hand still found substance. He came back with the samelack of hindrance. Yes, to him there was no longer a barrier. Butwhy--why him when Hume was still a prisoner?
The Hunter raised his head so his eyes could meet Vye's with theauthority of an order. "Go, get away while you can!"
Instead Vye dropped down beside the other. "Why?" he asked baldly. Andthen the most obvious of all answers came.
He glanced at Hume. The Hunter's head lolled back against the rockwhich supported him, his eyes were closed now, and he had the look ofa man who had been driven to the edge of endurance and was now willingto relinquish his grip and let go.
Deliberately Vye brought up his right hand, balled his fingers into afist. And just as deliberately he struck home, square on the point ofthat defenseless chin. Hume sagged, would have slipped down thesurface of the rock had Vye's hands not caught in his armpits.
Since he had not the strength left to get to his feet with such aburden, Vye crawled, dragging the inert body of the Hunter with him.And this time, as he had hoped, there was no resistance at the gap.Unconscious, Hume was able to cross the barrier. Vye stretched him ascomfortably flat as he could, used a portion of their water on hisface until he moaned, muttered, and raised his hand feebly to hishead.
Then those gray eyes opened, focussed on Vye.
"What--"
"We're both through now, both of us!" The younger man saw Hume glancearound him with waking belief.
"But how--?"
"I knocked you out, that's how," Vye returned.
"Knocked me out? I crossed when I was unconscious!" Hume's voicesteadied, strengthened. "Let me see!" He rolled over on his side,threw out his arm, and this time the hand found no wall. For him, too,the barrier was gone.
"Once through, you are free," he added wonderingly. "Maybe they neverforesaw any escapes." He struggled up, sitting with his hands hangingloosely between his knees.
Vye turned his head, looked down the trail. The length of distancelying between them and the safari camp now faced them with a newproblem. Neither of them could make that trek on foot.
"We're out, but we aren't back--yet," Hume echoed his thought.
"I was wondering, if _this_ door is open--" Vye began.
"The flitter!" Again Hume's mind matched his. "Yes, if those globesaren't hanging around just waiting for us to try."
"They might act only to get us here, not to keep us once we're in."That might be wishful thinking, they wouldn't know until they tried toprove it.
"Give me a hand." Hume held out his own, let Vye pull him to his feet.Weak as he was, he was clear-eyed, plainly clear-headed once more."Let's go!"
Together they went back through the gap, then tested the absence ofthe barrier once more, to make sure. Hume laughed. "At least the frontdoor remains open, even if we find the back one closed."
Vye left him sitting by that entrance while he made a quick trip tothe cave to pick up the small pack of supplies left them. When hereturned they crammed tablets into their mouths, drank feverishly ofthe lake water, and, with the stimulation of the new energy, set offalong the cliff face.
"This wall in the lake," Hume asked suddenly, "you are sure it isartificial?"
"Runs too straight to be anything else, and those projections areevenly spaced. I don't see how it could be natural."
"We'll have to be sure."
Vye thought of that attacking water creature. "No diving in there," heprotested. Hume smiled, a stretch of skin far too tight over his jawnow.
"Not us, at least not us now," he agreed. "But the Guild will sendanother survey."
"What could be the reason for all this?" Vye helped his companion overthe loose debris of a cliff slide.
"Information."
"What?"
"Someone--or something--picked our brains while we were out of ourheads. Or--" Hume paused suddenly, looked directly at Vye. "I have avague feeling that you were able to keep going a lot better than Iwas. That so?"
"Some of the time," Vye admitted.
"That checks. Part of me knew what was going on, but was helplesswhile that other thing," his smile of moments earlier was wiped away,there was a chill edge in his voice, "picked over my brains, sortedout what it wanted."
Vye shook his head. "I didn't feel that way. Just thick-headed--as ifI were sleep walking and yet awake."
"So it took me over, but didn't go all the way with you. Why? Anotherquestion for our list."
"Maybe--maybe Wass' techs fixed it so I couldn't be brain-picked, asyou call it," Vye offered.
Hume nodded. "Could be--would well be. Come on." He pressed the pacenow.
Vye turned to look down the slope suspiciously. Had Hume anotherwarning of menace out of the wood? He could sight no movement there.And from this distance the lake was a topaz sheet of calm which couldhide anything. Hume was already several paces ahead, scrambling as ifthe valley monsters were again on their track.
"What's the matter?" Vye demanded, as he caught up.
"Night coming." Which was true. Then Hume added, "If we can reach theflitter before sunset, we'll have a chance to fly over the lake downthere, to make a taping of it before we go."
The energy of the tablets strengthened them so that by the time theyreached the crevice door they were moving with their former agility.For a single second Hume hesitated before that slit, almost as if hefeared the test he must make. Then he stepped forward and this timeinto freedom.
They reached the ledge where the flitter perched just as they had seenit last. How long ago that had been they could not have told, but theysuspected that days of haze hung in between. Vye searched the sky. Noglobes winking there--just the flyer alone.
He took his old seat behind the pilot, watched Hume test the relaysand responses in the quick run down of a man who has done this choremany times before. But the other gave a little sigh of relief when hefinished.
"She's all right, we can lift."
Again they both looked aloft, half fearing to see those malignantherders wink into being to forbid flight. But the sky was as serenelyclear of even a drifting cloud as they could hope. Hume pressed abutton and they arose vertically with an even progress totally unlikethe leap which had taken them out of Wass' camp.
Well above the cliff wall they hovered, and were able to see below theround bowl of the valley prison. Hume touched controls, the flitterdescended slowly just above the center of the lake. And from thisposition they were able to sight the other peculiarity of that body ofwater, that it was perfectly oval in shape, far too perfect to be anundeveloped product of nature. Hume took a round disk from hisequipment belt, fitted it carefully into a slot on the control boardand pressed the button below. Then he sent the flitter in a weavingzigzag course well above the surface of the water, so that eventuallythe flyer passed over every foot of its surface.
And from above, in spite of the turgid quality of the liquid, theycould see what did rest on the bottom of that oval. The wall with itssharp corner which Vye had noted from shore level was only part of awater covered erection. It made a design when seen from overhead, asix-pointed star surrounding an oval and in the midst of that oval ablack blot which they could not identify.
Hume brought the flitter over in one last sweep. "That's it. We have afull taping."
"What do you think it is?"
"A device set there by an intelligent being, and set a long time ago.This valley wasn't arranged over night, six months ago--or even a yearago. We'll have to let the experts tell us when and for what reason.Now, let's head for home!"
He brought the flitter up and over the valley wall, flying southwestso that they passed over the gap which was the main entrance to thetrap. And now he tried the com unit, endeavoring to pick up a signalon which they could beam in for a safe ride.
"That's odd." Unde
r Hume's control the direction finder passed backand forth without bringing any answering code click from the mike. "Wemay be too far in the mountains to pick up the beam. I wonder...." Heswept the needle in another direction, slightly to the left.
A crackle spat from the mike. Vye could not read code but the veryfury and intensity of that sound suggested panic--even terror.
"What's that?"
Hume spoke without looking away from the control board. "Alarm."
"From the safari?"
"No. Wass." For a long second Hume sat very still, his fingers quiet.The flitter was on the automatic course, taking them out of themountains, and Vye thought that their air speed was such they werealready well removed from that sinister valley.
Hume made a slight adjustment to a dial, and the flitter banked,coming around on another course. Once more he spun the finder of thecom. This time he was answered with a series of well-spaced clickswhich lacked the urgency of that other call. Hume listened until thecode rattled into silence again.
"They're all right at the safari camp."
"But Wass is in trouble. So what does that matter?" Vye wanted toknow.
"It matters this much." Hume spoke slowly as if he must convincehimself as well as Vye. "I'm the Guild man on Jumala, and the Guildman is responsible for all civs."
"You can't call him your client!"
Hume shook his head. "No, he's no client. But he's human."
It narrowed down to that when a man was on the frontier worlds--humansstood together. Vye wanted to deny it, but his own emotions, as wellas the centuries of age-old tradition, argued him down. Wass was aVeep, one of the criminal parasites dabbling in human misery alongmore than one solar lane. But he was also human and, as one of theirown species, had his claim on them.
Vye watched Hume take over the controls, felt the flitter answeranother change of course, then heard the frantic yammer of thedistress call as they leveled off to ride its beam in to the hiddencamp.
"Automatic." Hume had turned down the volume of the receiver so thatthe clicks in the mike no longer were so strident. "Set on maximum andleft that way."
"They had a force barrier around the camp and they knew about theglobes and the watchers." Vye tried to imagine what had happened inthat woods clearing.
"The barrier might have shorted. And without the flitter they wouldhave been pinned."
"Could have taken off in the spacer."
"Wass doesn't have the reputation of letting any project get out ofhis hands."
Vye remembered. "Oh--your billion credit deal."
To his surprise Hume laughed. "Seems all very far and out of orbitnow, doesn't it, Lansor? Yes, our billion credit deal--but that wasthought out before we knew there were more players around the tablethan we counted. I wonder...."
But what he wondered he did not put into words and a moment later headded over his shoulder, "Better try to get some rest, boy. We've sometime to a set-down."
Vye did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And he roused after a gentleshaking to see a beam of light in the sky ahead, though around themwas the solid darkness of night.
"That's a warning," Hume explained. "And I can't raise any reply fromthe camp except a repeat of the distress call. If there is anyonethere now, he can't or won't answer."
Against that column of light they could make out the sky-pointed taperof the spacer and the auto-pilot landed them beside that ship in themiddle of an area well lighted by the steady shaft of light from thetripod standing where the atom lamp had been on the night they hadmade their escape from camp.
Climbing stiffly from the small flyer they advanced with caution. Avery few minutes later Hume slid his ray tube back into its belt loop.
"Unless they've holed up in the spacer--and I can't see why they'd dothat--this camp's deserted. And they haven't taken any equipment withthem except maybe a few items they could back-pack."
The ship proved as empty of life as the campsite. A wall seat pulledout too hastily so that it was jammed awry, the com cabin suggestedthat the leave-taking, when and for what reason, had been a matter ofsome emergency. Hume did not touch the tape set to keep onbroadcasting the call for assistance.
"What now?" Vye wanted to know as they completed the search.
"The safari camp first--and a call for the Patrol."
"Look here," Vye set down the ration container he had found, wasemptying it with vast satisfaction of one who had been too long ontablets, "if you beam the Patrol you'll have to talk, won't you?"
Hume went on fitting new charges into his ray tube. "The Patrol has tohave a full report. There's no way of bypassing that. Yes, we'll haveto give all the story. You needn't worry." He snapped closed the loadchamber. "I can clear you all the way. You're the victim, remember."
"I wasn't thinking about that."
"Boy." Hume tossed the tube up in the air, caught it in hisplasta-hand. "I went into this deal with my eyes wide open--whydoesn't matter very much now. In fact," he stared beyond Vye out intothe empty, lighted camp, "I've begun to wonder about a lot ofthings--maybe too late. No--we'll call the Patrol and we'll do it notbecause it is Wass and his men out there, but because we're human andthey're human, and there's a nasty set-up here which has alreadysucked in other humans for its own purposes."
The skeleton in the valley! And how very close they had beenthemselves to joining that unknown in his permanent residence.
"So now we make time--back to the safari camp. Get our message off tothe Patrol and then we'll try to trace Wass and see what we can do.Jumala is off a regular route. The Patrol won't be here tomorrow atsunrise, no matter how much we wish a scouter would planet then."
Vye was quiet as he stowed in the flitter again. As Hume had said,events moved fast. A little while ago he had wanted to settle withthis Out-Hunter, wring out of him not only an explanation for hisbeing here, but claim satisfaction for the humiliation of being movedabout to suit some others' purposes. Now he was willing to defeatWass, bring in the Patrol, go up against whatever hid in that lake upthere, providing Hume was not the loser. He tried to think why thatwas so and could not, he only knew it was the truth.
They were both silent as they took off from Wass' deserted camp, spedaway over the black blot of the woodland towards the safariheadquarters on the plains. There were stars above again but noglobes. Just as they had won their freedom from the valley, so theymoved without escort on the plains.
But the lights were there--not impinging on the flitter, or patrollingalong its line of flight. No, they hung in a glowing cluster aheadwhen in the dawn the flitter shot away from the woods, headed for thelandmark of the safari camp. A crown of lights circled over the campsite, as if those below were in a state of siege.
Hume aimed straight for them and this time the bobbing circle splitwide open, broke to left and right. Vye looked below. Though thegrayness of the morning was still hardly more than dusk he could notmiss those humps spaced at intervals on the land, just beyond theunseen line of the force barrier. The lights above, the beasts below,the safari camp was under guard.