18. STORM'S ENDING
Shann had no answer from the transport, only the continuing hum of acontact still open between the dome and the control cabin miles aboveWarlock. The Terran breathed slowly, deeply, felt the claws of the Throgbite his flesh as his chest expanded. Then, as if a knife slashed, thehum of that contact was gone. He had time to know a small flash oftriumph. He had done it; he had aroused suspicion in the transport.
When the Throg officer clicked to the alien manning the landing beam,Shann's exultation grew. The beetle-head must have accepted that cut incommunication as normal; he was still expecting the Terran ship to dropneatly into his claws.
But Shann's respite was to be very short, only timed by a few breaths.The Throg at the riding beam was watching the indicators. Now hereported to his superior, who swung back to face the prisoner. AlthoughShann could read no expression on the beetle's face, he did not need anyclue to the other's probable emotions. Knowing that his captive hadsomehow tricked him, the alien would now proceed relentlessly to putinto effect the measures he had threatened.
How long before the patrol cruiser would planet? That crew was used toalarms, and their speed was three or four times greater than that of thebulkier transports. If the Throgs didn't scatter now, before they couldbe caught in one attack....
The wire rope which held Shann clamped to the chair was loosened, and heset his teeth against the pain of restored circulation, This was nothingcompared to what he faced; he knew that. They jerked him to his feet,faced him toward the outer door, and propelled him through it with aspeed and roughness indicative of their feelings.
The hour was close to dusk and Shann glanced wistfully at promisingshadows, though he had given up hope of rescue by now. If he could justget free of his guards, he could at least give the beetle-heads a goodrun.
He saw that the camp was deserted. There was no sign about the domesthat any Throgs sheltered there. In fact, Shann saw no aliens at allexcept those who had come from the com dome with him. Of course! Therest must be in ambush, waiting for the transport to planet. What aboutthe Throg ship or ships? Those must have been hidden also. And the onlyhiding place for them would be aloft. There was a chance that the Throgshad so flung away their chance for any quick retreat.
Yes; the aliens could scatter over the countryside and so escape thefirst blast from the cruiser. But they would simply maroon themselves tobe hunted down by patrol landing parties who would comb the territory.The beetles could so prolong their lives for a few hours, maybe a fewdays, but they were really ended on that moment when the transport cutcommunication. Shann was sure that the officer, at least, understoodthat.
The Terran was dragged away from the domes toward the river down whichhe and Thorvald had once escaped. Moving through the dusk in parallellines, he caught sight of other Throg squads, well armed, marching inorder to suggest that they were not yet alarmed. However, he had beenright about the ships--there were no flyers grounded on the improvisedfield.
Shann made himself as much of a burden as he could. At the best, hecould so delay the guards entrusted with his safekeeping; at the worst,he could earn for himself a quick ending by blaster which would bebetter than the one they had for him. He went limp, falling forward intothe trampled grass. There was an exasperated click from the Throg whohad been herding him, and the Terran tried not to flinch from a sharpkick delivered by a clawed foot.
Feigning unconsciousness, the Terran listened to the unintelligibleclicks exchanged by Throgs standing over him. His future depended now onhow deep lay the alien officer's anger. If the beetle-head wanted tocarry out his earlier threats, he would have to order Shann'stransportation by the fleeing force. Otherwise his life might well endhere and now.
Claws hooked once more on Shann. He was boosted up on the horny carapaceof a guard, the bonds on his arms taken off and his numbed hands broughtforward, to be held by his captor so that he lay helpless, a cloak overthe other's hunched shoulders.
The ghost flares of bushes and plants blooming in the gathering twilightgave a limited light to the scene. There was no way of counting thenumber of Throgs on the move. But Shann was sure that all the enemyships must have been emptied except for skeleton crews, and perhapsothers had been ferried in from their hidden base somewhere in Circe'ssystem.
He could only see a little from his position on the Throg's back, butahead a ripple of beetle bodies slipped over the bank of the river cut.The aliens were working their way into cover, fitting into the dappleshadows with a skill which argued a long practice in such elusivemaneuvers. Did they plan to try to fight off a cruiser attack? That waspure madness. Or, Shann wondered, did they intend to have the Terransmet by one of their own major ships somewhere well above the surface ofWarlock?
His bearer turned away from the stream cut, carrying Shann out into thatfield which had first served the Terrans as a landing strip, thenoffered the same service to the Throgs. They passed two more parties ofaliens on the move, manhandling with them bulky objects the Terran couldnot identify. Then he was dumped unceremoniously to the hard earth, onlyto lie there a few seconds before he was flopped over on a frameworkwhich grated unpleasantly against his raw shoulders, his wrists andankles being made fast so that his body was spread-eagled. There was aclick of orders; the frame was raised and dropped with a jarringmovement into a base, and he was held erect, once more facing the Throgwith the translator. This was it! Shann began to regret every smallchance he had had to end more cleanly. If he had attacked one of theguards, even with his hands bound, he might have flustered the Throginto retaliatory blaster fire.
Fear made a thicker fog about him than the green mist of the illusion.Only this was no illusion. Shann stared at the Throg officer with sickeyes, knowing that no one ever quite believes that a last evil willstrike at him, that he had clung to a hope which had no existence.
"Lantee!"
The call burst in his head with a painful force. His dazed attention wasoutwardly on the alien with the translator, but that inner demand hadgiven him a shock.
"Here! Thorvald? Where?"
The other struck in again with an urgent demand singing through Shann'sbrain.
"Give us a fix point--away from camp but not too far. Quick!"
A fix point--what did the Survey officer mean? A fix point ... For somereason Shann thought of the ledge on which he had lain to watch thefirst Throg attack. And the picture of it was etched on his mind asclearly as memory could paint it.
"Thorvald----" Again his voice and his mind call were echoes of eachother. But this time he had no answer. Had that demand meant Thorvaldand the Wyverns were moving in, putting to use the strangedistance-erasing power the witches of Warlock could use by desire? Butwhy had they not come sooner? And what could they hope to accomplishagainst the now scattered but certainly unbroken enemy forces? TheWyverns had not been able to turn their power against one injuredThrog--by their own accounting--how could they possibly cope withwell-armed and alert aliens in the field?
"You die--slow----" The Throg officer clicked, and the emotionless,toneless translation was all the more daunting for that lack of color."Your people come--see----"
So that was the reason they had brought him to the landing field. He wasto furnish a grisly warning to the crew of the cruiser. However, therethe Throgs were making a bad mistake if they believed that his death byany ingenious method could scare off Terran retaliation.
"I die--you follow----" Shann tried to make that promise emphatic.
Did the Throg officer expect the Terran to beg for his life or a quickdeath? Again he made his threat--straight into the web, hearing it splitinto clicks.
"Perhaps," the Throg returned. "But you die the first."
"Get to it!" Shann's voice scaled up. He was close to the ragged edge,and the last push toward the breaking point had not been the Throgspeech, but that message from Thorvald. If the Survey officer was goingto make any move in the mottled dusk, it would have to be soon.
Mottled dusk.... The Throgs had mov
ed a little away from him. Shannlooked beyond them to the perimeter of the cleared field, not reallybecause he expected to see any rescuers break from cover there. And whenhe did see a change, Shann thought his own sight was at fault.
Those splotches of waxy light which marked certain trees, bushes, andscrubby ground-hugging plants were spreading, running together in pools.And from those center cores of concentrated glow, tendrils of mistlazily curled out, as a many-armed creature of the sea might allow itsappendages to float in the water which supported it. Tendrils crossed,met, and thickened. There was a growing river of eerie light whichspread, again resembling a sea wave licking out onto the field. Andwhere it touched, unlike the wave, it did not retreat, but lapped on.Was he actually seeing that? Shann could not be sure.
Only the gray light continued to build, faster now, its speed of advancematching its increase in bulk. Shann somehow connected it with the veilof illusion. If it was real, there was a purpose behind it.
There was an aroused clicking from the Throgs. A blaster bolt cracked,its spiteful, sickly yellow slicing into the nearest tongue of gray. Butthat luminous fog engulfed the blast and was not dispelled. Shann forcedhis head around against the support which held him. The mist creptacross the field from all quarters, walling them in.
Running at the ungainly lope which was their best effort at speed werehalf a dozen Throgs emerging from the river section. Their attitudesuggested panic-stricken flight, and when one tripped on some unseenobstruction and went down--to fall beneath a descending tongue ofphosphorescence--he uttered a strange high-pitched squeal, thin andfaint, but still a note of complete, mindless terror.
The Throgs surrounding Shann were firing at the fog, first withprecision, then raggedly, as their bolts did nothing to cut that opaquecurtain drawing in about them. From inside that mist came othersounds--noises, calls, and cries all alien to him, and perhaps also tothe Throgs. There were shapes barely to be discerned through the swirls;perhaps some were Throgs in flight. But certainly others were non-Throgin outline. And the Terran was sure that at least three of those shapes,all different, had been in pursuit of one fleeing Throg, heading him offfrom that small open area still holding about Shann.
For the Throgs were being herded in from all sides--the handful who hadcome from the river, the others who had brought Shann there. And theaction of the mist was pushing them into a tight knot. Would theyeventually turn on him, wanting to make sure of their prisoner beforethey made a last stand against whatever lurked in the fog? To Shann'scontinued relief the aliens seemed to have forgotten him. Even when onecowered back against the very edge of the frame on which the Terran wasbound, the beetle-head did not look at this helpless prey.
They were firing wildly, with desperation in every heavy thrust ofbolt. Then one Throg threw down his blaster, raised his arms over hishead, and voicing the same high wail uttered by his comrade-in-armsearlier, he ran straight into the mist where a shape materialized,closed in behind him, cutting him off from his fellows.
That break demoralized the others. The Throg commander burned down twoof his company with his blaster, but three more broke past him to thefog. One of the remaining party reversed his blaster, swung the stockagainst the officer's carapace, beating him to his knees, before theattacker raced on into the billows of the mist. Another threw himself onthe ground and lay there, pounding his claws against the baked earth.While a remaining two continued with stolid precision to fire at thelurking shapes which could only be half seen; and a third helped theofficer to his feet.
The Throg commander reeled back against the frame, his musky body scentfilling Shann's nostrils. But he, too, paid no attention to the Terran,though his horny arms scraped across Shann's. Holding both of his clawsto his head, he staggered on, to be engulfed by a new arm of the fog.
Then, as if the swallowing of the officer had given the mist a freshappetite, the wan light waved in a last vast billow over the clear areaabout the frame. Shann felt its substance cold, slimy, on his skin. Thiswas a deadly breath of un-life.
He was weakened, sapped of strength, so that he hung in his bounds, hishead lolling forward on his breast. Warmth pressed against him, a warmwet touch on his cold skin, a sensation of friendly concern in his mind.Shann gasped, found that he was no longer filling his lungs with thatchill staleness which was the breath of the fog. He opened his eyes,struggling to raise his head. The gray light had retreated, but though aThrog blaster lay close to his feet, another only a yard beyond, therewas no sign of the aliens.
Instead, standing on their hind feet to press against him in a demandfor his attention, were the wolverines. And seeing them, Shann dared tobelieve that the impossible could be true; somehow he was safe.
He spoke. And Taggi and Togi answered with eager whines. The mist waswithdrawing more slowly than it had come. Here and there things lay verystill on the ground.
"Lantee!"
This time the call came not into his mind but out of the air. Shann madean effort at reply which was close to a croak.
"Over here!"
A new shape in the fog was moving with purpose toward him. Thorvaldstrode into the open, sighted Shann, and began to run.
"What did they----?" he began.
Shann wanted to laugh, but the sound which issued from his dry throatwas very little like mirth. He struggled helplessly until he managed toget out some words which made sense.
"... hadn't started in on me yet. You were just in time."
Thorvald loosened the wires which held the younger man to the frame andstood ready to catch him as he slumped forward. And the officer's holdwiped away the last clammy residue of the mist. Though he did not seemable to keep on his feet, Shann's mind was clear.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"The power." Thorvald was examining him hastily but with attention forevery cut and bruise. "The beetle-heads didn't really get to work onyou----"
"Told you that," Shann said impatiently. "But what brought that fog andgot the Throgs?"
Thorvald smiled grimly. The ghostly light was fading as the fogretreated, but Shann could see well enough to note that around theother's neck hung one of the Wyvern disks.
"It was a variation of the veil of illusion. You faced your memoriesunder the influence of that; so did I. But it would seem that the Throgshad ones worse than either of us could produce. You can't play the roleof thug all over the galaxy and not store up in the subconscious a fineline of private fears and remembered enemies. We provided the means forreleasing those, and they simply raised their own devils to order.Neatest justice ever rendered. It seems that the 'power' has a bigkick--in a different way--when a Terran will manages to spark it."
"And you did?"
"I made a small beginning. Also I had the full backing of the Elders,and a general staff of Wyverns in support. In a way I helped to providea channel for their concentration. Alone they can work 'magic'; with usthey can spread out into new fields. Tonight we hunted Throgs as aunited team--most successfully."
"But they wouldn't go after the one in the skull."
"No. Direct contact with a Throg mind appears to short-circuit them. Idid the contacting; they fed me what I needed. We have the answer to theThrogs now--one answer." Thorvald looked back over the field where thosebodies lay so still. "We can kill Throgs. Maybe someday we can learnanother trick--how to live with them." He returned abruptly to thepresent. "You did contact the transport?"
Shann explained what had happened in the com dome. "I think when theship broke contact that way they understood."
"We'll take it that they did, and be on the move." Thorvald helped Shannto his feet. "If a cruiser berths here shortly, I don't propose to beunder its tail flames when it sets down."
The cruiser came. And a mop-up squad patrolled outward from thereclaimed camp, picked up two living Throgs, both wandering witlessly.But Shann only heard of that later. He slept, so deep and dreamlesslythat when he roused he was momentarily dazed.
A Survey uniform--with a cadet's badges
--lay across the wall seat facinghis bunk in the barracks he had left ... how many days or weeks before?The garments fitted well enough, but he removed the insignia to which hewas not entitled. When he ventured out he saw half a dozen troopers ofthe patrol, together with Thorvald, watching the cruiser lift again intothe morning sky.
Taggi and Togi, trailing leashes, galloped out of nowhere to hurlthemselves at him in uproarious welcome. And Thorvald must have heardtheir eager whines even through the blast of the ship, for he turned andwaved Shann to join him.
"Where is the cruiser going?"
"To punch a Throg base out of this system," Thorvald answered. "Theylocated it--on Witch."
"But we're staying on here?"
Thorvald glanced at him oddly. "There won't be any settlement now. Butwe have to establish a conditional embassy post. And the patrol has lefta guard."
Embassy post. Shann digested that. Yes, of course, Thorvald, because ofhis close contact with the Wyverns, would be left here for the presentto act as liaison officer-in-charge.
"We don't propose," the other was continuing, "to allow to lapse anycontact with the one intelligent alien race we have discovered who canfurnish us with full-time partnership to our mutual benefit. And theremustn't be any bungling here!"
Shann nodded. That made sense. As soon as possible Warlock would witnessthe arrival of another team, one slanted this time to the cultivation ofan alien friendship and alliance, rather than preparation for Terrancolonists. Would they keep him on? He supposed not; the wolverines'usefulness was no longer apparent.
"Don't you know your regulations?" There was a snap in Thorvald's demandwhich startled Shann. He glanced up, discovered the other surveying himcritically. "You're not in uniform----"
"No, sir," he admitted. "I couldn't find my own kit."
"Where are your badges?"
Shann's hand went up to the marks left when he had so carefully rippedoff the insignia.
"My badges? I have no rank," he replied, bewildered.
"Every team carries at least one cadet on strength."
Shann flushed. There had been one cadet on this team; why did Thorvaldwant to remember that?
"Also," the other's voice sounded remote, "there can be appointmentsmade in the field--for cause. Those appointments are left to thediscretion of the officer-in-charge, and they are never questioned. Irepeat, you are not in uniform, Lantee. You will make the necessaryalteration and report to me at headquarters dome. As solerepresentatives of Terra here we have a matter of protocol to bediscussed with our witches, and they have a right to expect punctualityfrom a pair of warlocks, so get going!"
Shann still stood, staring incredulously at the officer. Then Thorvald'sofficial severity vanished in a smile which was warm and real.
"Get going," he ordered once more, "before I have to log you forinattention to orders."
Shann turned, nearly stumbling over Taggi, and then ran back to thebarracks in quest of some very important bits of braid he hoped he couldfind in a hurry.