3. TO CLOSE RANKS
Shann made his way at an angle to avoid the smoking pit cradling thewreckage of the Terran ship. There were no signs of life about the Throgplate as he approached. A quarter of its bulk was telescoped back intothe rest, and surely none of the aliens could have survived such asmash, tough as they were reputed to be with those horny carapacesserving them in place of more vulnerable human skin.
He sniffed. There was a nauseous odor heavy on the morning air, onewhich would make a lasting impression on any human nose. The port doorin the black ship stood open, perhaps having burst in the impact againstthe cliff. Shann had almost reached it when a crackle of chain lightningbeat across the ground before him, turning the edge of the buckledentrance panel red.
Shann dropped to the ground, drawing his stunner, knowing at the samemoment that such a weapon was about as much use in meeting a blaster asa straw wand would be to ward off a blazing coal. A chill numbness heldhim as he waited for a second blast to charr the flesh between hisshoulders. So there had been a Throg survivor, after all.
But as moments passed and the Throg did not move in to make an easykill, Shann collected his wits. Only one shot! Was the beetle injured,unable to make sure of even an almost defenseless prey? The Throgsseldom took prisoners. When they did....
The Terran's lips tightened. He worked his hand under his prone body,feeling for the hilt of his knife. With that he could speedily removehimself from the status of Throg prisoner, and he would do it gladly ifthere was no hope of escape. Had there been only one charge left in thatblaster? Shann could make half a dozen guesses as to why the other hadmade no move, but that shot had come from behind him, and he dared notturn his head or otherwise make an effort to see what the other might bedoing.
Was it only his imagination, or had that stench grown stronger duringthe last few seconds? Could the Throg be creeping up on him? Shannstrained his ears, trying to catch some sound he could interpret. Thefew clak-claks that had survived the blast about the ship were shriekingoverhead, and Shann made one attempt at counterattack.
He whistled the wolverines' call. The pair had not been too willing tofollow him down into this valley, and they had avoided the crater at avery wide circle. But if they would obey him now, he just might have achance.
There! That _had_ been a sound, and the smell _was_ stronger. The Throgmust be coming to him. Again Shann whistled, holding in his mind hishatred for the beetle-head, the need for finishing off that alien. Ifthe animals could pick either thoughts or emotions out of their humancompanion, this was the time for him to get those unspoken half-ordersacross.
Shann slammed his hand hard against the ground, sent his body rolling,his stunner up and ready.
And now he could see that grotesque thing, swaying weakly back and forthon its thin legs, yet holding a blaster, bringing that weapon up tocenter it on him. The Throg was hunched over and perhaps to Taggipresented the outline of some four-footed creature to be hunted. For thewolverine male sprang for the horn-shelled shoulders.
Under that impact that Throg sagged forward. But Taggi, outraged at thenature of creature he had attacked, squalled and retreated. Shann hadhad his precious seconds of distraction. He fired, the core of the stunbeam striking full into the flat dish of the alien's "face."
That bolt, which would have shocked a mammal into insensibility, onlyslowed the Throg. Shann rolled again, gaining a temporary cover behindthe wrecked ship. He squirmed under metal hot enough to scorch hisjacket and saw the reflection of a second blaster shot which had beenfired seconds late.
Now the Throg had him tied down. But to get at the Terran the alienwould have to show himself, and Shann had one chance in fifty, which wasbetter than that of three minutes ago--when the odds had been set at onein a hundred. He knew that he could not press the wolverines in again.Taggi's distaste was too manifest; Shann had been lucky that the animalhad made one abortive attack.
Perhaps the Terran's escape and Taggi's action had made the alienreckless. Shann had no clue to the thinking processes of the non-human,but now the Throg staggered around the end of the plate, his digits,which were closer to claws than fingers, fumbling with his weapon. TheTerran snapped another shot from his stunner, hoping to slow the enemydown. But he was trapped. If he turned to climb the cliff at his back,the beetle-head could easily pick him off.
A rock hurtled from the heights above, striking with deadly accuracy onthe domed, hairless head of the Throg. His armored body crashed forward,struck against the ship, and rebounded to the ground. Shann dartedforward to seize the blaster, kicking loose the claws which stillgrasped it, before he flattened back to the cliff, the strange weaponover his arm, his heart beating wildly.
That rock had not bounded down the mountainside by chance; it had beenhurled with intent and aimed carefully at its target. And no Throg wouldkill one of his fellows. Or would he? Suppose orders had been issued totake a Terran prisoner and the Throg by the ship had disobeyed? Then,why a rock and not a blaster bolt?
Shann edged along until the upslanted, broken side of the Throg flyerprovided him with protection from any overhead attack. Under thatshelter he waited for the next move from his unknown rescuer.
The clak-claks wheeled closer to earth. One lit boldly on the carapaceof the inert Throg, shuffling ungainly along that horny ridge. Cradlingthe blaster, the Terran continued to wait. His patience was rewardedwhen that investigating clak-clak took off uttering an enraged snap ortwo. He heard what might be the scrape of boots across rock, but thatmight also have come from horny skin meeting stone.
Then the other must have lost his footing not too far above. Accompaniedby a miniature landslide of stones and earth, a figure slid down severalyards away. Shann waited in a half-crouch, his looted blaster coveringthe man now getting to his feet. There was no mistaking the familiaruniform, or even the man. How Ragnar Thorvald had reached thatparticular spot on Warlock or why, Shann could not know. But that he wasthere, there was no denying.
Shann hurried forward. It had been when he caught his first sight ofThorvald that he realized just how deep his unacknowledged lonelinesshad bit. There were two Terrans on Warlock now, and he did not need toknow why. But Thorvald was staring back at him with the blankness ofnon-recognition.
"Who are you?" The demand held something close to suspicion.
That note in the other's voice wiped away a measure of Shann'sconfidence, threatened something which had flowered in him since he hadstruck into the wilderness on his own. Three words had reduced him againto Lantee, unskilled laborer.
"Lantee. I'm from the camp...."
Thorvald's eagerness was plain in his next question: "How many of yougot away? Where are the rest?" He gazed past Shann up the plateau slopeas if he expected to see the personnel of the camp sprout out of thecloak of grass along the verge.
"Just me and the wolverines," Shann answered in a colorless voice. Hecradled the blaster on his hip, turned a little away from the officer.
"You ... and the wolverines?" Thorvald was plainly startled. "But ...where? How?"
"The Throgs hit very early yesterday morning. They caught the rest incamp. The wolverines had escaped from their cage, and I was out huntingthem...." He told his story baldly.
"You're sure about the rest?" Thorvald had a thin steel of rage edginghis voice. Almost, Shann thought, as if he could turn that blade of rageagainst one Shann Lantee for being yet alive when more important men hadnot survived.
"I saw the attack from an upper ridge," the younger man said, havingbeen put on the defensive. Yet he had a right to be alive, hadn't he? Ordid Thorvald believe that he should have gone running down to meet thebeetle-heads with his useless stunner? "They used energy beams ...didn't land until it was all over."
"I knew there was something wrong when the camp didn't answer ourenter-atmosphere signal," Thorvald said absently. "Then one of thoseplatters jumped us on braking orbit, and my pilot was killed. When weset down on the automatics here I had just time to rig a surprise forany tr
ackers before I took to the hills----"
"The blast got one of them," Shann pointed out.
"Yes, they'd nicked the booster rocket; she wouldn't climb again. Butthey'll be back here to pick over the remains."
Shann looked at the dead Throg. "Thanks for taking a hand." His tone wasas chill as the other's this time. "I'm heading south...."
And, he added silently, I intend to keep on that way. The Throg attackhad dissolved the pattern of the Survey team. He didn't owe Thorvald anyallegiance. And he had been successfully on his own here since the camphad been overrun.
"South," Thorvald repeated. "Well, that's as good a direction as anyright now."
But they were not united. Shann found the wolverines and patientlycoaxed and wheedled them into coming with him over a circuitous routewhich kept them away from both ships. Thorvald went up the cliff, swungdown again, a supply bag slung over one shoulder. He stood watching asShann brought the animals in.
Then Thorvald's arm swept out, his fingers closing possessively aboutthe barrel of the blaster. Shann's own hold on the weapon tightened, andthe force of the other's pull dragged him partly around.
"Let's have that----"
"Why?" Shann supposed that because it had been the other's well-aimedrock which had put the Throg out of commission permanently, the officerwas going to claim their only spoils of war as personal booty, and a hotresentment flowered in the younger man.
"We don't take that away from here." Thorvald made the weapon his with aquick twist.
To Shann's utter astonishment, the Survey officer walked back to kneelbeside the dead Throg. He worked the grip of the blaster under thealien's lax claws and inspected the result with the care of onearranging a special and highly important display. Shann's protest becamevocal. "We'll need that!"
"It'll do us far more good right where it is...." Thorvald paused andthen added, with impatience roughening his voice as if he disliked theneed for making any explanations, "There is no reason for us toadvertise our being alive. If the Throgs found a blaster missing, they'dstart thinking and looking around. I want to have a breathing spellbefore I have to play quarry in one of their hunts."
Put that way, his action did make sense. But Shann regretted the loss ofan arm so superior to their own weapons. Now they could not loot theplateship either. In silence he turned and started to trudge southward,without waiting for Thorvald to catch up with him.
Once away from the blasted area, the wolverines ranged ahead at theirclumsy gallop, which covered ground at a surprising rate of speed. Shannknew that their curiosity made them scouts surpassing any human and thatthe men who followed would have ample warning of any danger to come.Without reference to his silent trail companion, he sent the animalstoward another strip of woodland which would give them cover against thecoming of any Throg flyer.
As the hours advanced he began to cast about for a proper night camp.The woods ought to give them a usable site.
"This is a water wood," Thorvald said, breaking the silence for thefirst time since they had left the wrecks.
Shann knew that the other had knowledge, not only of the generalcountryside, but of exploring techniques which he himself did notpossess, but to be reminded of that fact was an irritant rather than areassurance. Without answering, the younger man bored on to locate thewater promised.
The wolverines found the small lake first and were splashing along itsshore when the Terrans caught up. Thorvald went to work, but to Shann'ssurprise he did not unstrap the force-blade ax at his belt. Bending overa sapling, he pounded away with a stone at the green wood a few inchesabove the root line until he was able to break through the slendertrunk. Shann drew his own knife and bent to tackle another treelet whenThorvald stopped him with an order: "Use a stone on that, the way Idid."
Shann could see no reason for such a laborious process. If Thorvald didnot want to use his ax, that was no reason that Shann could not put hisheavy belt knife to work. He hesitated, ready to set the blade to theouter bark of the tree.
"Look--" again that impatient edge in the officer's tone, the need forexplanation seeming to come very hard to the other--"sooner or later theThrogs might just trace us here and find this camp. If so, they are_not_ going to discover any traces to label us Terran----"
"But who else could we be?" protested Shann. "There is no native race onWarlock."
Thorvald tossed his improvised stone ax from hand to hand.
"But do the Throgs know that?"
The implications, the possibilities, in that idea struck home to Shann.Now he began to understand what Thorvald might be planning.
"Now there is going to be a native race." Shann made a statement insteadof a question and saw that the other was watching him with a newintentness, as if he had at last been recognized as a person instead ofrank and file and very low rank at that--Survey personnel.
"There is going to be a native race," Thorvald affirmed.
Shann resheathed his knife and went to search the pond beach for asuitable stone to use in its place. Even so, he made harder work of theclumsy chopping than Thorvald had. He worried at one sapling afteranother until his hands were skinned and his breath came in painfulgusts from under aching ribs. Thorvald had gone on to another task,ripping the end of a long tough vine from just under the powdery surfaceof the thick leaf masses fallen in other years.
With this the officer lashed together the tops of the poles, havingplanted their splintered butts in the ground, so that he achieved acrudely conical erection. Leafy branches were woven back and forththrough this framework, with an entrance, through which one might crawlon hands and knees, left facing the lakeside. The shelter they completedwas compact and efficient but totally unlike anything Shann had everseen before, certainly far removed from the domes of the camp. He saidso, nursing his raw hands.
"An old form," Thorvald replied, "native to a primitive race on Terra.Certainly the beetle-heads haven't come across its like before."
"Are we going to stay here? Otherwise it is pretty heavy work for onenight's lodging."
Thorvald tested the shelter with a sharp shake. The matted leaveswhispered, but the framework held.
"Stage dressing. No, we won't linger here. But it's evidence to supportour play. Even a Throg isn't dense enough to believe that natives wouldmake a cross-country trip without leaving evidence of their passing."
Shann sat down with a sigh he made no effort to suppress. He had avision of Thorvald traveling southward, methodically erecting these hutshere and there to confound Throgs who might not ever chance upon them.But already the Survey officer was busy with a new problem.
"We need weapons----"
"We have our stunners, a force ax, and our knives," Shann pointed out.He did not add, as he would have liked that they could have had ablaster.
"Native weapons," Thorvald countered with his usual snap. He went backto the beach and crawled about there, choosing and rejecting stonespicked out of the gravel.
Shann scooped out a small pit just before their hut and set about themaking of a pocket-sized fire. He was hungry and looked longingly nowand again to the supply bag Thorvald had brought with him. Dared herummage in that for rations? Surely the other would be carryingconcentrates.
"Who taught you how to make a fire that way?" Thorvald was back from thepond, a selection of round stones about the size of his fist restingbetween his chest and his forearm.
"It's regulation, isn't it?" Shann countered defensively.
"It's regulation," Thorvald agreed. He set down his stones in a row andthen tossed the supply bag over to his companion. "Too late to hunttonight. But well have to go easy on those rations until we can getmore."
"Where?" Did Thorvald know of some supply cache they could raid?
"From the Throgs," the other answered matter of factly.
"But they don't eat our kind of food...."
"All the more reason for them to leave the camp supplies untouched."
"The camp?"
For the first time
Thorvald's lips curved in a shadow smile which wasneither joyous nor warming. "A native raid on an invaders' camp. Whatcould be more natural? And we'd better make it soon."
"But how can we?" To Shann what the other proposed was sheer madness.
"There was once an ancient service corps on Terra," Thorvald answered,"which had a motto something like this: 'The improbable we do at once;the impossible takes a little longer.' What did you think we were goingto do? Sulk around out here in the bush and let the Throgs claim Warlockfor one of their pirate bases without opposition?"
Since that was the only future Shann had visualized, he was ready enoughto admit the truth, only some shade of tone in the officer's voice kepthim from saying so aloud.