“Which,” the agent remarked with a courtesy exaggerated enough to approach a taunt, “provides us with a problem, noble Hunter. You, in this, your home territory, will have to be bodily restrained. I trust you will forgive the practical solution. Our young friend here needs no such limits on his freedom.”
Rerne, hands and feet bound, made no protest as he was bedded down between Zul and the Guildsman. Troy, oblivious to his company and surroundings, fell asleep almost at once, his weariness like a vast weight grinding him into darkness. Yet in that dark there was no rest. He twisted, turned, raced breathlessly to finish some fantastic task under the spur of time. And he awoke gasping, sweat damp upon his body.
Stars were paling overhead. This was the dawn of the day in which they would come to the wood. For a fraction of one fast escaping moment he knew again that sensation of freedom and fresh life that had first come to him on the plateau, which would always signify for him the Wild. Then that was gone under the lash of memory. Troy did not stir, save that his hand unconsciously once more sought the band on his wrist, and from the touch of that strange metal a quickening of spirit reached into body and mind. His thoughts quested feverishly, picturing the fringe of saplings and trees as he had seen it last. Simba crouched beneath a bush—waiting—
“Found!”
Troy flung up his arm, the cool band of Ruhkarv pressed tight to his forehead above his closed eyes. And under that touch his mental picture leaped into instant sharp detail.
“You come?”
“I come,” Troy affirmed silently. “Be ready—when I come.” He tried to marshal the necessary arguments and promises that would draw them to the place where Dragur would land.
“So—you have made contact at last, Range Master?”
Troy’s arm fell away from his forehead. He frowned up at the Confederation agent. But there was no reason to deny the truth. What he had had to do he had done, to the bust of his ability.
“Yes. They will be waiting.”
“Excellent. I must compliment you, Horan, on your commendable speed in seeking to fulfill your part of the bargain. We shall eat and then get on to the netting.”
Troy ate slowly. So much depended now on Simba’s response to his appeal, on the cat’s dominance over his fellow mutants. If the slight bond between man and animals was not stout enough to lead them to trust him now—then he had failed completely.
Back in the flitter he made no further attempt to keep in touch with the fugitives. He had done all he could during that early morning contact. Either they would be waiting—or they would not. The future must be governed by one or the other of those facts—which one he would not know until the flyer landed.
In midmorning, bright and clear, the flitter touched with an expert’s jarless landing at the edge of the wood. Dragur ordered them out, the barrel of his needler as much on Troy as on Rerne.
“And now”—the agent faced the woodland—“where are they, Horan?”
“In there.” Troy nodded to the cover. Yes, they were all there, waiting in hiding. Whether they would show themselves was again another matter.
The Guildsman drew his blaster, thumbed the butt dial to spray beam. Troy gathered himself for a quick leap if the other touched the button. But the agent spoke first. “No beaming,” he snapped. “We have to be sure we get them all and in one attack.” Then he turned to Troy. “Bring them out.”
“I have no summoner, and they will not obey me to that point. I cannot bring them against their wills. I can only hold them where they are.”
For a second or two he was afraid that Dragur would refuse to enter the shadow of the trees. Then Troy’s statement apparently made sense to the agent.
“March!” Dragur’s tone sheared away the urbanity of earlier hours. Troy obeyed, the agent close behind him, needler ready.
Horan rounded a bush, stooped under a hanging branch. “Here! Here! Here!”
Simba, Sargon, Sheba—
Troy threw himself face down into the leaf mold, rolled—Dragur shrieked. Troy came to his knees again and faced the man now plunging empty-handed toward him.
Simba clung with three taloned feet to the agent’s shoulders, as with a fourth he clawed viciously at the man’s face and eyes, while both foxes made a concentrated attack with sharp fangs upon the agent’s ankles.
Troy caught up the needler the other had dropped when Simba had sprung to his present perch from a low-hanging tree limb. Horan was still on one knee, but he had the weapon up to cover Zul as the small man burst through the bushes to them.
“Stand—and drop that!”
Zul’s eyes widened. Reluctantly his fingers loosened their hold upon the blaster. The weapon thudded to the ground.
“You, too!”
The Guildsman who had prodded Rerne on into this pocket clearing obeyed Troy’s order. A furred shadow with a long tail crooked above its back flitted out of cover, mouthed Zul’s blaster and brought it to Troy, then went back for the guard’s weapon. Dragur staggered around, his arms flailing about his head where the blood dripped from ripped flesh on his face and neck. Simba no longer rode his shoulders, but was now assisting the foxes to drive the man, with sudden rushes and slashes at his feet and legs.
Blinded, crying in pain, completely demoralized by the surprise and the unexpected nature of that attack, the agent tripped and fell, sprawling at Rerne’s feet, while Simba snarled and made a last claw swipe at his face. The ranger stared in complete amazement from the team of animal warriors to Troy.
“You planned this?” he asked in a voice loud enough to carry over Dragur’s moaning.
“We planned this,” Troy corrected. He thrust the two blasters into his belt, but he kept the needler aimed at the others.
“Now”—he motioned to the Guildsman—“you gather up Citizen Dragur and we will go back to the flitter.”
There was no argument against the needler. Half carrying the moaning agent, the Guildsman tramped sullenly back to the flyer, Zul and Rerne in his wake, Troy bringing up the rear. He knew the animals were active as flanking scouts though he no longer saw them.
“You”—Troy nodded to Rerne—“unload water, the emergency supplies.”
“You are staying here then?” The ranger showed no surrise.
“We are staying,” Troy corrected once again, watching as the other dumped from the flitter the things he might need for survival in the Wild. Then the Guildsman under Horan’s orders, gave Dragur rough first aid, tied him up and stowed him away, afterwards doing the same for Zul, before he, himself, submitted to binding at Rerne’s hands.
“And how do you propose to deal with me?” the ranger asked as he boosted the last of the invaders from Tikil into the flitter.
“You can go—with them.” Troy hesitated for a moment and then, almost against his will, he added roughly, “I ask your pardon for that tap on the head at Ruhkarv.”
Rerne gazed at him levelly. The mask he had worn in the city was back, to make his features unreadable, though there was a spark of some emotion deep in his eyes.
“You were within your rights—an oath breaker deserves little consideration.” But behind those flat words was something Troy thought he could read different meaning into.
“Those waiting were not your men but patrollers?” He demanded confirmation of what he had come to suspect.
Simba appeared out of the grass, by his presence urging an end to this time-wasting talk.
“So you saw that much.” The flicker in Rerne’s eyes glowed stronger.
“I saw, and I have had time to think.” It was an apology, one Troy longed for the other to accept, though that acceptance could lead to nothing between them now save a level balancing of the old scales.
“I will come back—you understand that?” Rerne stated a fact.
Troy smiled. The headiness of his victory bubbled in him. Release from the strain of the past hours, or past days, was an intoxicant he found hard to combat.
“If you wish, Rerne. I may
not be your equal in the lore of the Wild, but together we shall give you a good run—”
“We?” Rerne’s head swung. If he was looking for the other animals, he would not see them. But they were all there, even to Sahiba crouched under the low branches of a bush.
“Still we.”
“And Norden?”
Troy’s smile faded. That was a wicked backstroke he had not expected from Rerne. His braceleted hand went to the belt where the studs were no longer burnished bright.
“The crab did not jump,” he replied evenly.
“Perhaps it was not offered the right bait.” Rerne shook his head. “This is the Wild and you are no trained ranger. By our laws I cannot help you unless you ask for it, and that would mean surrender.” He waited a long moment, as if he actually hoped for some affirmative sign from Troy.
The other nodded. “I know. From now on it will be you and yours against us. Only do not be too sure of the ending, Rerne.”
He watched the flitter rise in the vertical climb of a master pilot. Then, the carrying strap of the needler across his shoulder, he made a compact bundle of the supplies.
Sunset, sunrise, another nightfall—morning again—though here the sun made a pale greenish shimmer in the forest depths. Troy only knew that they were still pointed east. At least under such cover he could not be tracked by air patrols. Those hunting him would have to go afoot and so be subject to discovery by the keener senses of the animals. Shang took to the treetops, Simba and the foxes ranged wide on the ground, able to scout about Troy as he marched, carrying Sahiba.
Once Simba had been stalked in turn by a forest creature, and Troy had blasted it into a charred mass as it leaped for the cat. But otherwise they saw few living things as they pushed forward.
To Troy the Wild did not threaten. About him it closed like a vast envelope of content. And the memory of Norden was a whisper of mist torn away by the wind rustling through the boughs over his head. With the animals he had moved into a new world, and Tikil too was a forgotten dream—a nightmare—small, far-off, cramped and dusty, well lost. The only thing to trouble him was a vague longing now and then for one of his own kind to share the jubilation of some discovery, the exultation when he awoke here feeling a measure of his birthright returned to him.
On the fifth day the ground began to rise, and once or twice through a break in the trees Troy located peaks in the sky ahead. Perhaps in those heights he could find a cave to shelter them—something they would need soon if the now threatening clouds meant a storm.
“Men!”
Troy froze. The sobering shock made him recoil against a tree. He had half forgotten the chase behind. Now he heard Simba squall in fear and rage, the fear thrusting into Troy’s brain in turn as a spearhead. A pinner! The same force that had gripped him at the time of Zul’s pursuit glued them all to the earth once again. Yet there was no flitter in sight, no sign of a tracker.
“How far away?” he appealed to the scouts.
“Up slope—they are coming closer now.” From three sides he had his replies as noses caught scents he could not detect. “They have set a trap.”
Troy tried to subdue the rising panic of the animals. Yes, a good trap. But how had they known that Troy and his companions would emerge from the wood at that point? Or had they laid down a long barrier of pinner beams just in case?
There was no chance for him to use the needler; he could not raise his hand to the blasters at his belt. All of them would remain where they were to await the leisure of the unseen enemy. And the bitterness of that soured in his mouth, cramped his now useless muscles.
Sahiba whimpered in his hold. The others were quiet now, understanding his trap explanation. He knew that each small mind was busy with the problem—one that they could not solve. Not singly—but together?
Why had he thought that? Swiftly Troy touched each mind in turn—Simba, Sargon, Sheba, Shang, Sahiba. Simba must be their choice for the experiment. The black cat whose whole battle technique depended upon quiet stalking, instant, lightning-swift attack. If they could free Simba—!
This was a last fantastic attempt, but the only one left to them. Troy focused the full force of his mind on a picture of Simba free, Simba moving one padded paw skillfully before the other as he crept up the slope before them to locate the pinner broadcaster. The others took up that picture, fed into it their combined will and mind force. The thread became a beam, a beam of such strength as to amaze one part of Troy’s brain, even as he labored to build it deeper, wider, tougher.
A trickle of moisture zigzagged down his cheek. It was crazy to hope that mind could triumph over a body pinned. Perhaps only because of the freedom of the past few days could their desperate need nourish such a hope. Troy was weak, drained. Yet, as he had fought to reach the animals from the flitter, so now he labored to unleash Simba. And in that moment he knew that it could be done!
Troy did not see that small streak of black bounding up the hillside. And the man operating the pinner could not have seen it coming. There was a howl of pain from above, and Troy was free. He leaped out of the brush and went to one knee, the needler ready to sweep the whole territory ahead.
Rerne arose from behind a rock well up the slope, his hands up and empty. Out of the grass sped Sargon, Sheba, Shang, and, descending in a series of bounds, Simba. Once more Troy was one in their half circle of defense and offense.
“You broke pinner power!” Rerne came down at an even pace, his eyes never leaving Troy’s face.
“And you found us.” In spite of his overwhelming victory against the machine, Troy tasted the ultimate defeat. The Wild no longer remained their coveted escape.
“We found you.” Rerne jerked one hand in a signal. Two more men started to move along the hillside, their hands conspicuously up and empty. One was Rogarkil; the other wore the uniform of a Council attaché.
Rerne spoke to them over his shoulder. “So—now have you seen for yourselves?”
“You underestimated the danger!” The Council attaché’s voice was harsh and rough, he was breathing fast through his nose, and it was plain he did not find his present position one that he relished.
“Danger,” Rerne observed, “is relative. Belt knives have been shifted from the sheath of one wearer to that of another without losing their cutting edge. You might consider the facts in this case before you commit those you represent to any hasty course of action.”
Clansman spoke to Council as an equal, and, though the attaché did not like it, here in the Wild he must accept that. His mouth was now a tight slit of disapproval. In another place and company those lips would be shaping orders to make men jump.
“I protest your arguments, Hunter!”
Rogarkil answered in a mild tone. “Your privilege, Gentle Homo. Rerne does not ask that you agree; he merely requires that you report, and that the matter be taken under sober consideration. I will say also that one does not throw away a new thing merely because it is strange—until one explores its usefulness. This is the Wild.”
“And you rule here? The Council shall remember that also!”
Rogarkil shrugged. “That is also your privilege.”
With a last glare at Troy and the animals, the officer strode back up the hill, joined, when he was at the crest, by an escort of patrollers who gathered in from the rocks. Then he was gone, as the wind brought the first gust of the storm down upon them all.
“Truce?” asked Rerne, his shoulders hunched against the elements. Then he smiled a little.
Troy hesitated only for a moment before his own hand went up in answer and he slung the needler. He ran toward the shelter the ranger had indicated, a space between two leaning rocks. The area so sheltered was small, and they were still two companies, Troy and the animals on one side, the Clansmen on the other.
“That one will do some straighter thinking on the way back to Tikil,” Rerne remarked.
Rogarkil nodded. “Time to think is often enough. When and if they do move, we shall be
ready.”
“Why are you doing this?” Troy demanded, guessing from the crosscurrents of their speech that, incredibly, the Clans seemed to be choosing his side.
“Because,” Rerne replied, “we do believe what I said just now to Hawthol—a knife changing sheaths remains a knife. And it can be used even to counter a blow from its first owner. Kyger died because of a personal feud. But for that chance this attack against the Council, and against Korwar, would have succeeded. And because this espionage conspiracy was in a manner aimed against Korwar, it concerns us. Our guests here, the Great Ones of the galaxy, must be protected. As we told you that night in Tikil, the continuance of our way of life here depends in turn upon their comfort and safety. Anything that undermines that is a threat to the Clans.
“Now if the Confederation tried this weapon on another planet, well, that is the Council’s affair. But such an attack is finished here. And I do not believe that Kyger, or Dragur, or any of those behind them ever realized or cared about the other potentials of the tools they developed to further their plan. It could be very illuminating to see what might happen when two or three species long associated in one fashion move into equality with each other, to work as companions, not as servants and masters—”
“And who is better fitted to make such a study than the Clans?” asked Rogarkil.
Troy stiffened. They were taking too much for granted. Both men and animals must have some voice in their future.
“Will the crab jump to this bait, Horan?” Rerne leaned forward a little, raising his voice above the gathering fury of the storm. “Rangers’ rights in the Wild for you and your company here—granting us in return the right to know them better? This may not rank with being a Range Master on Norden—”
He paused nearly in mid-word at Troy’s involuntary wince. But that hurt was fading fast. Troy’s thought touched circle with the other five. He did not urge, tried in no way to influence them. This was their decision more than his. And if they did not wish to accept—well, he still had the needler.