Star Hunter (8 page)

"The lights—smash the lights!" Hume ordered.

Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the
river. Put out the lights and the boiling broth of water dwellers
might conceivably return to their homes. He dropped the needler, took
up stones and set about the business of finishing off as many of the
lights as he could.

Hume fired into the crawling mass, pausing only once to send another
of those flame bombs crashing to illuminate the scene. The water
creatures bewildered, clumsy out of their element, were so far at his
mercy. But their numbers, in spite of the piling dead, were still a
dangerous threat.

Rynch tore gapping holes in that line of lights. But he could see,
through the mist, more floating sparks, gathering to take their
places, perhaps herding before them more water things to attack.
Except for those few gaps he had wrought, the islet was now completely
enveloped.

"Ahhhh—" Hume's voice arose in a roar of anger and defiance. He
stabbed his ray down at a spot just below their ledge. A huge
segmented, taloned leg kicked, caught on the edge of the stone at the
level of their feet, twisted aloft again and was gone.

"Up!" Hume ordered. "To the top!"

Rynch caught up two handsful of stones, holding them to his chest with
his left arm as he made a last cast to see one light puff out in
answer. Then they both scrambled on to that small platform at the top
of the islet. By the aid of the burning flame-torches the Hunter had
set, they could see that most of the rocky slopes below them now
squirmed with a horrible mass of water life.

Where Hume had fired his ray there was fierce activity, as the living
feasted on the slain and quarreled over the bounty. But from other
quarters the crawling advance pressed on.

"I have only one more flame flare," Hume stated.

One more flare—then they would be in the dark with the mist hiding
the forward-moving enemy.

"I wonder if they are watching out there?" Rynch scowled into the
dark.

"They—or what sent them. They know what they are doing."

"You mean they must have done this before?"

"I think so. That L-B back there—it made a good landing, and there
are supplies missing from its lockers."

"Which you removed—" Rynch countered.

"No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we
found any trace of them. Now I can guess why—"

"But you Guild men were here, and you didn't run into this!"

"I know." Hume sounded baffled. "Not a sign then."

Rynch threw the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against
a rock. Hume balanced an object on the palm of his hand.

"Last flare!"

"What's that? Over there?"

Rynch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the river bank,
making a pattern of flickers which bore no relation to the infernal
lights at the water's edge.

Hume's ray tube pointed skyward as he answered with a series of short
bursts.

"Take cover!" The call came weirdly out over the water, the tone
dehumanized. Hume cupped his mouth with one hand, shouted back:

"We're on top—no cover."

"Then flatten down—we're blasting!"

They flattened, lay almost in each other's arms, curled on that narrow
space. Even through his closed eyelids Rynch caught the flash of
vivid, man-made lightning crashing first on one side of the islet and
then on the other, and sweeping every crawling horror out of life,
into odorous ash. The backlash of that blast must have caught the
majority of the lights also. For when Rynch and Hume cautiously sat
up, they saw only a handful of widely scattered and dulling globes
below.

They choked, coughed, rubbed watering eyes as the fumes from the
scorched rocks wreathed up about their perch.

"Flitter with life line—above you!"

That voice had come out of what should have been empty air over their
heads. A gangling line trailed across their bodies, a line with a
safety belt locked to it, and a second was uncoiling in a slow loop as
they watched.

In unison they grabbed for those means of escape, buckled the belts
about them.

"Haul away!" Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up
clear of the blasted river island, as their unseen transport headed
for the eastern shore.

A subdued but steady light all around him issued from stark gray
walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he'd better be on
the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful
kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to
reduce most humans to helpless obedience.

Vye blinked again. But this wasn't his cubby hole at the Starfall, his
nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of
uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at
his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self
was a wide, scaled belt and a loin cloth. Clumsy sandals shod his
feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing
scratches and blotched with bruises.

Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he
tried to think back. Sluggishly, memory associated one picture with
another.

Last night—or yesterday—Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And
"here" was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a
man named Wass. It had been Wass' pilot in the flitter which snaked
them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them.

This was a concealed, fortified camp—Wass' hideout. And he was a
prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the
Veep and a man named Hume.

Hume, the Out-Hunter, had shown no surprise when Wass stood up in the
lamplight to greet the rescued. "I see you have been hunting." His
eyes had moved from Hume to Rynch and back again.

"Yes—but that does not matter!" the Hunter had returned impatiently.

"No? Then what does?"

"This is not a free world, I have to report that. Get my civs off
planet before something happens to them!"

"I thought all safari worlds were certified as free," Wass countered.

"This one isn't. I don't know how or why. But that fact has to be
reported and the civs lifted—"

"Not so fast." Wass' voice had been quiet, almost gentle. "Such a
report would interest the Patrol, would it not?"

"Of course—" Hume began and then stopped abruptly.

Wass smiled. "You see—complications already. I do not wish to explain
anything to the Patrol. Nor do you either, my young friend, not when
you stop to think about what might result from such explanations."

"There wouldn't have been any trouble if you'd kept away from Jumala."
Hume's control had returned; both voice and manner were under tight
rein. "Weren't Rovald's reports explicit enough to satisfy you?"

"I have risked a great deal on this project," Wass replied. "Also, it
is well from time to time for a Veep to check upon his field
operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever
in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or
would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our
project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the
moment we make no moves. No, Hume, your civs will have to take their
chances for a time."

"And if there is trouble?" Hume challenged him. "A report of an alien
attack will bring in the Patrol quickly enough."

"You forget Rovald," Wass corrected. "The chance that one of your civs
can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote, and Rovald will
see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brodie, I see."

"Yes."

"No!" What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had
realized the folly of his outburst the moment Wass had looked at him.

"This becomes more interesting," the Veep had remarked with that
deceptive gentleness. "You are Rynch Brodie, castaway from the Largo
Drift, are you not? I trust that Out-Hunter Hume has made plain to you
our concern with your welfare, Gentlehomo Brodie."

"I'm not Brodie." Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth he
was stubborn enough to continue swimming.

"I find this enlightening indeed. If you are not Brodie—then who are
you?"

That had been it. At that moment he couldn't have told Wass who he
was, explain that his patchwork of memories had gaping holes.

"And you, Out-Hunter," Wass' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume,
"perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery."

"None of his doing," he burst out, "I remembered—"

Some inexplicable emotion made Rynch defend Hume then.

Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. "Yes, Wass,
your techs are not as good as they pretend to be. He didn't follow the
pattern of action they set for him."

"A pity. But there are always errors when one deals with the human
factor. Peake!" One of the other three men moved towards them. "You
will escort this young man to the spacer, see him safely stowed for
the present. Yes, a pity. Now we must see just how much can be
salvaged."

Then Vye had been brought into the shop, supplied with a ration
container, and left to himself within this bare-walled cabin to
meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so
utterly stupid? Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky
channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just
as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was,
ruthless, powerful and thorough.

A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage
cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye
crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration
container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood
there, his head turned so his ear rested against the wall; obviously
he was listening.

"You brain-smoothed idiot!" The Hunter's voice was a thread of
whisper. "Why couldn't you have kept that swinging jaw of yours closed
last night? Now listen and listen good. This is a slim try, but it's
one we have to take."

"We?" Vye was startled into asking.

"Yes, we! By rights I ought to leave you right here to do the rest of
your big, brave speechmaking for Wass' benefit. If I didn't need you,
that's just what I would do! If it weren't for those civs—" His head
snapped back, cheek to panel, he was listening again. After a long
moment his whisper came once more. "I don't have time to repeat this.
In about five minutes Peake'll be here with rations. I'll leave this
door unlatched. There's another storage cabin across the corridor—see
if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock
him in. Got it?"

Vye nodded.

"Then—make for the exit port. Here." He snapped a packet loose from
his belt. "This is a flare pak, you saw how they worked on the island.
When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should
hit the camp force barrier. And the result ought to hold their
attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand?"

"Yes."

The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp force
barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up.

Hume gazed at him soberly, listened once more, and then went. Vye
counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor
was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited.

Peake was coming now, the metallic plates on his spaceboots clicking
in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and
crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock bar on the other
cabin.

There was an exclamation of surprise. Vye went into action. His hand,
backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumped between
Peake's shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment.
Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vye had
the panel shut, the bar locked into place.

He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rungs with
an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the air lock, getting his
bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom lamp, where
the men were gathered, to his right.

Vye stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his
thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare pak.

Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp but near enough to
dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then
he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship.

There was a flash—shouting—Vye curbed the impulse to look back,
darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment,
scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, leaving that
free for Hume's quick entrance. More shouting—now he saw the lines of
fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier.

A black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that
flaming wall, then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and
slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying
fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped
Vye's stomach up into the lower regions of his throat.

The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them—too
slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher.
Then the Hunter spoke:

"Half an hour at the most—"

"The safari camp?

"Yes."

They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a
projectile flight, into the dark of the night.

"What're those?" Vye suddenly leaned forward.

Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their
fixed orbits? Flecks of light, moving in an arc, headed towards the
speeding flitter.

Hume hit a button. Again they arose in a violent leap above those
wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked,
moving fast to close in on the flyer.