Within the house, Hosteen found himself fronting a distinguished gathering that included most of the settlers in the Peak country-even Rig Dumaroy, whose usual association with Brad Quade was one of uneasy neutrality. But, of course, in any Norbie trouble Dumaroy would be present. He was the one large holder in the frontier country who was prejudiced against the Arzoran natives and refused to hire any of them.
“It’s Storm-“ Dort Lancin, who had ridden in with the Terran on the military transport almost a year ago, waved two fingers in greeting, a sign that was also a hunter signal for watchfulness.
The tall man standing by the com board glanced over his shoulder, and Hosteen read a shadow of relief on his stepfather’s face.
Dort Lancin, his older and more taciturn brother Artur, Dumaroy, Jotter Hyke, Val Palasco, Connar Jaffe, Sim Starle-but no Logan Quade. Hosteen stood inside the doorway, his hand resting on Surra’s head as the big cat nuzzled against bis legs.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Dumaroy, a wide and rather vindictive grin on his face, answered first.
“All your pet goats have lit out for the hills. Always said they’d cross you up, always said it-now you see. And I say”-his grin faded, and he brought his big hand down on his knee in a resounding slap-“there’s trouble brewing up there. The sooner we fort up and send for the Patrol to come in and settle this once and for all-“
Artur Lancin’s level voice, threaded with weariness, cut across the other’s bellow with the neatness of a belt knife slicing through frawn fat. “Yes, you’ve been broadcastin’ on that beam all night, Dumaroy. We received you loud and clear the first time. Storm,” he addressed the younger man, “you see anything different out in the hills?”
Storm flipped his hat up on the daryork horn rack and unfastened the belt that supported his stunner and bush knife as he replied.
“I think now what I did not see is important.”
“That being?” Brad Quade was pulling a fresh swankee container from the unit. He brought it over and then, with a fingertip touch on Hosteen’s shoulder, guided him to. a foam chair.
“No hunters-no trails-nothing.” Hosteen sipped the restoring liquid between words. He had not realized how bone-aching tired he was until he sat down. “I might have been riding in an empty world-“
The two Lancins watched him narrowly, and Dort nodded. He had hunted with the Norbies, was welcome in their villages, and well understood the strangeness of an empty country.
“How far did you go?” Quade asked.
“I made the rounds to set up markers,” Hosteen brought his claim map from the inner pocket of his shirt. Quade took the sheet from him and compared its lines with the country survey chart that was a mural for one wall of the room.
“Clean up to the gorge, eh?” Jaffe commented. “And no hunter sign?”
“No. I thought it was because of the Big Dry retreat-“
“That wouldn’t come quite this early,” Quade replied. “Gorgol brought in your cavvy of mounts four days ago, took his bag, and rode off.”
“I met him at the line camp.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That there was a clan summons out-some sort of inter-tribal gathering-“
“Durin’ the Big Dry?” demanded Hyke incredulously.
“I told you!” Dumaroy pounded with his fist this time, and Hosteen heard a snarling rumble from Surra. He sent a mental command to silence the cat. “I told you! We’re sittin’ right here on the only free runnin’ water that keeps on runnin’ through the worst of the Dry. And those goats are gonna come down and try to butt us out of it! If we’ve the sense of water rats, we’ll go up and clean ‘em out before they can get organized-“
“Once before you moved up to clean out Norbies,” Quade said coldly. “And what did we find out-that the Norbies weren’t responsible for anything that had happened-that there was an Xik holdout group behind all our stock losses!”
“Yeah-and is this another Xik trick? Callin’ in all the tribes now?” Dumaroy’s hostility was like a fog spreading from him toward the other man.
“Maybe not Xik this time,” Quade conceded. “But I refuse to make any move until I know more about the situation. All we are sure of at present is that our Norbie riders have quit and are heading for the mountains at a time when they are usually eager to work, and that this has not happened before.”
Artur Lancin stood up. “That’s sense, Dumaroy. We aren’t goin’ to stick our heads into some yoris’ mouth just on your say-so. I say we do a little scoutin’. Meanwhile, we rustle up riders from the Basin or even pick up some drifters from the Port to tide us over. With the Dry on, the herds aren’t goin’ to move too far from the river, and we’ll need only a yoris patrol and some count work. My granddad got through, ridin’ on his own, with just his two boys to back him in the First Ship days. None of you here look too soft for the saddle now.”
“That’s right,” Sim Starle agreed. “We’ll keep our coms on a circle hookup and with the alert on. Anybody learns anything, he sends the word out on the beam. I’m for sittin’ quiet until we’re sure about what’s happenin’ and why. Maybe these Norbies are havin’ them a medicine powwow-and that’s none of our danged business!”
Hosteen, sinking deeper into his fog of weariness, watched the settlers leave for their ‘copters, to fly back to the scattered holdings of the Peak country. He was still too torpid to move when Brad Quade re-entered, having seen off the company. But he roused himself to ask the one question bothering him most.
“Where’s Logan?”
“Gone-“
The tone of the other’s voice pulled Hosteen out of his lethargy of fatigue. “Gone! Where?”
“To Krotag’s camp-at least that’s what I think-“
Hosteen was on his feet now. “The young fool! This is medicine business, Gorgol said so-“
Brad Quale turned. His face might seem impassive to an outsider, but it did not hide his feelings from Hosteen. “I know. But he has drunk blood with Kavok, Krotag’s first son. That makes him a clansman-“
Hosteen bit back his protest. “Medicine” was tricky. A man could be an adopted clansman, living in blood brotherhood with a Norbie, but that might not cover prying into the inner beliefs of the natives. There was no use putting his thoughts and fears into words. Brad Quade knew all that and more.
“I can make it back up to the washes. How much of a start has he?”
“No. This was his choice; he took it with his eyes open. You won’t ride after him. Tomorrow, if you will, I want you on the way to Galwadi in the ‘copter.”
“Galwadi!”
Brad Quade picked up the claim map. “You have this to record, remember? Then-have a talk with Kelson. He knows Logan.” Quade ran one hand through his thick black cap of wiry hair. “I wish Kelson had got that bill through the Council—Logan was so keen on that Ranger business they talked about. If that had gone through, maybe he’d have had a job he’d really settle down to. But you can’t make the Council hump just the way you want them to-even when you prod. Anyway-you see Kelson and try to get a line on what’s happening. There may have been an official clamp on Norbie news-I suspect that. And I’d better stay here for now. Dumaroy’s just hotheaded enough to try one of those dangerous schemes of his if there’s no one to talk him down-and just one incident might set off big trouble.”
“What do you think is happening?”
Brad Quade hooked his thumbs in his wide rider’s belt and stared at the floor as if he had never seen such a pattern of river stones before. “I have no idea. This is ‘medicine’ right enough-but it’s unique at this time of the year. The Quades were First Ship people. I’ve found nothing in our family records like this-“
“Gorgol told me the peace poles were up for the wild tribes.”
His stepfather nodded. “I know; he told me, too. But just to sit and wait-“
Hosteen made one of his rare gestures of feeling toward this man he had once sworn to kill, resting a brown hand on the other’s wide shoulder.
“To wait is always the hardest. Tomorrow night I will go to Galwadi. Logan-he is Norbie under the skin, and he has drunk blood with the Zamle Shosonna. That is a sacred thing-big medicine-“
Brad Quade’s hand came up to cover Hosteen’s for a moment of shared warmth. “Big enough-we can hope that. Now, you look like a two-day marcher in the flats. Get to bed and rest!”
To wait-Hosteen felt the first pinch of his own private kind of waiting as he sat in the ‘copter boring through the night sky on the way to Galwadi Behind him he left everything that counted on Arzor-a soft-furred, keen-eyed cat with a coat of yellow and a brain that perhaps matched his own in intelligence, though that intelligence might be of a different order, a horse he had trained, Hing, the meercat, a small, tumbling clownish animal that had waddled four half-grown kits out for his inspection earlier that very evening, Baku, perched on the top corral bar, bidding him farewell with a falcon scream. And a man, a man whom he had once respected even while he hated him and whom he would now follow anywhere, anytime, and for any purpose. He left all those in what might be the heart of enemy territory if their forebodings crystallized into the worst of futures.
To all outward seeming, there was no tension in Galwadi. Hosteen, coming from the land registration office, eyed the traffic on the street speculatively. The hour was far from dusk, and the small city, which had been dead in the day’s heat, was alive now, the streets and shops busy. But whether he could hire any riders here was another question. To get new light-and-tie men at this season was a problem. There were several gather-ins in the lower town, and those would be a starting place for his quest. But first-dinner.
He chose a small, quiet eating place and was surprised at the wide array of dish dials he was offered. Food on the holdings was usually plentiful but plain, with little variety. The few off-world luxury items were carefully saved for holidays. But here he was fronted with a choice such as was more usual in a Port city catering to off-world visitors. Then he noted a Zacathan in the next booth and realized that a restaurant in the capital needs must satisfy the alien government representatives as well as the settlers.
Deciding to plunge, Hosteen dialed three dishes he had not tasted since his last service leave. He was sipping at a tube planted in a dalee bulb when someone paused by his table, and he glanced up to see Kelson, the Peace Officer of the Peak section.
“Heard you were looking for me, Storm.”
“Tried your office com,” Hosteen assented. He was a little at a loss as to how to word his question. Should he just bluntly ask what was up-if there was any news being withheld from the holdings? But Kelson continued.
“Coincidence. I was trying to reach you. Called the Peaks-Quade said you were here registering your squares. You’ve decided to settle in the Peak country then?”
“Yes-horse breeding with Put Larkin. He’s off-world now. Heard of a new crossbreed on Astra-Terran blood interbred with the local species of duicorn. Can stand up to desert heat there-or so the breeder claims!”
“So they might do for the Big Dry here, eh? It’s a thought. But your range isn’t open yet-“
What did that matter, Hosteen wondered. No one would start on holding work until the rains came. But Kelson was beckoning to someone across the room.
“There’s a problem-maybe you can help us,” the Peace Officer continued. “Mind if we join you? Time’s essential in this one-“
The man who came up was an off-worlder of a type usually not seen on a frontier world. His sleek form-fitting tunic, picked out with a silver-thread pattern, and the long hose-breeches of flat black were those of a business executive on one of the densely populated merchant worlds, and fashionable though they might have been on his home planet, they were as incongruous here as they were ill-becoming to his pudgy figure. Ridiculous as he might look in this Arzoran restaurant, one did not think him a figure of fun when one observed his craggy face, saw the square set of a determined and forceful chin and the bleak eyes that were those of a man used to giving orders. Hosteen recognized the breed and stiffened-it was one with which he had little sympathy.
“Gentle Homo Lass Widders, Beast Master Storm.” Kelson made the introductions, using the title of respect from the inner planets for the stranger, who seated himself without invitation across the table from Hosteen and proceeded to survey the Terran with an appraisal the other found insolent.
“I am not of the forces now.” Hosteen corrected Kelson perversely. “So it is not Beast Master-today I light and tie for Quade.”
“You’re a holding head rather since an hour ago, aren’t you? You’ve located your stakes. Have you set up a brand?” Kelson asked.
“Arrowhead S,” Storm replied absently. “And what do you wish of a mustered-out Beast Master, Gentle Homo?”
“About a month, maybe more, of your time and services,” Widders rapped out in the clicking Galactic basic of the business worlds. “I want to have you-and your team-guide me into the Blue section-“
Hosteen blinked and looked to Kelson for confirmation that he had really heard that idiotic statement. To his surprise, the expression on the Peace Officer’s face read that this stranger from one of the hothouse worlds meant exactly what he said.
“It is a matter of time, Beast Master. I understand we must get into that country within the next two weeks if we go at all before next season.”
Hosteen did not blink this time. He merely replied with the truth.
“Impossible.”
“Nothing,” returned Widders with his irritating confidence, “is impossible, given the right man and credits enough. Kelson believes you are the man, and I can provide the credits.”
There was no use giving this madman a blanket denial; he would not accept that. Listen to his story, get the reason behind this insane plan, then prove to him its utter folly-that was the only way to proceed.
“Why the Blue?” Hosteen asked as he spooned up some lorg sauce and spread it neatly over a horva fritter.
“Because my son’s there-“
Again Hosteen glanced at Kelson. The Blue was unknown. Those mountains, which were its western ramparts, were known, and appeared on the maps of the Peak country. But what lay behind that barrier existed only as a series of hazy aerial photos. The treacherous air currents of those heights had kept out ‘copter surveys, and the territory was the hunting ground of the feared wild Norbie cannibals, hated, shunned, and fought by their own kind for generations. No one-government man, settler, yoris hunter-had ever gone into the Blue and returned. It was posted off limits by government order. Yet here was Kelson listening to a proposal to invade the forbidden section as if Widders was doing no more than suggesting a stroll down a Galwadi street. Again Hosteen waited for enlightenment.
“You’re a veteran of Confed forces, Storm. Well, my son is, too. He served with a Breakaway Task Force-“
Hosteen was a little jarred. To find an inner planet man among the Breakaways-those tough, very tough, first-in fighters-was unusual.
“He was wounded, badly, just before the Xik collapse. Since then he has been on Allpeace-“
Allpeace, one of the rehabilitations worlds where men were rebuilt from human wreckage to live passably normal lives again. But if young Widders had been on Allpeace, how had he gotten into the Blue on Arzor?
“Eight months ago a transport left Allpeace with a hundred discharged veterans on board, Iton among them. On the fringe of this system, that ship hit a derelict hyper bomb.” Widders might have been discussing the weather if you did not watch his eyes and note that small twitch of lip he could not control.
“Just a month ago a lifeboat from that ship was discovered on Mayho, this planet’s sister world. There were two survivors. They reported that at least one more LB left the transport, and they cruised with her into this system. Their boat was damaged, and they had to set down on Mayho. Their companion headed on here to Arzor, promising to send back help-“
“And didn’t arrive,” Hosteen stated instead of questioned.
But Kelson was shaking his head. “No-there is a chance she did arrive, that she crashed in the Blue. Weak signals of some sort were recorded on robot coms in two different line camps out in the Peaks. A cross check gives us a Blue landing point.”
“And your local climate would mean death to any survivors out there without adequate supplies or transportation at this season,” Widders continued. “I want you to guide me in-to get my son out-“
If he was on that LB and is still alive, Hosteen added silently. But he made his oral reply as plain as he could.
“You are asking the impossible, Gentle Homo. To go into the Blue at this time is simply suicide, and there is no possible way of getting behind the Peaks during the Big Dry.”
“Natives live there all year around, don’t they?” Widders’ voice scaled up a note or two.
“Yes, the Norbies live there. But their knowledge of the country is not shared with us.”
“You can hire native guides, anything you need. There is no limit on funds-“
“Credits can’t buy water knowledge from a Norbie. And there is also this-right now the tribes are making medicine in the Peak country. We would not be able to ride in under those conditions even in the Wet Time when all the odds are in our favor.”
“I’ve heard about that,” Kelson said. “It has to be looked into-“
“Not by me!” Hosteen shook his head. “There’s trouble shaping up back there. I’m down here partly to report it and to try and hire riders to replace our Norbies. Every native has pulled out of the Peak country during the past week-every one-“
Kelson did not appear surprised. “So we heard. And they are moving northeast.”
“Into the Blue.” Hosteen digested that.
“Just so. You were a short way into that country when you discovered that Xik nest. And Logan-he’s hunted along there. You’re the only two settlers who have any ground-level information we can use,” Kelson added.
“No.” Hosteen tried to make that negative sound final. “I’m not completely crazy. Sorry, Gentle Homo, the Blue is closed country-in more ways than one.”
Widders’ eyes were no longer bleak. There was a spark of anger in their gray depths. “If I refuse to accept that?”
Hosteen slipped a credit disk into the table slot. “That is your privilege, Gentle Homo, and none of my business. See you later, Kelson.” He rose and walked away from Widders and his problems. He had his own to deal with now.