But Hansu’s gesture silenced that. “We’re not alone,” he reminded them. “Once Combat Law is broken here, what will happen? Others will begin to set Mech against Arch.”

He did not need to continue. They knew what that would mean—vicious civil war on half a thousand planets, one Terran force pitted against another, bleeding their own world white—

“That has to be stopped here and now. One message to Combat Center and it will be!”

“We can’t face up to big stuff in the field!” someone shouted.

“We won’t try to. But we’ve got to get a messenger to Secundus or Prime. And the rest of us must hole up and wait for Combat to move.”

“Stay in the mountains?” There was no enthusiasm in that question. They had had enough of Fronn’s mountains.

Hansu shook his head. “We have an alternative. First we must learn more about what is going on. Now—set hostile country camp. Swordtans, scouts, report to me.”

They went to the duties in which they had been drilled. Kana joined the others at the cart where Hansu waited for them. The commander had spread out a much-creased sheet of skin and was frowning at the blue lines which crossed and re-crossed its surface.

“Bogate”—he turned to the head scout— “when that Corban comes out with supplies, round him up and bring him here. These guen hunters must know the land for miles, know it intimately. We want all the information about it we can pry out of them. Mechs can’t operate in rough territory—so we’ve got to keep to broken wilderness.”

“But all around Tharc is open plain,” one of the Swordtans objected.

“We have no intention of going to Tharc. They’ll be watching for us to try that.”

“The only space port—”

Hansu corrected him instantly. “The only military space port is at Tharc. You are forgetting the Venturi!”

Kana’s lips shaped a soundless whistle. The Blademaster was right. The Venturi! As hereditary traders of Fronn they had some centers of their own on the mainland. And not too far from the western sea was a small off-world space landing used by the few alien traders who had managed to establish contact with the Venturi for a limited exchange of goods—mostly exotic novelties the Fronnian merchants were suspected of reselling at fabulous profit. To reach there—to take control of one of the trading ships—that offered a better chance than to try to blast their way into the toothed trap which was now Tharc.

“There is a space port near the Venturi holdings at Po’ult,” Hansu was explaining. “There is no regular schedule of ships, but off-world traders do come. And we may have luck in making a deal for shelter with the Venturi. If we head straight west we should strike the sea not far from Po’ult.”

The Corban was only too willing to provide any assistance which would insure getting these dangerous Terrans out of his territory. Kneeling with two of his best guen hunters over the map Hansu had produced, he asked one question which the Blademaster had to parry adroitly.

“But why, Lord, must you seek out a path through this wilderness? To the south the road is wide and smooth and there your brothers await you.”

“It is our wish to visit the Venturi of the coast—and not to come upon them by a well-marked road—”

The Llor’s tiny circle of a mouth moved in the Fronnian equivalent of a smile.

“Ha. Then it is true—that which has been whispered from mouth to ear—that the day of reckoning with those is coming? No longer shall the hooded ones keep the trails, nor be the only buyers and sellers to carry goods from one village to the next! That is good to hear, Lord. Eat up the Venturi forts along the coast if you will—and all the Llor shall speak kindly of you to the Ruler of the Winds. For when those fall, then there shall be rich spoil for all.”

Eagerly he consulted the map. “Now here is a path—it lies among the western mountains and there may be Cos. But to you what are Cos—you may brush them out of your way as we brush the fas-fas beetles from our floors. And this path will lead you directly to the sea above Po’ult. May your hunting there prosper, War Lord!”

“Indeed may it,” piously returned Hansu. And he moved his fingers in the Three Signs of those air, fire, and water spirits who must be consulted on Fronn before any major undertaking.

The Corban warmed still more and became their champion with the guen herders, personally inspecting the stock his fellow citizens had run out from the village corrals, and rejecting ten animals, much to the bafflement of his men who were prepared to make a handsome profit from the ignorance of off-world men, for Hansu insisted on paying for the animals. That night he gave a feast, using a month’s supplies with the abandon of a Chortha of a province. To the future conquerors of the Venturi he would deny nothing. And a handpicked corps of guides, selected from the most hardy and far roving of the guen hunters, was detailed to accompany the Horde to the foothills of the western mountains.

That was a day and a half journey—mounted—and Hansu pushed them to the utmost, driven himself by the desire to get out of the dangerous level country before they were sighted by a Mech patrol.

On the morning of the third day when they were well on the mountain trail they found the Llor guides gone. Distant behind them was the smudge of smoke in the sky and bits of charred grass drifted down. The hunters had lighted a plains fire to drive the wild guen into a netting place. Hansu watched that haze with satisfaction. It would effectively cover their trail, which was perhaps why the Llor hunters had lit it.

Now began the old nightmare of climbing, climbing and being ever alert for an attack. Though the hunters had insisted that this route lay on the edge of Cos-held country and that the mountaineers had very seldom troubled the caravans which used it, they could not be sure of a peaceful penetration. And the Llor had been unable to answer Hansu’s questions as to whether the Venturi caravanmen had some pact with the Cos which insured that safety. However, the Terrans had no alternative but to advance.

The trail was marked with those narrow stone pillars erected by the Venturi, the pictographs on them untranslatable. And it was made for the use of guen.

That night they went without fire, camped in small groups, strung out with sentries between. But the hours of darkness were not broken by alarms and they sighted no beacons on the heights.

Kana had tramped behind Hansu for most of that day, and now, his blanket pulled about him for warmth, he crouched by an outcrop trying to snatch some sleep while the Blademaster sat cross-legged a yard away and listened to the reports of scouts.

“—no deal with these Mechs?”

“Not a chance.” Hansu’s voice brought him fully awake. “Mills said that Hart Device was in command.”

“Device! I still think Deke musta been wrong. Device wouldn’t go outlaw—”

“That’s just the point, Bogate. If Device is the commander at Tharc—and I see no reason not to trust information Mills died to bring us—then this is no matter of a Mech Legion gone outlaw. Hart Device is a new leader—just as Yorke was. His Legion is small but tough, well equipped, and Hart has the reputation of delivering. I’d be willing to lay half a year’s pay that he has a large percentage of vets—just as we have. I wonder—” His voice trailed off.

But Kana, tired as he was, caught that hint. A Legion, a Horde, both consisting of well-trained men, locked in a death struggle. No matter which won in the end, the death toll would be high. So many veterans removed from action. It was beginning to add up to an ugly sum.

“If the Code’s broke”—Zapan Bogate’s rumbling whisper had thoughtful undertones—“hell’s to pay! Why—Archs won’t have a chance!”

“Not at the old game, no. But that is no reason why we can’t start a new one.”

“But—we’re Combat men, Hansu—”

“Sure. Only there’s no rule about who or what we have to fight.” There was an absent note in the Blademaster’s voice as if he were thinking aloud.

“Anyways, now we got just one job.” Bogate heaved himself up. “To get outta these blasted hills and see the Venturi. We gonna try to take ’em, sir?”

“Not if we can help it. They may welcome us with open arms if what that Corban hinted is true and the Llor have turned against them. Their territory is too rough for the Mechs. This Po’ult of theirs is built on an island off the coast—sheer rock straight up from the sea. They have their own ways of getting ashore and you can’t bring up heavy stuff to batter it.”

“Good place for us to hole up—if they’ll let us.”

“That’s what we’ll have to arrange, Bogate. If we can make them see we have a common enemy, maybe they’ll make it a common war. Take scouts out in the morning as usual.”

“Yes, sir.”

At dawn the trek began again. Snow lay in patches along the trail, and the patches became solid sheets, drifting across the track, drifts through which men on foot beat a way for the slender-legged guen. But in that struggle they lost animals, for the wild, newly captured mounts were not tough enough for a battle such as this. The second cart became a casualty—and with it one of the medical corpsmen who did not have a chance to relinquish his drag rope as it slithered over the edge of a drop and plunged to a slope far below.

“Alert!” The war whistle shrieked the message along, to set numb hands unslinging rifles, freeing sword-knives. That was the only warning they had before the battle of the pass began. But now they were not tangling with Cos but with a party of Llor in flight, desperate to win through, back to the plains and safety. And because of their desperation they came on without caution, trying to hack their way through the Horde.

The struggle was a short one, the rear guard of the Horde never firing a shot. But it was bloody. For the Llor died to a man and they had been so reckless in their attack that they cut down in their insane scramble men who would not normally have been drawn into a hand-to-hand combat.

The Terrans, already spent with their struggle through the snow to these heights, licked their wounds that night and camped, sick with weariness, on the edge of the battlefield. Wind-driven snow covered the fallen and the Combatants who could keep their feet moved among the wounded striving to ward off frozen death.

“Raiding party being chased home—” The sear breeze pulled the words from between Mic’s chapped lips. “Maybe we’re marching straight into a fire someone else started. Hope the Venturi won’t think we’re more of the same—”

Rey rubbed one cheek with a handful of snow. “Never a dull moment.” He wheezed and then coughed until his whole rangy body shook. “Next time we have a premonition about any enlistment—me, I’m going to believe it! What a paradise replacement barracks was—why did I ever leave Secundus?”

Kana beat gloved hands together. Secundus seemed very far and long ago. Had he ever eaten in a room where flame birds flitted on the walls? Or was that a dream and this present nightmare stark reality?

“We’ll just plow on and on through this”—Mic kicked a pile of snow— “until it is deep enough to bury us. Then next season they’ll find us all nice and stiff and export us as ‘native art’—”

“Were these Llor running from a brush with the Venturi?” Rey wondered. “I thought they were afraid of them. Remember all that trouble about the spy just out of Tharc? We weren’t to touch the traders. And even when they found their man the Llor didn’t say anything to the caravan people.”

“The Llor believe now that they are going to take over Fronn,” Kana said. “They must have hated the Venturi for a long time and see a good chance to get back at them now. You scouting tomorrow, Rey?”

“I am—for my sins. And you?”

“Likewise.”

Mic nursed his healing arm. “They’re sure whittling us down to size, these mountains. Have bad luck every time we climb. Fifty lost back there—twenty here—and more wounded—”

“Not as bad as when the wing bombed us,” Rey reminded him. “As long as we can fight back—”

“Yes, I know. But see you come back from scout, you long-legged byll!”

“You know”—Rey stopped rubbing the snow down his jaw line— “that’s an idea. If a fella could get him say ten-twenty of those birds and train ’em—as the fur faces trained their horks. They don’t make any noise before they jump, do they?” He turned to consult Kana as an authority. “No? Well, put ’em on the enemy’s track and let ’em go. Better than a Mech crusher in country such as this.”

“And just who is going to catch and train them?” Mic was beginning, when another Arch appeared out of the dark.

“Karr?”

“Here!”

“Report to Blademaster.”

Kana groped his way to where Hansu had holed up between two overhanging slabs of rock forming a half-cave. The faint blue of a captured Llor torch gave a ghostly, morbid hue to the faces of those clustered about it. And one of them had no face at all—only the blank mask of a hooded Ventur.

“Karr, sit down.” Kana folded up just inside as the Blademaster turned back to the hooded one.

“Will this man do?”

The muffled head moved, but no word was spoken for a long moment as Kana shifted under the gaze of eyes hidden behind round holes. Then the trader made an assenting gesture which was more a quick jerk than a Terran nod.

“This Ventur was a prisoner of that troop of Llor,” Hansu explained. “He’s going back to his people and you’re the AL man who’ll accompany him to make contact. We want a base—a chance to hide out until we can notify Secundus. Use your judgment, Karr. You are the only AL trained man we have left. Make the best deal you can with them. Impress upon them that we’re as much against the Llor now as they are—tell their leaders what that Corban said to us.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hansu looked at his watch. “Take rations and extra ammunition. We have no idea how far we now are from Po’ult—the map isn’t accurate. And”—he hesitated, his eyes boring into Kana’s— “just remember—we have to have that base!”

“Yes, sir.”

11 — TRUCE OF WIND

The trail ran along a broad ledge from which the snow had been scoured by the night winds. Below was the dull, dark green of twisted trees and a gray expanse laced with white where tempest-driven waves beat upon the water-worn rocks of the western seashore.

Kana’s pace slowed as he looked out over that heaving floor of water. Winged creatures wheeled, dipped, and screamed over the narrow strand, seeking out tidbits thrown up by the flow. But, save for them, he might have been viewing an empty world.

No sun shone today and under the pewter clouds the land stretching down to the sea was grim and forbidding.

“We—go—”

Kana started. In all the five hours that they had been traveling together those were the first words the Ventur had spoken. Now the trader hovered impatiently at the far end of the ledge, waiting to climb down to sea level. Traces on the path marked the retreat of the Llor twenty-odd hours before. But there were no signs of any Venturi pursuers.

They had seen no one so far though they had passed numerous sites intended by nature for easy defense. One might well believe that the traders had no wish to protect their territory.

Now the Combatant toiled down the slope to come out upon a well-marked, smoothly surfaced road along the coast. And within a few minutes they did face a Ventur sentry.

The hooded one who kept watch there conferred with the guide while Kana allowed them the privacy these strange people appeared to desire. He did not join them until the wave of a gloved hand brought him to the small building. Out of this the two traders pushed the first mechanical vehicle the Arch had yet seen on Fronn. It was scarcely more than a platform of metal, possessing three wheels, one at each corner of its wedge shape, and no visible motor. The Venturi guide seated himself on the narrow point and motioned Kana to take his place on the wider section behind. Hardly had the Terran pulled his legs under him than they took off—not at the skimming speed a land jopper would have displayed on his native world—but faster than a marching stride.

As they whisked along he saw no indication of any military patrol. It was as if the Venturi, having driven the Llor into the mountains, no longer worried about an attack, which argued an amazing self-confidence with strength to back it.

The road curved and curled, following the natural contours of the shoreline. They came around one such curve to front the Venturi port.

Here the sea bit into the land in a great semicircle of a bay, a natural harbor into which the traders had built a series of wharves. Inshore clustered windowless, high-walled buildings with the look of warehouses and trading depots. It was as they approached these that Kana saw the first signs of the recent battle. But all the Venturi in sight were going about their business with no hurry or confusion. From the odd ships at the wharves—their superstructures completely covered to give them the look of giant turtles—poured a steady stream of goods— Or did it?

The vehicle stopped and Kana got off. No—those ships were being loaded, not unloaded! The flat cars were transporting goods to the sea, not away from it. It was apparent that the traders were stripping the depot—it had all the signs of an orderly evacuation.

“Come—”

Again his Venturi companion hurried him on. They slipped through a maze of lanes between the buildings, hugging the walls at times to avoid swiftly moving cars piled with bundles and bales. And at last they came to a smaller structure so close to the sea that the waters dashed up on its outer wall.

The day without was dull and gray but it was even darker inside the building. Kana blinked, then his wrist was grasped and he was pulled on to the far end of a corridor. As the Ventur stopped before what seemed to be a solid wall, that expanse parted, allowing a greenish light to shine out.

Kana stared about him with a frankness he did not try to disguise. The walls of this room arched over him to meet in a cone’s point. Thick pads provided seats for the three Venturi who sat behind low tables. One wall—that to his left—had been covered with a tangle of apparatus which several of the hooded ones were methodically dismantling and packing away in cases. At the entrance of the Terran these stopped their work and slipped out, leaving the Combatant to face the other three.

They had been at work, too, sorting piles of thin sheets of some opaque substance, selecting a few to be encased in a metal chest, tossing others into discard on the floor. Their records, Kana guessed.

The trader who had brought him from the mountains delivered a report. And it was an almost soundless process, as if the Venturi did not communicate by voice alone. When he had done, all the hooded heads swung in Kana’s direction. He hesitated, not knowing whether he should speak first. So much depended upon making the right impression. If he could only see their faces—

“You are from off-world?”

It took him a second to decide which one of those baffling masks had addressed him. He thought it was the middle one and replied accordingly.

“I am of Terra—of the Combatants of Terra.”

“Why are you here?”

“Skura of the Llor brought us to fight for him. Skura was killed. Now we wish to return to our own world.”

“The Llor war—” Was it only his imagination or was there a chill in that voice?

“We no longer fight for the Llor—we fight against them. For they would slay us.”

“What seek you of us here?”

“A place to stay until we can find an off-world ship.”

“At Tharc are such ships to be found.”

“At Tharc are also our enemies. They will not allow us to gain those ships.”

“But those at Tharc are also of Terra. Do you war with your own kind?”

“They are evildoers who have broken our laws. They would keep the knowledge of their evil from our Masters-of-Trade. If we can return with the evidence against them, they shall be punished.”

“At Tharc only are such ships,” repeated the Ventur stubbornly.

“We have heard that near Po’ult is a place where the starships of off-world traders come,” Kana countered with growing desperation. Hansu should have come himself to argue this. He was making no impression at all.

“Traders do not transport men of war—traders do not fight.”

“But we met Llor in the mountains fleeing from a battle with traders—traders they no longer welcome in the plains. No, Master-of-Trade—the hour is coming when even you may be forced to bare sword and use rifle in your own defense. We spoke with a Llor Corban who foretold the sacking of your mainland holdings—of a new day coming to Fronn when the Venturi would not rule the caravan routes. Those who would press this change upon you are prepared to do it with the sword. And they are also our enemies. We are fighting men, trained to battle from our earliest years. Those whom our swords serve sleep easy at night. And it seems that you will have need of allies, Master, if rumor speaks true.”

The hooded figure changed position slightly, almost as if he had answered that with a shrug.

“We be of the sea. And the Llor are not of the sea. If we keep to our own place, what need have we of swords? And soon enough the dwellers on land will come to know their mistake.”

“If you dealt only with Llor, perhaps that would be true. But the Llor have these others to aid them. The renegade Terrans they company do not fight as we do, rifle to rifle, sword to sword. Rather do they have mighty machines to obey their will and they hunt from the sky, raining fire upon those they would destroy. With passage through the air the sea is no barrier. Tell me, Master, are there not off-world men who would be glad if your hold upon the trade of Fronn ceased to be? Such men will give support in war to those who serve them best.”

When they did not have a ready answer to that a tiny spark of hope came to Kana. If the Venturi were deserting their shore bases, preparing to withdraw to their island fortresses for an indefinite length of time, then the Horde might reach the sea coast only to discover themselves in another trap. His chance—their only chance—was to win at least grudging support from these traders before they departed.

“These things of which you speak have already been told to us. The sky machines have been sighted. So you think they would follow us—even into the outer ocean where no Llor dares to drive a ship?”

“I believe this, Master-of-Trade, that peace has departed from Fronn and that the time has come when all upon its surface will be compelled to choose whether they shall follow this war leader or that. It was against the law that these sky fighters and moving fortresses were brought here. And when men go outside the law—a law which has might to back it—they do so weighing risk against return—as you in trade weigh risk against profit. They play now to rule this world. And if they win—what will they care for the Venturi? You shall be eaten up and your trade kingdom shall be as if it never was!”

The middle Ventur arose, his robes making a faint whispering as he moved, for they were of a finer material than the drab coverings of the caravan men.

“We are not of those who make treaties or deal with rulers,” he stated firmly, “but the words you have spoken shall be carried to our elders on Po’ult. And to this much shall we agree—you may bring your people to this—the Landing of Po’ult—and they may abide here through the great storms—until our elders come to a decision, for we shall be gone from here this day. This is spoken by Falt’u’th, so be it recorded.

A murmur from the others gave assent. The guide who had brought Kana waved him to withdraw. He brought his hand up in salute and the Venturi leader nodded. As the Terran left the room the men who had been dismantling the machine on the wall hurried past him to resume their work.

Venturi hospitality was not expansive. Kana was transported from the Landing of Po’ult at once. As the wedge car ascended the slope behind the settlement he noticed one of the turtle ships drawing away from the dock. As it neared the middle of the bay it slowly submerged until only a conning tower was left above water, and with that cutting the waves it headed to the open sea.

Kana and the Ventur reached the guard post at dusk and the Terran was thankful to note that the trader intended to spend the night there. The Combatant was shown into a windowless inner room, one wall of which gave off a faint greenish gleam, provided with a mat which could be either seat or bed, and left to himself. He ate his rations and curled up on the pad, aching with weariness.

The next morning it was made clear to him that the Venturi regarded this outpost as the boundary of their concern with him and from that point he was to proceed alone. But now the pale sun was banishing the gloom of the day before and, as he swung along at the ground-eating pace of the marching Arch, his confidence in the future grew. After all—even if the traders had not opened Po’ult, they were allowing the Terrans the use of their port on the coast. And it was situated not far from the landing field Hansu had spoken of—they had only to await the coming of an off-world trading ship.

Kana’s hopeful outlook continued to grow as he climbed the pass, and it colored the report he was able to make to Hansu before noon.

“They gave you no idea as to when they would let us know their decision?” The Blademaster pinned him down.

“No, sir. They were stripping the Landing, withdrawing to their sea strongholds. Seemed to think that they could outsit the trouble—”

“I have yet to see a neutral win anything—especially when the enemy wants something he has. But we can’t quarrel with even half luck—we’ll settle for the use of their port buildings now.”

When the van of the Horde reached the outer guard post they found it deserted, the building empty, the sentry and the wedge car gone. And as they marched on down to the Landing nothing moved in the narrow lanes between the warehouses. The turtle ships had vanished—a last conning tower slicing the waves could just be seen far out on the bay. But not a Ventur, not a scrap of their goods was left in the silent and empty port.

Hansu posted sentries, though he allowed that the sturdiness of the thick walls would be ample protection against the most that even a Mech force could throw against them. The Blademaster took up quarters in the house backing upon the sea where Kana had met with the Venturi leaders. The apparatus was gone from the wall of the room, leaving holes and dangling brackets, but the small tables were still bolted to the floor and a seat pad had been left behind.

For the first time since they had left Tharc the Combatants were under roofs. And none too soon, for the rising wind of the night brought with it the banners of a storm.

The thick walls kept out most of the howl of the wind. But one could lay a hand against their surfaces and feel the vibration of such tempests as the Terrans had not known before. They need fear no attack while this held.

Curiosity led them to explore their new quarters, finding a few discarded articles, the use of half of which they could not deduce. Kana, with Mic and Rey, armed with Terran night torches, dared a trap door they discovered in a far hallway and descended a steep flight of steps whose risers had not been fashioned for off-world feet. They ended in a cellar, half natural sea cave, in which a water-filled slip ran part way up, slopping back and forth with the force of the wind-driven sea without.

Flicking his light across the water Kana sighted a line fastened inconspicuously to a hook embedded in the floor, pulled taut below the surface. Something heavy must be tethered there!

He gave it a questioning tug. There was an object on the other end all right. The three of them dragged it together, bracing their feet and trying to free what lay below with a series of sharp jerks. Seconds later they pulled up the slimy incline a strange craft. It was rounded, contained, like the turtle ships—more so, for it lacked the conning tower.

“A bomb?” ventured Mic.

“No, not when it’s anchored that way.” Kana moved around the end. “One man escape ship maybe.”

“They went off and forgot it—?”

“No,” Kana denied again. “It was hidden—so I’d say we still have a visitor.”

“Left behind to watch us—” Mic’s eyes roved about the rough walls. “Perhaps he’s to set some traps, too.”

“I don’t think that the Venturi have the trap-type mind,” Kana defended the traders. “I’d say we were left an observer—maybe even a contact with Po’ult, if we handle it right. However, perhaps it would be better if we kept a watch on this.” He kicked the ship with the toe of his boot. Whoever traveled in that would have cramped quarters indeed. A Terran could not fit in it at all, not even when flat and unmoving.

They reported the find to Hansu and the ship was transported to an upper hall. A searching exploration was made of all the Landing buildings without any concrete results.

The storm had not blown out by morning. Instead it increased and it became almost impossible, because of the wind and driven spray, to win from one building to another. But this would continue to keep off attack—which almost balanced the Arch disappointment at being unable to search for the space port Hansu was sure must be close at hand.

Kosti examined the escape ship with care and solved the riddle of its opening, displaying to his crowding comrades the narrow padded slit within, which would cradle the body of the navigator.

“What kinda man would fit in there?” demanded Sim.

“Perhaps not a ‘man’ at all,” Kosti returned.

“Huh?”

“Well, none of us have seen a Venturi without one of those muffling robes. How do we know if they are like the Llor—or us? This could be comfortable for a non-human.”

Kana eyed the slit speculatively. It was too narrow for the length if it were fashioned to accommodate a humanoid. It suggested an extremely thin, sinuous creature. He did not feel any prick of man’s age-old distaste for the reptilian—any reminder of the barrier between warm-blooded and cold-blooded life which had once held on his home world. Racial mixtures after planet-wide wars, mutant births after the nuclear conflicts, had broken down the old intolerance against the “different.” And out in space thousands of intelligent life forms, encased in almost as many shapes and bodies, had given “shape prejudice” its final blow. The furred Llor and Cos were “man”-shaped, but it might be that they shared Fronn with another race, evolved from scaled clans.

Why not snake or lizard? There were races whose far ancestors had been feline, and others who had, dim ages ago, sacrificed the wings of birds to develop intelligence and civilization—and yet the Yabanu and the Trystian were now equal partners in the space lanes. As for reptiles—what of the lizard Zacathans, whose superior learning had confounded half the universe and yet who were a most peace-loving and law-abiding collection of scholars?

Kana, remembering the Zacathans he had known and admired, viewed that padded cushion with no aversion, only curiosity. What did it matter if a body was covered with wool, or with scales, or with soft flesh which had to be protected by clothing? The Venturi he had met had not been in any way terrifying or obnoxious creatures—once one became used to their constant concealment of their faces and forms. Now he wanted to know what they were really like—and why they shrouded themselves so carefully.

But the owner of the escape ship, if he were concealed somewhere within the Landing, made no move to declare his presence. And the storm continued. On the morning of the second day Hansu fought his way across a short strip of court to a nearby building and returned, being once hurled against a wall with a force which almost lost him his footing. Kana, waiting, grabbed for the Blademaster’s coat and dragged him inside. The commander gasped painfully before he could speak.

“We can’t face this. It is the West Wind Drive!”

Kana recalled the record-pak. The West Wind Drive, that paralyzing push of Fronn’s terrible windy season when all life went to cover and death itself rode the blasts. There would be no hope of surviving even a short journey in the open. Anything caught outside the shelter of the Landing would be whirled off and battered flat. Their luck had held—bringing them out of the mountains behind the strong walls of the port just in time.

“No spacer would try to land now,” Kana pointed out. “They would be warned.”

Hansu nodded. But it was plain that his inability to do something about the situation was an added irritant.

“I wish I could meet the Ventur.” He gazed down the hall as if he could summon the hidden one out by the force of his will. “We must be ready to move the minute this clears.”

Their future was still a race for time. If the Blademaster could get a messenger aboard a spacer before Hart Device located them and brought up his wings—they would win. And—did the Venturi hold the deciding cards in this game?

12 — ON TO PO’ULT

The inactivity caused by the storms began to bore the Combatants. At first they had been content to sleep much of the time, rebuilding the stores of energy worn out by the trek across the mountains. But now they roamed restlessly through the buildings, making reckless sorties from one to another during what they believed were lulls, or allowing their irritation to show in sudden snarling quarrels. But Hansu was prepared to meet this. There were drills in unarmed combat and scouting as well as follow-the-leader hunts in which a handful of veterans hid and the younger members of the teams traced them in silent pursuit.

Since the storm established a perpetual gray dusk one could no longer distinguish day from night. It might have been noon or well into evening when Kana climbed one of the perilously steep flights of narrow stairs to almost roof level of a warehouse. His eyes had long since adjusted to the pallid green light given off by the walls and he moved softly, intent upon reaching the small platform just under the curve of the domed roof. From there he would be able to see into the large storage space which occupied the center section of the building. He was a hound and Sim was hare today. It had become a matter of pride for the recruit to locate this one veteran, even if he must devote every moment until the sleep period to the problem.

As Kana climbed, the light faded. He put out a hand to touch the steps as a guide. But he was still at least three from the top when he stopped and shrank against the wall. He sensed that he was not alone.

From below he had estimated that the platform was about five feet square. There was a trap door above it which must give upon the roof—and in this wind nothing could perch outside for an instant. The roof!

Kana’s shoulder rubbed the wall as he forced his memory to reconstruct the outline of this warehouse building as he had seen it from the headquarters two hours before. It was like all the rest, a rounded dome which offered small resistance to the wind. The roof—

He took the remaining steps cautiously. Then he stretched to his full height, raising his arms above his head until his fingers were on the surface above him. But what he expected he did not find.

Twice during these scout games he had climbed to these vantage points in warehouses and both times he had discovered that the roof vibrated faintly, a trembling born of the blasts beating across it. But here it was quiet, as if insulated against the outer world. And he still believed that he was not alone.

With his finger tips he explored the ceiling, locating the small trap door which should give on the roof. As his hands fingered its hinges he realized that here was a difference. There was no fastening on this side. The latch which kept the door from swinging down must be on the other side!

Kana slipped his torch from his belt and snapped it on at the lowest power, no longer caring if Sim sighted him. The platform was covered by that gritty dust which constantly sifted through the air during the storms. His boots had left plain tracks in it. But there were other marks too, though these were shapeless scuffs which could not have been left by a Terran unless he had purposely tried to conceal his spoor. And directly under the trap door were other marks he could not identify.

He beamed the torch up at the door. It was firmly set; he could hardly see the lines marking the square. The two hinges glistened. Kana investigated delicately. Grease—some sort of grease so recently applied that it was liquid instead of viscid and its strange odor was sharp as he brought his smeared finger to his nose. Someone was using this door. But to go outside—that was impossible!

Kana aimed the beam at the ceiling, beginning his examination farther out than the platform. After a careful study he was certain that there was a space overhead between the ceiling he saw and the outer dome of the building. The curve was curtailed, the angle between the side wall and the dome sharper than it should be. But what a perfect hiding place! No Terran would attempt to explore the roofs in the storm. He was prepared to take Knife-Oath that he had discovered the hiding place of the Venturi spy! Hansu need only station a guard here and—

A whisper of sound, so faint it barely reached his ears, made him snap off the torch and back against the wall to the left of the stairs. Some of the green radiance seeped up, but the light was so faint he could not really see. He must depend upon his ears—his nose.

For now he was aware of an odor. Below, where the bales of trade goods had once been stored, smells fought with one another and the general aroma was often sickening to a Terran. But this was different, faintly spicy and fresh—transporting him for an instant to the gambling establishment on Secundus. There was nothing unpleasant about it and it was growing stronger.

Next came a soft plop and Kana froze, hardly daring to breathe. Something, his ears told him, had fallen from the trap door to the platform. He swung his torch before him as if it were a flamer.

Other sounds reached him—movements he was not sure of.

He pressed the stud of the torch, setting the power at full. And it flashed on, pinning in its thick beam the creature who had just stepped from the last loop in a rope ladder to the floor. It made one grab for the rope and then froze, erect and quiet, accepting the fact that escape was now impossible.

The cushioned bed in the escape ship had been a clue right enough, but reality out-stripped imagination. If this were a Ventur—and Kana had no reason to doubt that—the second major race of Fronn had little or nothing in common with the Llor physically.

Its extreme slenderness gave it the appearance of greater height than it really possessed, for it was shorter than he. Its arms fitted to the barrel of the trunk without any width of shoulder and the pouchy neck was only a shade under the girth of the chest. The legs were long and as thin as a gu’s ending in flat, webbed feet, and there were two sets of upper limbs, all equipped with six-fingered hands.

But the head was the least humanoid, four eyes set in pairs on either side, a wide mouth which now gaped in surprise, no visible chin—Kana started as with horror he realized where he had seen the like before—in miniature. This was a tif—a tif turned land dweller with only its size and greater brain case to distinguish it from the ferocious hunters of the river.

As Kana remembered the tif he knew the cold chill of fear—until he met those eyes blinking in the torture of his light The black beads of hate, promising all manner of evil to come, which had watched him from the stream were not here. These larger orbs were golden, intelligent, mildly peaceful. And the Arch guessed that the Ventur was as alarmed as he—tif the other might look, but tif in nature he was not.

None of those four hands had gone to the knife which was sheathed on the Ventur’s hip. A shiver crossed the green-gray skin beneath the scanty tunic which covered it to mid-thigh. Abruptly Kana switched off the torch.

And then it was his turn to blink as a green beam, far under the power of his own, struck him, flitting from head to boots and back again.

“One only?” The question out of the dark did not sound as if it had come from between those wide loose lips, out of the wattled throat.

“Just one.”

The light went to his hands and then to his sword-knife at his belt. It centered there for a moment as if the Ventur was studying the weapon—as if that undrawn blade answered some private question for the other.

“You will come?” The green light pinpointed the dangling ladder.

Kana did not hesitate. He thrust his own torch back in its loop and stepped forward.

He made the short climb up the rope and wedged his shoulders through the trap door. It was a tight fit. Above was a pocket-sized room. A spongy pad covered a third of the space and he sat down on one end of it as his host emerged from the floor and made some adjustment which brought more light from the walls. There was, in addition to the pad, a flat box and a neat pile of containers. By the end of the cushion was a small brazier emitting coils of spicy, scented smoke. The quarters might be cramped, but the hidy-hole was provided with Venturi comforts. And now the frog-man seated himself on the other end of the pad, pushing aside his folded robe.

“You have watched us?” Kana asked.

“I have watched you.” The ungainly head, its four golden eyes fixed on the Terran, gave a twitch of agreement.

“For the Masters-of-Trade?”

“For the nation,” the other corrected swiftly. “You are traders in death. Such bargains may be evil—”

“You are a speaker-for-many?”

“I train to be a speaker-for-many. I am but one of limited years and small wisdom. You are a lord over many swords?”

It was Kana’s turn to deny honors. “I, too, am but a learner of this trade. This is my first battle journey.”

“Tell me, why do you creep through these buildings spying upon one another?” the Ventur asked, a note of real puzzlement in his voice.

“We train ourselves—that we may come upon the enemy secretly. It is a practice of our art.”

The four eyes continued to regard him unblinkingly. “And the Llor is now this enemy you would creep upon unseen. But why—did not the Llor summon you to Fronn in their service? Why should you now turn against them?”

“We were brought to serve the Chortha Skura. He made a bargain with our Masters-of-Trade. But he was killed in the first battle. According to custom we then ceased from battle and asked to be returned to our own place. But the Llor invited our Masters to hold a meeting over this matter, and when they were gathered together the Llor killed them treacherously. It was then that we discovered that they had with them certain outlaws of our own kind whose desire was to hunt us all down lest we return to our Masters-of-Trade and report the truth of what was done.

“Now our enemies hold Tharc where our spaceships land. We came to Po’ult hoping to find a trading spacer that would carry a messenger off-world for us—”

“But those which land here are not ships of war.”

“It does not matter whether they are or not. They are not so small that they have not space for one or two men besides their crew. And once our Masters-of-Trade know what has happened they will send ships to take us off.”

“Then you do not wish to stay on Fronn? With such arts of war as you know you might win the leadership of this world.”

“We are of Terra. To us that is the world to call home. All we wish is to leave Fronn in peace.”

The Ventur leaned forward to draw in deep breaths of the smoke arising from the brazier. Then, without a word, he opened a round box and brought out two small basins or handleless cups. They were fashioned in the form of spiraled shells of a delicate blue-green across which moved amethyst shadows. Into each of these he measured a minute portion of golden liquid poured from a small flagon as beautifully made as the cups. Then he held out one to Kana while he lifted the other, chanting some words in his own tongue.

Kana accepted the cup gingerly. He could not refuse to drink—it was offered with too much ceremony, though what effect the native liquor might have on a Terran stomach and head worried him, even as the stuff slid smoothly over his tongue and he swallowed. There was no sensation of heat such as Terran strong drink brought—only a coolness, a tingling which spread outward to the tips of his fingers and the surface of his skin. He set down the empty cup. Now what he sensed was mingled in some odd way with the scent from the brazier and the green radiance of the walls, as if taste, touch, smell and sight were suddenly one, all the keener and sharper for that uniting.

The Ventur shrugged his robe into place about his shoulders.

“We go now to your Master-of-Swords—”

Did he heard those words with his ears, mused Kana, or did they ring in his mind only? He stood up, this strange clarity of the senses persisting, and watched the frog-man drop the rope into the darkness below the trap door. On the platform the Ventur paused to adjust his hood, hiding his strange face.

“He’s in the other building,” Kana warned, remembering the storm.

“Yes—” The robed shadow glided noiselessly along, almost entirely invisible to anyone who did not know where he was. Kana knew that that must have protected him as he spied upon the Combatants.

They covered the few feet between the door of the warehouse and the recessed entrance of headquarters clinging to one another and both Kana’s coat and the skirts of the other’s robe were soaked with sea spray as they won to their goal.

Not only were his senses more acute, Kana decided, but his reactions were swifter. He was conscious of so much he had not noted before—that there were subtle differences in the shades of green light from room to room—that sounds hitherto drowned out by the muffled roar of the wind were perceptible.

“What’s that—!” A Swordsman coming down the hall halted at the sight of the Ventur.

“Messenger to Hansu,” Kana explained, hurrying his companion on to meet the Blademaster.

Hansu and two of the Swordtans glanced up frowning at the interruption. But they were alert at the sight of the trader.

“Where did you—?” the Blademaster began and then addressed the silent Ventur. “What is it that you wish?”

“It is rather what you wish, Master-of-Swords,” the other returned. “You desire a meeting with our Masters-of-Trade. But I have not the right to answer in their name. This one of you”—the cowled head gave a half turn to indicate Kana— “has made clear to me why you are here and what you wish. Grant me”—he mentioned a space of Fronnian time— “and I shall have an answer for you.”

Hansu did not hesitate. “Done! But how can you communicate with your people? In the storm—”

Kana received a vivid impression of the Ventur’s amusement. “Do you then have no means among you of talking across distances, Terran? We have been rated a backward people by off-world races, but we have not displayed all our knowledge and resources before them. Come with me if you wish and see. There is no trickery in what I would do, only the use of things built by intelligent beings for their safety and comfort.”

So it was that Kana and Hansu returned to that hidden room to watch the Ventur, his hampering robe discarded, open a thin box and display a silver mirror disc and a row of small levers. These he raised or lowered in a pattern, with infinite care, as if he worked out a complicated combination.

The mirror misted and at the coming of that film the Ventur moved quickly to snatch up a slender rod. With the pointed tip of that he traced a series of waving lines. They faded from the disc and there was a moment of waiting until the mist reappeared and a second collection of lines were inscribed. Four times that happened and then the trader put aside his pen.

“There is a matter of time now,” he informed the Combatants. “We must wait until the Masters reply. I only report, it is for them to give orders.”

Hansu grunted. There were cruel lines of weariness about the Blademaster’s mouth, a cloud of fatigue in his eyes. Hansu was a man worn close to the edge of endurance. And what ate into him was not only the future of the Horde—but something even more important. He was fighting for more than their escape from Fronn—for a goal which might be of far greater importance than the lives of all the Archs on this world.

The Ventur inhaled the brazier smoke, but his golden eyes watched the Terrans.

“Master,” he said to the Blademaster, “this much I can tell you—there has not been any off-world ship land here for ten tens of clors—”

Kana tried to translate the time measure. Close to four months’ ship time! His mouth set hard.

“And that is not as it was in the past?”

“It is not,” the Blademaster was answered. “We do not care for off-world trade, so its lack did not disturb us. But now—perhaps you can read another meaning into this. Also, what can you do if the trade ship comes not? Your enemies hold the port at Tharc.”

“One thing at a time. Let me speak to your Masters and then we shall see—”

A tinkle of sound came from the box. The Ventur looked at the mirror. Although the Terrans could make nothing of what he saw there he spoke in a moment or two.

“The Masters summon you to Po’ult to speak with them in private council. And because you have met with treachery on Fronn, there shall be those of master rank who shall sit among your men as hostages while you are gone. To this do you agree?”

“I agree. But when do I go?”

“The first fury of the storm will ebb tonight. They will send a ship in, but you must be ready to return with it at once, for this lull will not last long.”

“Am I to go alone?”

“Take one man if you wish. May I suggest this one.” A claw finger pointed at Kana. “He speaks the trade tongue well.”

Hansu did not object. “Let it be so.”

The lull came as the Ventur had foretold. And the two Terrans went with the trader down the sea-slimed steps to the dock. Kana saw the vee of spray cutting down the bay, heralding the approach of a Venturi vessel. It arose from the water and came in to the pier with perfection of handling. Then a hatch in the conning tower opened and four robed figures disembarked. Three glided up to the Terrans, the other remained by the ship.

“This Master Roo’uf, Under-Master Rs’ad, and Under-Master Rr’ol—they shall stay with your men.”

Hansu escorted the Venturi back to introduce them to his Swordtans. Then, with Kana at his heels, he climbed the ladder leading to the hatch. Within was a second ladder dropping into green dimness and the Combatants descended while strange odors and stranger noises closed about them as they went. The Venturi spy touched Kana’s sleeve and drew him to the left.

“It is the thought of the master of this ship that you would be interested in watching from the lookout as we travel— This way.”

They squeezed along a passage which was almost too narrow to accommodate Terrans and found themselves in a circular space where a wide seat pad ran three-quarters of the way around, broken only by the door through which they had entered. Directly facing them was a section of what appeared to be transparent glass. And beyond that they could see the clustered buildings of the Landing.

A Ventur without a robe was seated on the pad watching the scene intently. He gave them only a casual gesture of greeting before the dock began to recede and the whole shore line whipped to the right as the ship turned. The voyage to Po’ult had begun.

13 — Life or Death Trade

Po’ult rose out of the sea abruptly—the toothed rock walls of the island’s rim lifting vertically from the sea without any softening fringe of beach. And on the crest of those walls were no signs of buildings.

Having afforded its passengers a single good look at the island the ship submerged until even the conning tower was under water. The Terrans were led down close to the keel, to wedge themselves into a smaller craft with two of the Venturi. Vibration sang in the walls of that tiny boat but there was no other indication that they had left the parent vessel.

Kana tensed. The sensation of being confined far below the surface of the sea oppressed him. But their voyage did not last long and when the hatch was raised they were in an underground port, a large-scale copy of the subcellar landing place back on the continent.

They saw but little of the Venturi city, being taken along passages chiseled through the native rock to a room near the top of the cliff, one side of which was transparent. Their guide withdrew and Kana went over to that window, craving the feeling of freedom it gave.

“Volcano crater,” Hansu observed.

The center of the island was a cup, its walls terraced and planted, a grove of trees extending into a miniature woodland in the depth of the hollow. But there were no signs of buildings.

“But where—”

The Blademaster looked beyond the peaceful carpet of vegetation to the crater walls.

“We’re in their city now,” he explained. “They’ve hollowed out the cliffs—”

In a moment Kana saw the evidences of that—the regular openings in the rock which must equal such windows as the one before which he now stood.

“What a scheme!” he marveled. “Even a bomber would have a hard time putting this out of commission—unless it dropped hot stuff—”

At the corner of the Blademaster’s jaw a tiny muscle pulled tight.

“When the law is broken once, it can be easily fractured again.”

“Use hot stuff?” Kana’s horrified amazement was genuine. He could accept the enmity of the Mechs, even the struggle for power backed in some mysterious way by Central Control Agents, but the thought of turning to nuclear weapons against—! Terra had learned too bitter a lesson in the Big Blow-up and the wars which followed. Those had occurred a thousand years ago but they had scarred the memories of his species for all time. He could not conceive of a Terran using nukes—it was so unnatural that it made his head reel.

“We’ve had evidence enough that this is not just a Mech plot,” Hansu pointed out relentlessly. “We may be conditioned against hot stuff because of our past history—but others aren’t. And we daren’t overlook any possibility—”

That was an axiom of the corps he should have remembered. Never overlook any possibility, be prepared for any change in prospects—in the balance of force against force.

“War Lord”—one of the frog people had come up silently behind them—“the Masters would speak with you.”

No hospitality had been offered them before that meeting, Kana noted, disturbed, no gesture made which could be termed friendly. He fell a step behind the Blademaster and stood at attention as they entered a room where four Venturi, their robes laid aside, awaited them.

The soft fabric of their short tunics was a somber blue-purple and there were gems set in their belts and in the broad bracelets they wore encircling all four upper limbs. At some distance squatted a fifth, writing pen in one hand and a block of the mirror stuff on the floor before him.

A single seat pad was placed facing the court and Hansu took his seat there, Kana standing behind him.

“We have been informed of what you wish.” The Ventur whose tunic boasted a symbol stitched upon its breast opened the meeting without ceremony. “You wish a place of refuge for your men until you can make contact with your superiors off-world. Why should we be interested in what happens to interlopers, introduced on Fronn through no fault of ours? And since you are now being hunted by the Llor and these new allies of theirs, it might mean that in giving you sanctuary we would bring upon us the wrath of those at Tharc.”

“Does not a state of war already exist between you and Tharc?” countered Hansu. “When we crossed the mountains we were met by a party of Llor driven off from an attack on the Landing. From them we rescued one of your men.”

The frog-man’s broad face displayed no emotion the Terrans could read.

“The Venturi do not war, they trade. And when it is not time to trade, when the world is disturbed, we withdraw until the mainland is sane again. So has it been in the past and that system has always worked to our advantage.”

“But before did the Llor ever ally with those who could bring war through the air? Perhaps Po’ult cannot be captured from the sea—but what if you are attacked from above, Master of Many Ships?”

“You have no machine which can ride the wind, are these others then more powerful than you?”

“They are ones who have been trained in a different mode of making war. And it is against our custom for them to use that warfare upon such a world as Fronn. With the weapons they have they can make themselves master of this whole planet if they wish. Do you think that your withdrawal will avail you if that is their plan? One by one they shall search out your island strongholds and rain destruction upon you from the air. They may even bring to subdue you the burning death—which is a weapon forbidden to all living creatures—a weapon so terrible that its use once wrecked my own world and sent my race back to barbarism for centuries. For”—Hansu repeated the warning he had voiced to Kana earlier—“when the law is once broken, it is easily fractured again. These renegades have broken our law by coming to Fronn, and from that they may go on to worse things—”

“If you do not fight as do these others, then why or how could you be of service to us?”

“Just this—” Hansu held himself stiffly erect, braced as if facing an enemy charge. “The news of what has occurred here must be carried to our first rank Masters. Only they have the power to deal with these outlaws. And that message must be carried by one to whom they will listen. Give my men refuge and I, myself, will take the message off-world. And I promise you that when I am heard by our inner Council there shall be a reckoning and Fronn shall be cleansed. So that here off-world men shall be forbidden to land—as has happened on other planets—and you shall be left to manage your affairs as you wish. Do you not know that there are those who do not wish to see the trade of Fronn only Venturi trade? They would help the Llor to break you as they would a rotten stick for a night campfire—for the Llor are ignorant of the mysteries of your craft and those from off-world would speedily take it all into their own hands—to hold forever! You have never welcomed the alien traders and they would be free of your restrictions.”

Was the Blademaster making an impression? Kana could not tell. And his hopes sank when the spokesman of the Masters answered:

“You say much which we must consider in council. Be thou becalmed in our waters this night—”

That last had the flavor of some formula of hospitality. And the Terrans discovered that it meant escort to a room overlooking the valley where two of the treasured smoke braziers filled the air with spicy scent. One of the Masters came in, followed by a lesser trader bearing a tray on which were set out three cups and a ewer. The Master poured out a small measure of the same liquid Kana had been given in the hidden room, and proffered the cups to the Combatants with his own hands. Again Kana sipped the icy stuff and felt it seep through him, bringing once more the heightened senses, the alertness of mind and body. The ceremonial drink was borne away and small tables set up on which were laid a series of dishes, none containing more than a mouthful or so of that particular viand.

“These foods have been exported off-world,” the Master assured them. “They can be safely eaten by those of your species.”

The Terrans ate, thankful for the change from rations, finding the subtle flavors intriguing. The Venturi were artists in food, striving for strange effects—substances were hot and cold at the same time, a sharp sour was followed by a bland sweet, the whole blending into a feeling of gastronomic content such as Kana, for one, had never before experienced.

“Your city is well concealed.” Hansu gestured toward the bucolic scene in the crater valley.

“The plan was not intended to conceal,” corrected the Master. “When our far-off ancestors first crawled from water to land they lived in caves within the cliffs of these sea islands. So, instead of building in the open, our race built within the land—for it is our nature to wish our living space to be enclosed and close to water. As our intelligence and civilization grew our cities became such as Po’ult. We are uncomfortable on the dry plains of the large continents—each of us must serve his apprenticeship there as a duty but he is joyful when he may return to his home island. Are you of a race which lives in the open as do the Llor?”

Hansu nodded, and began to describe Terra, her blue skies, green hills, and open, changeable seas.

“Tell me, since you appear to be one who thinks upon matters beyond his duties for the day, why do you sell your skill to war? You are not barbarian as are the Llor, who are a young race. You must come of an old people, perhaps older than we. Why have you not realized that what you do is a waste, a negation of growth and good?”

“We are born with a will to struggle, a desire to match our strength against that of others. Among our kind when that inner urge is stilled the tribe or nation which has lost it declines. We broke into outer space—and that was a struggle and goal which absorbed us for centuries—we were eager for the stars. But we discovered that space was not ours—that there we were deemed as young and barbaric as the Llor. There were many races and species before us and they had fashioned a code of law and order to control newcomers. Those who exercised that control judged us and ruled that we were, because of our temperaments, unfit for space except within the boundaries they set. Since it was in our nature to fight, we were to provide the mercenaries for other planets. We were geared to that service, a small piece fitted into their pattern. And so it is with us—the price we must pay for the stars since there is this guard upon the stellar lanes.”

“To me that does not sound like an equal bargain,” commented their host. “And when any bargain is uneven, there comes a day when it will be declared no bargain and he who has been defrauded will go elsewhere to trade. Does the time come when you of Terra will go elsewhere?”

“Perhaps. And what happens here on Fronn may decide that.”

“May your trading be even, the profit good!”

“May your ships ever return filled from far voyaging.” Hansu made the proper answer as the Master left them.

The Combatants were not summoned to attend the Masters again that day. Soon the storm closed in for a second prolonged buffeting and the window through which they watched the crater was obscured most of the time by foam and flying debris caught up by the gusts.

“D’you think we have a chance?” Kana ventured to interrupt the silence as Hansu stared into the wildness without.

“At least they’re now giving us the attention due honored guests. When they fed us they acknowledged equality. And when you win one point you have advanced that far. But their logic is not ours. We cannot deduce what they are going to do by what we would do in their place. You, as an AL man, should know that. This is your first enlistment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did you try for AL rating?”

“I liked the basic course, sir. There was a Zacathan instructor—he made me think a lot. And the way his mind worked fascinated me. Through him I met other X-Tees. So I signed for specialization testing and I passed the prelim. It isn’t too popular a course—too many extra hours. But—well, sir—it never really seemed like work to me. And visiting around in the X-Tee quarters was more interesting than taking town leave—at least I liked it better though we weren’t encouraged to—”

“Make off-world friends, no. Just to learn the minimum enabling us to get around on other planets—I know!”

“Deke said something like that once, sir,” mused Kana. “That Central Control had a mental picture of us and it was so well established that they didn’t see the real Terrans at all—”

“Mills knew what he was talking about. We’re breaking law and custom right now—daring to treat with these Venturi on our own. And it’s about time we did more of this.”

When Kana curled up on the pads for sleep he left the Blademaster still brooding by the window. Outside the night was a black whirlwind but here the roar was the faintest of murmurs.

In the morning they were shown a bathing place with a pool of sea water deep enough for swimming. And afterward they dined again lavishly. Their visit with the council did not come until mid-morning.

“We have considered this problem,” the foremost Master began when the Blademaster had taken his seat, “and your argument has within it many points with which we must agree. However, the future is always chance. We cannot transport your men here, our economy is a tight one, our space limited—we could not house such a number of off-world beings for an indefinite period. We cannot, in fact, use sea transport at all, except for short intervals, until the peak storms of this season are over. But then, neither can your enemy move against you. Therefore you have about ten dytils in which to study the situation and make your plans. At the end of that time, if you can see a chance to get off-world with your message, we agree to transport your men, not here to Po’ult, but to a larger island south of here, farther asea, on which we pasture our caravan guen during the stormy season. We will undertake, moreover, to supply your men with food and instructions in the art of netting such sea creatures as they may safely devour.”

“And in return you ask of us?”

“And in return we ask your word that you will speak with your Masters so that off-world men be forbidden to land on Fronn to fight our battles. And that those who may come be granted that right only after the Venturi has had their application and know the purpose for which they wish to visit us. We do not wish Fronn to become tributary to another world, or be possessed by some trading combine of distant stars.”

“To this I agree, not only as a bargain, but because it is what I believe myself,” Hansu retorted. “We return now to the Landing?”

“Within two light periods of this dytil there will be a second lull. Then you shall return, and with you one of our Those-who-talk-for-many to be a link with us across the distance. Fair winds and a good profit to you, Lord of Many Swords.”

“And to you, Master of Ten Thousand Ships, a smooth sea.”

The lull which gave opportunity for their return to the Landing came at last and was longer than the previous one. In fact, the calm continued so long after their arrival on the main continent that, had it not been for the advice of the Venturi communications expert, the Terrans might have made the mistake of trying to reach the space field. But his warning kept them close to the buildings and the predictions he made were fulfilled when a scream arose out of the dark, whistling above the thud of waves on the shore—the opening cry of a new storm.

“We have received no off-world signals from any starship.” The Ventur sipped at a drink made from Terran ration pellets dissolved in water. “It is the belief of the Masters that none may planet here again. Why should they? If Tharc is now open to their use and the Llor encourage them to think that in the future they shall not have to deal with us—why then should they come here?”

“True enough.” Hansu swallowed the warm broth.

“And if there is no chance of finding a ship here, you will make other plans?”

“We may have to go to Tharc.”

The frog-man had no eyebrows to raise, but he did radiate polite incredulity. Only courtesy kept him from asking how that was to be done. But Hansu did not volunteer any explanation.

The storm did not last as long as the previous one and Kana knew that the series of such strong blows was now on the wane. It was noon on the following day when the Ventur announced that it was safe to go into the open. The Combatants were eager to get out, to draw the chill fresh salt air into their lungs and poke about in the curious rubbish the winds had piled against corners of the warehouse courts.

A shout from the farthest-ranging exploring party brought all those within earshot. Jammed at a crazy angle between outlying buildings, where none of the Horde had been stationed, was the mashed wreckage of a machine—looking as if some giant had caught it up and wrung it around as a man might a wet under-tunic.

“A crawler—that’s a crawler!” the awed voice of its discoverer repeated. And, while no one disputed him, they could hardly believe the evidence of their own eyes.

A crawler—not as large as a land fortress certainly, but in its way as formidable a piece of mechanized war machinery—to be so mangled and tossed here as if it were constructed of straw.

The outer hatch was open, forced straight up by the impact, and now Kosti climbed up the battered metal shell to look in. When he pulled out of the hole his face was greenish beneath its tan and he swallowed convulsively.

“She—she had a full crew on board—” he reported. Thereafter no one was in any hurry to join him at his vantage point.

“How many?” Hansu appeared below and started to climb.

Unwillingly Kosti peered into the wrecked crawler for the second time. His lips moved as he counted.

“—four—five—six. Six, sir.”

Hansu called down over his shoulder, “Larsen, Bogate, Vedic, lend a hand. We want them out.”

Reluctantly the men he had summoned scaled the mound of the tipped crawler as the Blademaster lowered himself into the machine. Even when they had the grisly job complete and the six bodies were laid out in the nearest shelter Hansu did not seem satisfied.

Five were Mechs and the Blademaster carefully studied their service armlets. But the sixth, though he wore the uniform of a veteran Mechmaster, was alien. And Hansu stood staring down at his crumpled form for a long minute after he arose from searching the torn and stained clothing.

“Sarm,” he said so low that if Kana had not been at his elbow he would not have caught the word at all. “Sarm!”

And his bald astonishment at that identification would have been the reaction of any Terran. Of all the Galactic races the Sarm from Sarmak would be the least likely to associate with the mercenaries they held in the deepest contempt as barbarians. They were not openly rude about it as were the Ageratans or the Dzaraneans, they merely ignored Combatants. Yet here was a Sarm, in a Mech uniform, perhaps in command of a Mech crawler—

“Sir—”

Hansu was shaken out of his trance by the urgent summons from Kosti now hanging half out of the plundered machine. “What—?”

“Cargo aboard her, sir. Looks like arms—”

The dead Sarmakan was left to himself as not only the Blademaster but every man within hearing hurried back to the side of the wreck. Larsen appeared in the hatch, handing through a box which Kosti lowered to the pavement. They clustered in a circle while Hansu squatted down to break the sealing with his sword-knife.

Inside, rolled in oiled fabric, was a series of bundles. And the Blademaster lost no time in freeing the first of its wrappings. As the last strip of stuff dropped away he held, plain to their recognition, a flamer of Galactic design.

“How many more boxes inside?” he asked Kosti in a flat voice.

“Three, sir.”

Hansu arose. There was a bleak look on his face. But a grim determination overrode other emotion.

“Any way of telling where this thing was when the storm hit?” he asked Kosti. “Do these operate on route tapes the way a ship does?”

“I don’t think so, sir. It has manual controls. But I can check—” He edged back into the crawler.

“Pretty far from Tharc, sir.” Larsen broke the quiet. “And a scout wouldn’t be hauling cargo—”

“Just so.” But Hansu had already turned to the Ventur who witnessed the whole scene curiously from the doorway of the warehouse. “You’re sure no spacer planeted near here?”

“None at the place we have used. Our mirrors of seeing would have told us—”

“And there is no other landing space within a day’s travel? This crawler was carrying cargo. It would not have been carrying arms away from Tharc—not in the windy season. But it might have been trying to reach there from a ship which planeted elsewhere.”

The Ventur’s nod agreed to the logic in that. “This is a heavy and well-built machine. Those within it, if they did not know the full fury of our winds, might believe themselves safe in its belly. It is true that so they might try to travel to Tharc. But it is equally true that those in Tharc—where the Llor know well the strength of the winds and would warn them—would not venture forth. Let me signal the Masters. It may well be that a ship has made a landing elsewhere.”

He vanished into the building. And a few moments later Kosti brought discouraging news from the machine.

“They were on manuals when they smashed up, sir. No tapes. But I don’t think she was scouting. The heavy guns were all still under wraps—two of them in storage cradles. She might just have come off a ship and they were driving her in.”

“Why not land at Tharc?” Hansu mused. He brought his balled fist down on the edge of the broken caterpillar tread by his shoulder. “I want every bit of her cargo, everything on the bodies of her crew, anything which may give us a clue, brought over to headquarters. And I want it done now!”

14 — THE HIDDEN SHIP

Though they found indications to prove that the crawler had been part of the cargo of a ship and recently landed to proceed under its own power—perhaps to Tharc—there was no clue as to where that ship had planeted. And in the end it was again the Venturi who were able to supply the missing piece of the puzzle.

The trader’s communication expert threaded his way through the group of veterans to Hansu. He wasted no time in getting to the point of the news he had received from his superiors.

“There is an off-world ship grounded six gormels to the south—”

Kana was attempting to translate “gormels” into good Terran miles and making heavy weather of it, when the Ventur continued:

“It is set among the rocks on the coast so it is safe from the winds.”

“How large a ship?” Hansu shot back.

The Ventur gave the odd movement of his upper pair of arms which was his species’ equivalent of a shrug. “We are not trained in recognizing the capacity of your ships, Lord. And if it had not been that near there we have a small post—” He hesitated before hurrying on, and Kana suspected that that post he mentioned was more a spy than a trader’s station. “But this ship is smaller than that which used to planet near here, and it landed secretly during the first storm lull—”

“Fifty miles—” Hansu proved quicker at translation. “The ground between us?”

Again the Ventur shrugged. “Most is waste land. And there will be more heavy blows.”

“But a small party could cross overland?” persisted the Blademaster. “Or would your people provide transportation by sea?”

The answer to the last question came first in a vigorous negative. Some trick of the currents offshore along that section of coast forbade landing except in the dead serenity of the calm season. As to crossing overland, the Ventur had no opinion, though he was courteous enough not to speak his truthful estimate of the state of mind of creatures attempting that feat now.

However he agreed to draw up a schedule of the storms and lulls which could be expected during the next three or four days. And Hansu had a second message relayed to the Masters at Po’ult.

The reply came that in the next lull the transports would put in, take on board the majority of the Horde, and leave a small party to make their way to the hidden space ship. It was a desperate plan, but not as desperate as the one they had faced earlier, the necessity for going to Tharc.

The Ventur liaison officer reported for a last check, comparing his set of maps with Hansu’s rudely drawn sketch of the coastline and pointing out where the ship must now be.

“The Masters send their wishes for your success,” he concluded. “Do you go tonight?”

“Not until the Horde has sailed,” Hansu replied absently. His gaze roved over the men assembled in the room. Not all the Combatants could crowd in to hear this final decision—there were the sick and wounded. But who out of that company were going on the venture south? Kana knew that that was at the fore of every mind there.

He did his own secret choosing. Kosti, the small, lean man, had to go. Alone of the Horde he had knowledge of mechanics—had the know-how to take a ship—if they were lucky enough to steal it—into space. And Hansu—Kana was certain that the Blademaster intended being one of the party. But how many—and who?

In the end it depended upon a grisly expedient. The uniforms worn by the Mechs who had manned the crawler were salvaged and cleaned and the fit of one of the tunics selected the man who would wear it. When one settled snugly across Kana’s shoulders he knew he was in. And whether to be pleased or alarmed over that fact he had not yet quite decided before the Venturi vessels came in, to ride out a short storm and on the following day depart with the remainder of the Combatants, leaving Hansu and five men on the wharf. As the last conning tower vanished in the murk, the Blademaster reached for the reins of a waiting gu.

“We ought to make our first storm shelter before the next blow. Let’s get going!”

The round dome at the improvised space field near the Landing came into view before the onset of the wind. But the protection offered by that one small building had none of the security they had known behind the massive walls of the warehouses. Together with their guen, the six Combatants crouched on the floor, deafened by the howl of the wind, wondering from one moment to the next whether that dome could continue to stand under the frightful pressure. The guen, flattening their bony carcasses as close to the earth as they could, kept up a monotonous whimpering cry which rasped the nerves of the Terrans.

After what must have been hours—but seemed to the dazed men days—later, they realized that the wind was dropping.

“Up with you!” Hansu was on his feet, applying his bat stick to the rump of his gu while the animal showed its fangs in a snarl of rage.

Within five minutes they were on the road, urging their mounts to that stiff-legged trot which left Terran bodies aching and bruised, but which did cover the ground at a good rate. They had been lucky—fabulously lucky so far. But when the dark clouds gathering suggested that they must take cover again there was no building to give them shelter.

Their only hope was a grove of trees, already showing splintered stumps where the wind had mangled them. Into this the Blademaster headed, producing the coils of tough cording which the Venturi had provided against just such an emergency. Each man lashed first his mount and then himself to the sturdiest trees. Since the wind blew straight from the west, they had a thin margin of safety against the eastern side of the trunks and there they dug into the mold, protecting their heads with their crossed arms, squeezing into the ground.

If their stay in the small dome had seemed an ordeal, this was indescribable. One fought to breathe, the battle lasting from one suck of air to the next. Kana lost all track of time, almost all knowledge of his own identity in that dazed, half-conscious struggle for air. Then hands pulled at him and he rolled limply over on his back. A palm smacked against his cheek, rocking his head on the ground.

“Come on—get up!” he was urged.

Stiffly he pulled his aching body into sitting position. Three men stood about him, and one of them held his bleeding head in his hands. Six Terrans had entered that grove and four rode out, leading an extra gu. Of the other two, they never saw one again, and the other they had had to leave as they found him, buried except for an outflung hand, under the tree he had chosen—the tree which had not survived this storm.

Would any of them last to the end of this journey, Kana speculated, as he clung to his mount by will power alone? Could they even keep on riding at the pace Hansu set?

But the rocky defiles of the coastline were cut by a river before the time to take shelter arrived once more. And in the cup of fertile land in the delta they chanced upon a Llor village. Trading on the custom of Fronn they knocked on the nearest door and asked for protection of the guesting room.

Within, stretched on thin pads, the Combatants dropped into a sodden slumber almost before they gulped down their rations. And when they roused the blow was over and the native household had come to life. Hansu returned from an interview with their Llor host and some of the shadow was gone from his eyes.

“That was the last of the big blows—anything after this won’t be any harder to face than something we could weather on Terra. And we’re heading right! There’s been two crawlers through here—bound for Tharc.”

“What”—Larsen was gingerly fitting his Mech helmet over his bandaged head—“do they think we’re doing here?” He pointed to the inner section of the house. “Any questions, sir?”

“They believe that we’re from the ship. I told them that we were caught in a storm and our crawler wrecked—that we’re trying to get back. To them all Terrans look alike, so they’ve accepted that. We only have to worry when we meet Mechs—if we do.”

They were across the farm land in an hour, making their way around and through the debris of the storms. Before them now lay a stretch of twisted rocks, scoured clean by the wind, over which they traveled guided only by the compass in Hansu’s hand (which might not be accurate at all) and the map the Venturi had given them. Gashed chasms which could not be descended led to detours and they camped that night in a crevice of bare rock while the wind screamed in their ears, much as it had in the badlands beyond the mountains. Only the threat of the Cos was missing.

And twice during the gray day following they were forced to take shelter to escape the buffeting of blasts which could have swept them to destruction among the towers of stone. A lengthy detour brought them on an arduous climb down to the sea strand where they beat a path through piles of slimy weeds thrust up in bales by the waves.

Hansu was almost thrown from his seat as the gu he was bestriding reared and screamed a shrill whistling defiance, lashing out with its clawed front feet at a shape floundering sluggishly in the shallows. Jaws, seemingly large enough to engulf both beast and rider, gaped. Kana, with one instinctive movement, raised the rifle he carried across his thighs and fired into that open gullet.

The creature’s head snapped up and back as if it were turning over in a somersault, as the water boiled about its finned limbs. A horrible mixture of crocodile, snake, and whale was all the recruit could think of as Hansu sent another shot into the writhing monster.

Its struggles took it away from the shore, deeper into the sea, and the Terrans hurriedly backed up the slit of beach, putting as much space between them as possible, the nervous guen threatening to bolt at any moment.

It was Larsen who found the way through between two giant rocks which brought them away from that cove and out of sight of the struggling water dweller. Before them now was a wide space of open sand, matted with torn weed and other wreckage of the waves, including a battered metallic object which bore some resemblance to one of the small Venturi craft. A draggle of carrion birds hung about that and the Terrans did not halt to examine it. They fitted their pace to their Commander’s, heading due south across the first good riding country they had found since the river delta.

The next gust of storm caught them in a narrow gorge. Sea water driven by the wind curled about the feet of the guen but Hansu kept doggedly to the trail and his persistence was rewarded with the discovery of a fragment of crushed stone marking the passing of a crawler. Heartened by this, he yielded and allowed them to hole up against the wind.

A steel gray sky had arched over them for most of the day and the coming of night only meant a general darkening of the gloom. But this time the dark served them better than light. It was almost as if the enemy had set a beacon to guide them. And that was no blue Llor flame which beckoned them, but the strong yellow of a Terran camp light.

Leaving the guen in Larsen’s charge, Kosti, Kana and the Blademaster scouted ahead, dropping at intervals to crawl, alert for the slightest sign that those in the makeshift camp had posted sentries. At length the three lay on the rim of a small gorge staring at a splotch of light in which the tail fins of a small ship could be easily distinguished. No figures moved in the gleam and there was no sign of life there. It was Hansu who was ready with an order.

“Stay here!” Before they could object he had slithered away in the dark.

They shivered in the bite of the night wind, cringing from the salt-laden air. And below the sigh of that they could hear quite clearly the distant boom of surf. But nothing moved about the ship.

It seemed a very long time before Hansu rejoined them. And when he did it was only to order them back to where they had left Larsen and their mounts. There, as they huddled behind some rocks, he outlined his discoveries.

“—small ship—general outlines of a Patrol cruiser,” he told them. “There’re guards. Can’t tell much more in the dark. We’ll have to wait until daybreak and light before we make any plans.”

Kana dozed off for broken snatches and he guessed that the others did too. Uncomfortable as they were, long service in the field had given them the power of taking sleep where and when they could find it. And dawn brought a lighter sky than they had seen since the beginning of the big blows.

The guen were secured by their head ropes in a side gully, though Hansu gave orders that they were not to be fastened tightly. And he did not need to advance his reasons. This was one venture from which the Terrans would not return. Either they would blast off in the ship—or they would no longer care about guen or anything else on Fronn.

They took the same way up the cliffs, working along the broken rim to look down on the hidden camp. In the light of day the beams of the lamp had paled and the ship was distinguishable from the black and white stone of the walls. It had been set down with the skill of an expert pilot in the center of a small, almost flat-floored canyon. And as Hansu said, it looked like a fast cruiser such as were built for the use of the Galactic Patrol.

In fact the Combatants were not greatly surprised when the daylight revealed Patrol insignia etched on its space-scoured side. Needle slim, it would accommodate a crew of not more than a dozen. And if it had brought in a cargo of crawlers, the living quarters must have been even more reduced.

“That’s what we want, all right.” Larsen breathed hardly above a whisper. “Only, how do we take her?”

Under a slight overhang of the canyon wall across from them was the plasta-cloth bubble of a temporary camp. And now a man crawled out of its door vent to stand stretching at his ease. His uniform was that of a Mech, and, as far as they could see, he was a fellow Terran. But a moment later he was joined by another, who, though he wore the blue-gray of a Legion man, was physically an alien. Those too long, too thin legs, the curiously limber arms, as if the limbs possessed an extra joint—To Kana’s trained eyes they betrayed his non-Sol origin at once, although the recruit could not, without a closer examination, have said which star he did claim as his native sun.

The Mech made way respectfully for the newcomer, who tripped forward into the open and stood gazing down the narrow mouth of the canyon as if waiting for something important to appear there. And he was not to be disappointed for the shrill squeal of a gu carried clearly to the ears of both the men in the canyon and the hidden Swordsmen on the cliff.

A mounted party shuffled into view. The Llor sagged as they rode and their guen paced very slowly, their bony heads drooping to knee level with the lag of overriding. Yet Kana judged none of the Fronnian natives were soldiers—they had more the appearance of backlands guen hunters the Terrans had encountered after their forced march over the mountains. Their leader had a rifle slung over his shoulder—the rest were armed only with swords, lances, and the thick coils of rope about their middles which served frontier hunters for both a weapon and a snare.

The Llor chief swung off his mount and immediately dropped cross-legged to the ground, while the alien in the Mech uniform sat on a small stool hurriedly brought from the bubble tent by a second Mech and placed to front the native. As the rest of the Llor slipped out of their saddles, one or two to lie full length on the ground, three more Terrans appeared, grouping themselves some distance away. It was plain that a conference was about to begin.

It was a discussion which grew heated at times. Once the Llor leader went so far as to get to his feet and jerk at the reins of his gu so that the animal ambled unhappily into a position in which it could be mounted. Yet a quick gesture and word from the alien apparently soothed the native commander and he seated himself once more.

To be a spectator but not an auditor at that meeting was wearing on the Blademaster. He shifted his position among the concealing rocks as if his first choice of hiding places had inadvertently harbored a nest of Vol fire ants. But unless he could develop the art of complete invisibility, he was not going to be able to hear that group below.

At length the meeting came to an end. The Llor chieftain gave some order to the lounging members of his escort. Four of them got up, without any display of alacrity, and as they trudged across the space dividing them from the Mech contingent, their reluctance could be read in every line of their woolly bodies. While their leader and the alien stood apart waiting, they slouched to the vent door of the bubble tent. The Mechs went inside and returned in a moment or two with large narrow boxes, one carried by each pair of men.

Hansu had gone so far as to rise to his knees and Kana wondered if he dared give a warning tug to the Blademaster’s coat. But those below seemed so intent upon what they were doing that there was little chance of their looking aloft at that moment.

Two boxes had been passed on to the Llor who received them in charge with signs of open distaste, but did carry them to the foot of the ramp leading to the hatch of the ship. A second pair of boxes were man-handled out of the bubble, also to be transported. Kana tried to imagine what lay within them. Weapons of some sort? But why put weapons into the ship? It would be far more logical if those boxes had been drawn from the cargo hold of the spacer.

When six boxes were grouped about the ramp the alien and two of the Mechs worked on the covering of one.

“That—!” Hansu’s face was oddly pale beneath its dark pigment. He was breathing in harsh, shallow gasps, as if he had been pounding up the slope. His eyes, glints of steel, deadly, measuring, were on the group. Alone of the Swordsmen he must have guessed at once the contents of those coffers.

Coffers—Kana’s own skin crawled as he realized belatedly that the word was rightly “coffin.” For the Mechs were taking out of the box what could only be the body of a dead man—a man who wore the white and black of the Patrol.

“But why—?” His muttered protest brought no answer except gasps from his two companions and an uninformative grunt from Hansu.

The boxes, now emptied, each of the same contents, were carried off by the Llor and piled against the wall of the canyon a good distance away from the ship. The alien was in command, directing the arrangement of the bodies in an uneven line.

Hansu hissed—there was no other way to name the sound he made with breath expelled between his teeth. To Kana the actions below did not make sense, but to the Blademaster the design must be growing clearer every moment.

Now the alien stood back, motioning the Mechs away, though the Llor still clustered about the ship as if examining the dead who had been so carefully placed there.

“He’s making a record-pak!” The words came from Larsen and Kana saw that he was right. The alien, a sight scriber in his hands, was making a pictorial record of the scene—the ship—the tumbled bodies—the Llor moving among them. A record of what—to be shown to whom?

“A frame—a neat frame—” That was Hansu. “So that’s their little game!”

The alien took several more shots and then nodded to the Llor chieftain who signaled his men. They scattered away from the ship with a speed which suggested that they were only too glad to be done with the odd duty their leader had demanded of them. And what followed was almost as mystifying to the spying Swordsmen.

Two of the Mechs struck the bubble tent, and the material, along with various bundles, was carried off. Shortly thereafter a crawler appeared from behind an outcrop but it did not approach the ship, only halted until the remaining Mechs and the alien hurried over and climbed through its hatch. Then it made off up the canyon eastward. The Llor waited as if to give the off-world men a good start and then mounted. But they did not follow the grinding passage of the crawler—instead they rode off down a side way.

The ship stood as they had left it, the bodies still lying at the ramp. And Hansu hardly waited until the last Llor was out of sight before he clambered down the side of the cliff, Kana and the others hurrying to follow him.

But the Blademaster easily outdistanced them and when they caught up he had already knelt to examine the nearest body. His face was bleak.

“This man has been shot,” he said slowly, “with an Arch rifle.”

15 — IF BUT ONE OF US LIVE—

“But were they Patrolmen?” Larsen demanded.

It was hard to believe—in spite of the evidence and the identification taken from the bodies—that such a massacre had occurred. The prestige of the Patrol was too well established.

There was no possible doubt that the men had been shot, and that those shots had not come from the lighter air rifles of the Llor, the blasters of the Mechs or the flamers of the Galactic Agents, but from those specialized weapons carried, or supposedly carried, by the Swordsmen of Terra alone.

“If they weren’t, they’ll serve as well as the real thing in those pictures,” Kosti returned bitterly. “If that Agent was taking shots of this it wasn’t just for amusement. Can’t you see the force of those pictures in certain quarters—scene of Patrolmen ambushed by rebel Archs—”

Larsen kicked at a stone. “I still don’t get it,” he admitted. “Why stage all this?”

“Alibi for going after us.” Kana broke the silence for the first time. “Isn’t that it, sir? With a good story and those pictures the Agent could have us outlawed and we couldn’t get a hearing anywhere—not even at Prime.”

He wanted Hansu to protest that, to say that he was allowing an over-vivid imagination free rein. But instead the Blademaster nodded.

“That makes more sense than about fifty other explanations.” The tall dark man got to his feet, his eyes fixed speculatively on the starship. “Yes, they’ve set the stage here for something nasty. And it would probably have worked if we hadn’t come in time—”

“So they’re trying to put us on the spot.” Kosti was inclined to be belligerent. “Well, what can we do?”

“Spoil their plan!” There was decision in the Blademaster’s answer. “Kosti, get on board and see whether this cruiser can be lifted out of here—”

The Swordsman hurried up the ramp and Hansu turned to the other two.

“Burial party—” He indicated the bodies.

They performed that distasteful task as they had for their comrades so many times in the last hard weeks, knowing that when their fire cartridges had done their work there would be no identifiable traces left. They were engaged in sorting the personal possessions they had taken from the dead for purposes of future identification, when Kosti appeared in the hatch of the spacer over their heads.

“First luck we’ve had, sir. She’s ready and willing to lift!”

Hansu only nodded. It was as if, having made up his mind to a certain course of action, he was now perfectly sure that fate would allow them to follow it to the proper end. Stowing away the Patrolmen’s effects in a ration bag, he led the way up the ramp into the interior of the small ship.

 The only starships Kana had known before were the ferry transports of the Combat Command. And narrow and cramped as those had seemed, this cruiser was even smaller and more confined. The ladder stair, curling in a breakneck fashion from level to level, looked too narrow to give any climber safe footing. But they went up it—beads on a string—with Kosti already disappearing through the first-level flooring and the Blademaster hard on his heels.

Smells assaulted their noses, oil, the taint of old air, or close living— They made their way up to the control cabin. Hansu pointed to the pilot’s webbing before the controls.

“Can you take her up, Kosti?”

The Swordsman showed his teeth in a white grin. “It’s a matter of have to, isn’t it, sir?”

He buckled himself into position while Kana and Larsen explored the acceleration pads and Hansu moved toward the astrogator’s position.

“Give you five minutes, ship time, to take a looksee around if you want, sir,” Kosti suggested, perhaps because he himself desired a few moments’ study of that puzzling board before he blasted them free of the doubtful safety of Fronn.

They made a quick inspection of the tiny personal quarters. The cubbys were in a state of wild disorder with clothing and supplies strewn about as if by looters. Kana picked up a tri-dee portrait someone had stepped upon. The oddly slanting eyes and triangular mouth of a Lydian woman could still be seen.

“Nice artistic job.” Hansu surveyed the litter with a professional eye. “Exhibit B or C—looting of quarters—done by the wicked Archs—”

“Do you suppose this was a real Patrol ship? That they actually killed Patrolmen so they could smear us with the job, sir?” Larsen demanded.

“Could be. Though it seems a mighty heavy argument to use against an outfit as small as Yorke’s. We must be important—” Frowning, he turned back to the control cabin.

“Do you have a route tape for Terra in the file?” he asked of Kosti.

“Going to Prime, sir? I thought we were to make Secundus—” the new pilot protested.

“This may be a real Patrol cruiser. If they sacrificed that to get us I want to know why, and I want to start asking questions right at the top!”

“Real Patrol cruiser!” That sank in, and Kosti swung around to tap three keys in a case at his far left. There was an answering click and a small disc dropped into his cupped hand.

“Yes, sir, here’re the co-ordinates for Terra.”

He freed another disc from the apparatus before him and inserted the new one. “Strap down,” he ordered.

Hansu stowed away in the second web while Kana and Larsen buckled down on the acceleration mats. A red light glowed on the board before Kosti as his fingers played over levers and keys.

“Let’s hope we go up—and not off—” was his last observation as he pressed the crucial control.

A giant hand smashed down on Kana’s chest, squeezing out air. Waves of red pain clotted into blackness. He had just time to know, before he lost consciousness, that they were lifting off-world—and not exploding.

Kosti was no experienced pilot and the thrust he had used to tear them loose from Fronn was greater than it need have been. Kana, coming back to life, found his face sticky with blood as he pulled groggily at his straps.

“The sleeper wakes!” Kosti looked back over his shoulder at the recruit. “Thought you had decided to make the trip in cold sleep, fella. Not necessary, we have plenty of room.”

The ship was on Ro-pilot, to be guided through the warp by the tape Kosti had set in. They had nothing to do but eat and sleep, and live in the discomfort of return-to-Terra conditioning which would enable them to disembark on their own world without further adjustment.

“How long will we be in space?” Larsen asked.

All three looked to Kosti for an answer but he only shrugged. “I’d say maybe fourteen-fifteen days. These babies sure eat it up in warp. Patrol cruisers are built for speed.”

Fifteen days. Kana, stretched in one of the inner cabin hammocks, had time to think without the pressure of immediate action or decision hanging over him. This mess was a nasty one—sinister. For some unknown reason that alien in a Mech uniform had set a scene, a scene which only their luck had spoiled. He was sure that the ship and its dead crew had been deliberately left to be discovered dramatically—for a purpose. Patrolmen shot with Arch rifles—on a planet where an Arch Horde was being hunted down. But why go to all this trouble? Why try to discredit as well as wipe out a Terran force, when the latter move was so easy and Combat might be led to dismiss it all as fortunes of war?

Such an elaborate frame meant that not only the renegade Mechs but the Agents wearing their uniforms had something to fear from Yorke’s men. The story of the murder of Yorke and his officers? Hardly. They had no real proof of that—not even a witness’s account which would be accepted at a formal hearing. Why—why—such a deliberate and elaborate plan to blacken them?

Could it be possible—his hand went half-consciously to the hilt of his sword-knife—could it be that the age-old stalemate between Terra and C.C. was to be broken at last? That C.C. was working feverishly to not only whittle down the Terran forces by attrition, but also to discredit them among the stars as renegades and murderers? Perhaps this would be their chance for an open fight—to stand against that condition C.C. had imposed—to prove that Terrans had as much right to the star lanes in freedom as any other race or species! It was a hope, only a thin one, but in that hour Kana sensed that it was there and he swore to himself that the next time he went into space it would not be wearing that green-gray coat which had been forced upon him.

The ship came out of warp, but they were still two days from Prime port by Kosti’s admittedly ignorant calculations when it happened. A faint “beep” drew the attention of Kana and Larsen to the screen above the control panel. The Blademaster and Kosti were asleep and there was no one to explain the meaning of the pin point of light moving across the dark surface. Kana went to rouse Kosti.

“We might just have company—seeing as how we are out of warp.” The pilot pro-tem rubbed sleep from his eyes. But one look at the screen brought him fully awake.

“Get Hansu—” he ordered tersely.

When Kana returned with the Blademaster the plaintive “beep” of the signal had strengthened into a steady drone.

“You can establish contact?” Hansu asked.

“If you want to. But that’s no between-planets trader out there. We’re on a cruiser course. Only another Patrol ship would be likely to cross us.”

On a planet, armed, they would have known what to do when faced with a potential enemy. But in space, they might even now be needlessly alarmed over a routine happening.

“Shall I accept contact?” Kosti pressed.

The Blademaster ran his thumb along his lower lip, staring at the light on the screen as if he would have out of it “name, rank, and term of enlistment.”

“Can that screen”—he jerked his thumb toward the vision plate—“be used for receiving only, or do we automatically broadcast when we switch it on?”

“It can be one way. But that would make them suspicious.”

“Let them think what they want. We need a little time and maybe some fast answers before they see our faces. Cut out the tele-cast before you make contact.”

Kosti adjusted some knobs. A bright wash of color rippled across the screen and then they saw the narrow, high-cheek-boned face of a humanoid from Rassam. The skull-tight cap of a Patrol officer covered his hairless head and he wore the star-and-comet of an upper rank commander.

“What ship?” he demanded with the unconscious arrogance of a Central Control official. He could not see them, but he might almost have sensed he was addressing Terrans. Kana bristled, noting by the set of Hansu’s jaw that he was not alone in that reaction.

“Give me the speaker.” Hansu took the mike from Kosti.

“This is a Patrol cruiser, name and registry unknown.” He spoke slowly, enunciating each word flatly in basic trade speech, trying to keep his native accent undistinguishable. “It was found by us deserted and we are returning it to the proper authorities.”

The Patrol Commander did not give them the lie openly, but his disbelief was plain to read on his face.

“You are not headed for a Patrol base,” he pointed out crisply. “What is your destination?”

“As if he didn’t know—or suspect!” whispered Kosti.

“We are reporting to out superior officers,” Hansu continued, “according to law—”

That narrow face appeared to lengthen in a sinister fashion. “Terrans!” His lips shaped the word as if it were an incredibly filthy oath. “You will prepare to receive a boarding party—” His face vanished from the screen.

“Well,” Kosti observed bleakly, “that’s that. If we try to get away they’ll burn us down with their big stuff.”

“Come on!” Hansu was halfway through the door. And, revived by his confidence, the rest trailed him. Out of the artificial gravity of the living quarter they pulled themselves into the midsection of the ship where the Blademaster unfastened a hatch. Beyond was an escape bay complete with two boats. But they were so small—Kana eyed them doubtfully, battling his dislike for being confined in a limited space.

Hansu paused half inside the nearest. “Kosti, you take the other. That will give us a double chance of getting our report through. If but one of us lives he has to reach Prime! Failure to get through may—in a way—mean the end for Terra. This thing is bigger than all of us. Larsen, you team with Kosti. Set your tape for Terra—when you land make for Prime—if you have to beg, borrow, or steal transportation. Ask for Matthias—get to him if you have to kill to do it! Understand?”

Neither of the veterans displayed surprise at the drastic orders. Hansu lowered his body into the lifeboat and Kana climbed reluctantly after him. It required both of them to close the vent and seal it. Then Hansu flung himself into the cushioned hollow of the pilot’s section and Kana took the other padded couch.

The Blademaster set a pointer on a small dial before him, checking it three times before he cut in the power which blasted them free from the cruiser. The force of that blast was almost as hard to take as the acceleration which had torn them out of Fronn’s gravity. Kana’s ribs, still sore from that ordeal, were squeezed enough to bring a choked cry out of him. When he was able to turn his head once more he saw that Hansu lay at ease, his cupped hands supporting his chin, his eyes fixed on the dial, though his thoughts might have been elsewhere.

“Are we free—? Did—did we get away, sir?” Kana asked dazedly.

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” Hansu’s ironical humor quirked set lips. “If they had sighted our getaway we’d be cinders by now. Let’s hope that they will continue to concentrate on the cruiser for a few seconds more—”

“What made them so quick on the trigger, sir? The Patrol usually doesn’t flare up that way—or do they? And that officer said ‘Terrans’ as if we were Lombros muck worms—”

“It shouldn’t surprise you, Karr, to discover that some of the more ‘superior’ races who make up the C.C. Councils at the present moment are inclined to rate us at just about that level—in private, naturally. One doesn’t boast of caste openly—that’s too close to shape and race prejudice. But I’ve seen an Ageratan leave an eating booth before he had finished his meal because a Terran was seated as his neighbor. It’s illegal, unethical, violates all those pretty slogans and refined sentiments drilled into them from the cradle or the egg—but it persists.”

“But the Zacathans aren’t like that—and Rey and Mic were friendly with that Lupan on Secundus—”

“Certainly. I can cite you a thousand different shapes and races who accept Terrans as equals as easily as we accept them in return. But note two things, Karr, and they are important. The systems where we are persona non grata are dominated by humanoid races and they are systems which have had space travel for a very long time, who have pioneered in the Galaxy. Embedded deep in them is an emotion they refuse to admit—fear.

“Back on Terra in the ancient days before the nuclear wars we were divided into separate races, the difference in part depending on the color of skin, shape of features, and so forth. And in turn those races were subdivided into nations which arose to power, held in control large portions of the planet, sometimes for centuries. But as the years passed each in turn lost that power, the reins slipped from their hands. Why?

“Because the tough, sturdy fighters who had built those empires died, and their sons, or their sons’ sons’ sons were another breed. For a while, even after the fighting quality died out, an empire would still exist—as might a well-built piece of machinery set in motion. Then parts began to wear, or oiling was needed, and there was no one who remembered, or cared, or had the necessary will and strength to pull it together and make repairs. So another, younger and tougher nation took over—perhaps after a war. History progressed by a series of such empires—the old one yielding to the new.

“Now the races of the Galaxy with whom we have established the closest ties are, so far, not of our species. We like the Zacathans who are of reptile origin, we enjoy the Trystians, whose far-off ancestors were birds. The Yubana—they’re evolved felines. And most of these are also newcomers on the Galactic scene. But—and this is important—they have different aims, backgrounds, desires, tastes. Why should a Zacathan fret over the passing of time, hurry to get something done the way we must do? His life span is close to a thousand years, he can afford to sit around and think things out. We feel that we can’t. But we’re not a threat to him or his way of life.”

“But, sir, do you think we are to the others—the humanoids of Agerat and Rassam? Their civilizations are old but basically they are similar to ours—”

“And are showing signs of decay. Yes, we’re a threat to them because of our young pushing energy, our will to struggle, all the things they openly deplore in us. For, old as Terra seems to us, she is very young in the Galaxy. So they’ve met us with a devious design. It is their purpose to wall us off—not openly and so provide us with a legitimate grievance which we may take before the Grand Council—but legally and finally. They struggle to dissipate our strength in needless warfare which in no way threatens their control, sapping our manpower and so rendering helpless a race which might just challenge them in the future. And because we have fought and dreamed of the stars we have been forced to accept their condition—for a time.”

“A time, sir?” burst out Kana passionately. “For three hundred years we’ve played their game—”

“What is three hundred years on the Galactic chessboard?” Hansu returned calmly. “Yes, for three hundred years we have taken their orders. Only now they must be beginning to realize that their plan is not working. I’m not sure that their motives had been plain even to them. They have played omnipotence so long that they have come to believe in their godhead—that they can make no wrong moves. For they have always operated against us under cover—until now.

“From the first we have had friends, and we are gaining more. And those worlds would ask questions if Terra were summarily condemned and restricted to its own system. Perhaps their own over-civilized minds shrink from such a practical solution, or have in the past. But where they could, they have cut us off. Terrans are not accepted in the Patrol—that is the service for ‘superior’ races. Traders do not allow us to join their companies. Even the war we play at is carefully denatured—though we still die— The most modern Mech equipment is years behind weapons the inhabitants of—say Garmir—already consider obsolete.”

“But, sir, why this move with the cruiser?”

“Either some hot heads on the Council are going to push through ideas of their own, or they have begun to wake up to the fact that we Terrans are not exactly what we seem.” Hansu turned his head and gave Kana a measuring glance which was sharp enough to reach into his mind.

“Why do you suppose that we have X-Tee training—that we make an AL man a necessary member of every Horde and Legion lifting off-world?”

“Why—you need liaison officers on other worlds, sir.”

“That is the correct official explanation—and one which no Control Agent can successfully counter. But any Terran with the proper temperament for X-Tee is screened and classified from the moment of his first response to the tests. He is given, unobtrusively, all the instruction we can cram into him. He is urged to meet X-Tees on a friendly basis—under cover. And when he enlists he is given every opportunity by his commanding officers to widen his knowledge of other planets.”

“So that was why you wanted me to contact Venturi, sir?”

“Yes. And that is why you went to Po’ult. We have long known that we must have all the AL men we can get. And the wider their acquaintance with other life forms the better for us. If we must challenge C.C. in the open, we cannot stand alone. And the more races friendly to us, or at least with a favorable knowledge of us, the better. Incidentally we may be preparing ourselves for another form of service entirely. What if Terra in the future was to provide not fighting men but exploring teams?”

“Exploring teams?”

“Groups of trained explorers to pioneer on newly discovered planets, to prepare for colonization those worlds where there may be no intelligent native life. Groups, the members of which are selected for their individual talents, going not as Patrol nor traders, not as police or merchants, but only to discover what lies in orbit around the next sun. Groups including not only our own kind, but combining in a working unit half a dozen different species of X-Tees—telepaths, techneers, some not even vaguely humanoid.”

“Do you think that can be done, sir?” demanded Kana, finding in the idea an answer to his own half-formed dream.

“Why not? And the time may not be too far off. Let us reach Matthias with our report on Fronn and he’ll have a concrete argument to use in Combat circles against C.C. Suppose that all the Hordes and Legions now scattered up and down the Galaxy received orders to rebel. Such a situation would upset C.C. and bring an end to their carefully supervised peace. It would be cheaper to let us go our way than to tackle rebellions and uprisings on some hundreds of planets at once.”

“I’ve heard a lot of rumors, sir, but nothing about revolt—”

“I should hope not!” countered the Blademaster. “Most of Combat are conservative. And we of Terra have lived a specialized life for generations. Combatants haven’t much interest beyond the affairs of their own Horde or Legion. At Prime they try to locate the records of those with promise, to steer the men into enlistments where they can serve the cause best. But this mess on Fronn is going to bring the latent danger of our position home—to even the most hidebound of the Big Brass. Once they see that Terran can be turned against Terran with the approval of Central Control, that Mech can be used to hunt down Arch—they will listen to what we have to say.” Hansu balled his fist and thumped it on the edge of his pad. “Time—just give us time enough! We must reach Matthias and he’ll touch off the powder!”

16 — ROAD TO PRIME

But for the two inside the escape craft time moved leadenly. They could only sleep, cramped in the single position allowed them, swallow ration tablets, and talk. And talk Hansu did, spinning in an endless stream tales of far-off worlds on some of which their kind dared not venture, save in the protection of pressure suits, of weird native rites, and savage battles against stacked odds.

Kana forced himself to concentrate on every word, as if he were required to pass an examination on these lectures, for by doing so, he could forget the present, sealed in a minute ship which might or might not make a safe landing on his home world. And he also knew that his companion was now sharing freely with him the lore he himself had spent years in gathering. He was being crammed by a master in X-Tee, a man who was explaining the central passion of his own existence.

“—so they had a sacrifice on the night of the double moon and we hid out in the hills to watch. It wasn’t at all what we had been led to expect—”

A sharp “ping” interrupted Hansu as a tiny bulb glowed red among the controls. They had entered atmosphere!

Kana tried to relax. The worst nightmare of all, that they would miss their home world and go traveling on forever into empty space, was behind them. There was still nothing to do—nothing they could do. Escape craft were entirely robot controlled—often those who rode in them were too injured or shocked to pilot any course. The tiny ships were designed to make the best landing possible for the passengers and they were to be trusted.

Where would they land? Kana stared blankly at the curve of metal roofing above him. A bad landing—say in the sea— But they did not have long to wait, that was a mercy.

“I hope we don’t land too far from Prime, sir.” He forced himself to deliver that in as even a voice as possible.

“We’d better not!”

When they did come in Kana discovered himself hanging head down in the straps and, panicked by that, he fought his fastenings, unable to loosen the buckles. Then the Blademaster came to the recruit’s rescue and got him on his feet. The rear of the narrow cabin was now the floor, and the roof hatch through which they had entered was a side door the Blademaster turned to open. They wedged into the small air lock, to be met by a blaze of fire and billows of stifling white smoke. Hansu slammed the outer door, his face grim.

“The braking system—” he muttered. “It must have started a fire when we landed.”

Fire—the ship must be surrounded by flames. But the memory of one of Hansu’s exploring tales flashed into Kana’s mind.

“Aren’t pressure suits part of the regular survival equipment stored on board these things, sir?”

“That’s it!” Hansu edged back into the cabin.

The walls were solid, a few experimental raps told them there were no concealed cupboards. There remained the padded couches. Kana pulled at the surface of one, and the spongy mat came off in a sheet. He had been right! The base of each couch was a storage space and the suits were inside.

“They’re going to be tight fits”—the Blademaster inspected the finds—“but we can stand them for at least an hour.”

To climb into those bulky coverings in the limited space of the cabin demanded acrobatic agility from both of them. But they did it and the Blademaster set the temperature controls.

“Let us hope that the fire is merely local. When you leave—jump as far from the ship as you can.”

Kana nodded as he screwed the bowl head covering into place.

Hansu went first, pausing only for an instant in the lock door and then vanishing. Kana followed as swiftly. He flashed through flames and smoke, and then he landed, went down on one knee, and regained his balance, to run clumsily straight ahead, away from the ship.

He blundered past trees whose crowns were masses of bursting flame, avoiding as best he could the pitfalls laid by roots and fallen logs. The smoke was a thick murk, concealing most of his surroundings. At first he had to nerve himself to stamp through fire, but as he remained unharmed, he grew more confident and did not try to avoid any blaze which crossed the path he had marked for himself.

Suddenly there were no more trees and he was out in the open on the edge of a cliff. Below a road cut through and in the center of that stood a strange unearthly figure he recognized with difficulty as the Blademaster.

Kana edged along the drop hunting a way down but the man below waved his plated arms to attract his attention and then brought the claw gloved hands of his suit to the thick belt which marked its middle. Kana understood and fumbled for the button on his own belt. Then he walked over the rock rim and allowed his body to float to the road, making a good solid landing not too far from Hansu. Pity these things weren’t equipped with rockets as well as antigravity, he thought regretfully. By the look of this stretch of wilderness about them, they were somewhere in the Wild Lands, and it would save a lot of time if they could just jet back to civilization.

Wisps of smoke still walled the road so they kept on the suits, not knowing when they might have to go through fire again. But the highway stayed in the cut where the bare soil and stone gave no foothold to the flames. Judging by the vegetation, they must be somewhere in the northeastern section of the ancient North American continent—which at least had them sharing the same land mass with Prime. This country for almost a thousand years had been deserted after the nuclear wars. There were tales of strange mutations which had developed here and even after the remnants of mankind came spreading back from the Pacific islands, Africa and portions of the southern continent, it still possessed wide uninhabited, almost unexplored areas.

Kana hoped that Hansu knew more of the country than he did and that they were not now just tramping farther into the wilderness. Maybe they should have stuck with the ship and waited for the firefighters who patrolled the wild areas.

It was proved that Hansu did know where he was going—or else had made a lucky guess as to direction. For the road sloped down to cross a wide river. And on the other side of the flood lay grain fields, yellow under the sun. The fugitives tramped over a bridge and then halted to pull off their suits with sighs of relief.

They drew deep breaths of rich Terran air with unspoken thanks. How rich it was Kana had never guessed until he had had to fill his lungs with the thin stuff of Fronn’s atmosphere. Between the wine of the air and the warmth of the summer sun he was growing light-headed and light-hearted. He was home again, that was the most important thing right now.

“There ought to be a harvest station along somewhere soon now,” Hansu said. “And we can find a vidphone there. It’ll call us a ’copter to reach Prime—”

“How far do you suppose we are from Prime, sir?”

“Not too far would be my guess. There’s a wilderness section such as this just north of the center.”

They marched along the road between yellow-brown fields which stretched endlessly over the horizon. A daring rabbit hopped beside them for a while, its nose twitching curiously. And above birds flew in formation.

“This was all thickly settled country once,” Kana mused.

“The Old Ones were lavish with everything—life as well as death. They bred faster than they killed in their wars. Ha—there’s a station!”

The building ahead was sheltered by trees and there was the glint of a small lake, an oasis of coolness in the midst of all the dusty hot yellow. Kana felt almost as if he were coming home, remembering his own summer terms of land labor. Perhaps they were already there—the harvesters. This wheat was fully ripe.

But there was no one in the building. Its rooms and halls echoed to their steps with that resonance peculiar to an empty space. Kana went to the food storage place while Hansu hunted the vidphone. Beyond the back entrance was a strip of cool greenery spreading out toward the lake. Yellow and white lilies formed ranks along the stone set path which led down to the cupped coolness of the green waters and other flowers were banked in borders, the boldest of which had overtopped all boundaries to creep among the grass.

On impulse Kana went out. A breeze ruffled his ridge lock, thrusting fingers inside the collar of his tunic. Yet it was very quiet, quiet and peaceful.

Slowly he unfastened his tunic, shucking off the stale cloth with a feeling of relief. Then he groped inside his undershirt. He had come down to the water’s edge by now. Long-legged insects skated jauntily across the quiet surface of the pond. Fish made swift, black, hardly seen shadows flitting in the depths. It was peace—it was home—it was quiet and forgetfulness. He poised his hand above it.

The Grace Knife, the sad dimness of its blade hidden by the sheath which had rubbed over his heart all those weeks, rested on his palm. His hand turned slowly. The knife slid, splashing into the dark murk, a swirl of disturbed mud marking its landing. But when Kana stared down he could see nothing of it. It must have buried itself, to be forever hidden from sight. As it should be!

He trailed his fingers in the water, and as his flesh tingled from the feel of the liquid, he knew a sense of relief—of peace. Maybe Hansu’s dreams for their future would never know fruition—but he had made his own decision. If he went back to the stars he would not go as a Combatant—as a Swordsman of any class.

And being sure of that Kana rose briskly and strode back to the harvest house. When he opened the freezer and transferred food to the cooking unit he was whistling somewhat tunelessly, but with a very light heart. Luck was playing on their side, or at least had done so thus far. They had reached Terra, now they had only to contact Matthias at Prime. The rest of their mission might be very simple. He looked up smiling as the Blademaster came in. But Hansu met him with a frown.

“Could you get through, sir?” Kana poured stew out into soup plates.

“Yes. It was easy—too easy—”

“Too easy, sir?”

“Well, it was a little as if someone had been waiting for such a call. So we shan’t wait for the ’copter—”

Kana put down the container of stew. “What—”

“What makes me think that? What made you suspect trouble just before that flood nearly trapped you in the Fronnian mountains? How did you guess the Ventur had a hiding place in the roof of the warehouse? Sixth sense—ESP warning? How do I know? But I know that it isn’t going to be too healthy for us to stay here.”

Kana got up from the table with a sigh. “But, sir, they can sight us easily in the open.” He offered a last half-hearted protest.

“There may be a jopper in the depot here. They usually leave one or two at each station.” Hansu tramped on into the machine storage room.

Again he was right. Two of the round-nosed, teardrop-shaped surface cars stood there, sealed with protective coating, but otherwise ready for use. It was the work of a very few minutes to slough off that film with clearing spray. And before Hansu got into the vehicle he caught up a dull green coverall from a hook on the wall and threw it at Kana, taking its counterpart for himself. Their Mech battledress was well hidden by those and they could pass for men from the general labor pools.

The jopper purred out to the road and began to eat miles. From above, if any ’copter was on their tail, there was nothing to distinguish their car from any other. And many of the transportation men favored the ridge-lock hairdress. The farm road soon brought them to a master highway where they found company. Giants of the heavy transport trucks boxed them in. Hansu cut speed, content to be lost in the procession which thickened as they drew nearer to the port of Prime. Most of the trucks Kana noted were carrying supplies—supplies to be sent off-world to the Hordes, the Legions, out in the lanes of space. For so long had Terra been geared to her task of supplying mercenaries and their needs—what would happen if a sudden change came, if the Hordes and Legions no longer had any reason for existence? How long would it take to re-gear this world, to turn the brimming energy of its inhabitants into other paths?

He found himself dozing now and again, and he was regretting that stew he had left untasted. Real Terra-style food—fresh—hot— No rations!

“What’s the matter?”

Kana’s head jerked and his eyes opened. But Hansu’s shout had not been directed at him. The inquiry was addressed to the driver in the bubble control seat on a transport which had come to a stop beside them. They were locked in a line of stalled transports and passenger joppers. The Blademaster got a garbled answer Kana could not hear. His face tensed.

“There’s an inspection point ahead—not a regular one.”

“Looking for us, d’you think, sir?”

“Might be. We’ll hope that they’re only after a hot runner.”

A hot runner, one of the undercover dealers in illegal foods and drugs, was the type of criminal at which most Terran police drives were aimed. And if the Combat Police were in search of a runner, every jopper and transport in that line would be inspected, every man would have to produce identification. One glimpse of their armlets, of the uniforms they wore under the coveralls and they would be scooped up at once. Then too, they might be the objects of this general hunt.

“Can we get out, sir, turn off somewhere?”

The Blademaster shook his head. “If we tried that now, we’d give ourselves away at once. Wish I knew who was in command at this post. It might just make a difference—”

If Deputy-Commander Matthias was part of some mysterious organization fighting for Terran freedom, as Hansu had hinted, there must be others of a like mind scattered through the whole system of Combat. And so the Blademaster might claim the assistance of such a one—if he were on duty here. But the chance was extremely slim.

There were men walking along the edge of the highway, moving up to see what was holding up the traffic. Hansu watched them and then stepped out of the jopper. When he joined the others he affected a heavy limp which quite cloaked the trained Swordsman’s usual springy stride.

Kana ventured out into the neighboring field in an attempt to see what lay ahead. It was a temporary inspection post all right; the bright silver helmets of the police winked in the sun. But this was late afternoon. And with dark— If they did not have to pass that post until dusk— He turned to survey the fields, assessing the countryside for a promise of freedom.

Ahead they were setting up camp lights—stringing them along the road for about a quarter mile. But that illumination would not reach to where the jopper now stood. Then the steady beat of a machine brought his head around. So that was how they would keep the trapped in line until they had a chance to sort them out! A police coaster skimmed along the row of vehicles.

With eyes which had been trained from early childhood to evaluate such problems, Kana watched the three-man machine pass. He timed it with his watch. Yes, it looked as if they were on a regular beat. It was the most elaborate trap to catch a hot runner that he had ever seen. Which argued that either runner was in the super class—which Kana did not believe, for those captains of undercover industry did not travel, they hired others to take the risks—or the police were after other game. What other game? Them?

Some of the drivers who had gone forward were now returning, loud in their complaints. Apparently none of them had had any satisfaction from the police. Hansu was with them.

“There’s a coaster on patrol along the road, sir,” Kana reported.

“Yes.” The Blademaster motioned for him to climb back into the jopper. “We’ll have to do some thinking and fast.”

“Are they really after a hot runner, sir?”

“I believe that they are after us.”

Kana was suddenly cold. “But why, sir?” he protested. “Terra police wouldn’t pick us up on C.C. orders—not without a secondary warrant from Combat—and it would take them more time to get that.”

“Don’t ask me why or how!” Hansu’s irritation spilled over in that bark. “But we’re going to be kept from meeting Matthias—that’s my bet!”

“And whoever is able to do that,” Kana said, “has influence enough to call out the police. It’s only a matter of time before they pick us up, sir. Unless in the dark—”

“Yes, it is getting dark. That’s one point in our favor. They’re searching every person to the skin up there.”

And they were wearing Mech uniforms they had no means of discarding or destroying now.

Hansu snapped open a small compartment and pulled out the district map which was part of every jopper’s equipment. He traced road markings with a finger tip and then leaned his head on the back of the seat and closed his eyes, a deep frown line between his brows. The sun was almost gone, but still the line of vehicles before them had not moved. More and more of the drivers were gathering in the fields and words of argument carried through the air. Now and then one of them went back to his jopper or transport, probably to ring in to his employer on a speecher and report his non-progress.

“Can we make it, sir, even in the dark?” Kana asked at last.

“Get away from here—yes—I’m sure of that. But reaching Prime—that’s another matter. If they are searching for us they must have Prime sealed as tight as a lifting spacer. Karr, what did they teach you in ancient history about the pre-Blow-up cities?”

Though he couldn’t see how ancient history was going to get them out of this, Kana obediently recited the few facts which had stuck in his mind for five years.

“The Old Ones built tower buildings—and they were open to the weather—no bubble domes. Wonder that the winds didn’t wreck them—”

“What about underground?”

Underground? It was because the towers were unusual that he remembered them. During the nuclear wars most of the survivors had lived underground. There was nothing ancient about that mode of life. There had been one lecture during his training, delivered on a hot afternoon when he had wanted to be elsewhere with a Zacathan he admired more than the droning Terran instructor. Under the ground—

“They traveled under the ground sometimes, didn’t they, sir? Through tubes running under their cities.”

Hansu gave a curt nod. “What are those drivers doing?”

Kana surveyed the scene in the field from his side vision plate. “Building a fire, sir. I think they’re going to open their emergency rations.”

The Blademaster tore the map loose from its holder. “We’ll join them, Karr. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. And watch that police coaster. We want to know when to expect its passing.”

Though some of the drivers still grumbled, most of them now looked upon the halt as an unexpected gift of free time. Having reported in on the speechers they no longer felt any sense of responsibility. There was a general air of relaxation about the fire as they opened their rations.

“Yeah, I’m driving a time job,” announced a tall, red-haired man, “but if the C.P. says stop, I stop. And the boss can just argue it out with them. He said I should try to make time on the road if we ever get away from here.”

One of his companions in misfortune shook his head. “Don’t try the river cut-off, it’s not too good at night. Since this new section of highway was opened, they don’t run a breakdown crew along there and there’ve been cave-ins.”

Hansu insinuated himself into this group, assuming a protective covering of manner so that he might have spent most of his adult life pushing one of the transports. Another example of a good AL man at work, Kana decided. On Fronn the Blademaster had met Venturi and Llor as an equal, here he was adapting to another clan with strange tribal customs of its own.

“This river road”—he addressed the red-head—“is it a short cut to Prime?”

“Yeah.” The driver gave him a measuring look. “You new on this haul, fella?”

“Just been assigned to Prime. I’m driving a jopper from the west, don’t know this country—”

“Well, the river road’s not so good if you don’t know it. It’s an old one—parts of it pre-Blow-up—or so they say. Last summer there was a pack of fellas outta Prime digging around there, uncovered some old stuff, too. But it does save you twenty-thirty miles. Only it’s posted as unsafe—”

“Unsafe!” echoed one of the others. “It’s a trap, Lari. I don’t care what the boss says, you’d better not run it in the dark. I’ve not forgotten that cave-in we saw. Big enough to pull a wheel out of the trans. That’s what brought those digging fellas out—they had such a time filling it in they thought maybe there was a room or something underneath.”

“Was there?” Hansu displayed just the proper amount of interest.

“Maybe. Fella from Prime thought it was part of a tunnel, but they couldn’t clear it enough to be sure. But you’ll be all right if you take it slow and beam your lights down. You have to turn off to the left about two miles from here—”

“Any more chance of a cave-in?”

“Could be. There’s some ruins along it. I tell you, when we get past the barrier here, you cut your jopper in behind my trans and I’ll guide you.”

Hansu returned the proper thanks and in his own way faded into the general group where the talk now turned on the forest fire one driver had seen blazing that afternoon. A moment later the Blademaster’s hand closed on Kana’s arm.

17 — PRISONERS

“The coaster?”

“Passes at irregular intervals now, sir,” Kana reported gloomily. “We can’t depend on it being elsewhere—”

“Tough. If you knew this country we could split up and try to run for it separately.”

“Do you know the country, sir?”

“Enough to believe that I have found a way for us to get into Prime unseen. Once we are away from here—that is.”

“What we need, sir, is a diversion—”

“Hmm.” The Blademaster might or might not have caught that, for their conference was interrupted by a shout from the barrier and the drivers scattered to the parked vehicles. Some move was indicated.

Kana climbed back into the jopper, unable to see any way out of their present impasse. Though it was dusk, the fire in the field lighted this area and if they moved far forward they would come into the section flooded by the camp lights.

“Hey!”

Hansu leaned out in answer to that shout.

“You fellas with the joppers are to pull out to the right—that’s the new order. Wait ’til you get a space clear and then run out on the field.”

Had the police narrowed their hunt to the point they knew their prey was in a jopper? Kana wished, not for the first time that long day, that he had one of the Mech blasters from the ship. Now he was without any weapons—even the Grace Knife.

But Hansu moved now. From within the breast of his coverall the Blademaster produced a three-inch tube of metal. Slowly he licked it all over with finicky care and then stuck it under the edge of the control panel. The transport just ahead of them pulled up several yards and Hansu nosed their jopper to the right, as he did so snapping an order to his companion:

“Pull up the rear seat pad and draw it over here!”

Kana obeyed as they bumped from the smooth surface of the road to the field. Other joppers were emerging from the packed traffic, before and after them.

“Ready!” Hansu set a dial on the controls and kicked open his own door. “Jump!”

Kana slammed back the door and flung himself out, hitting the ground with a bruising jar and rolling over, scraping skin raw in the process of his rough advance. Before he lost momentum he turned that roll into a forward crawl. And he was still making a worm’s progress away from the road when the night split apart with a flash of fire and the sound of an explosion. The roar was succeeded by a confused shouting and the recruit cowered face down and motionless as the police coaster zoomed by on its way to the scene.

When that had gone he continued to crawl away from the light, making for a willow-lined watercourse he had noted earlier in the afternoon. And, though he expected any moment to be challenged, he made it safely, to tumble down the bank into a foot or so of cold water.

Reversing, he squirmed up once more so that his eyes were on a level with the road. Their jopper, ignited by the explosion Hansu had set, was burning briskly. The line of transports was jammed tight ahead and a crowd milled about the circle of light and heat. It was a very superior and successful diversion indeed. Only—had Hansu escaped as easily as he had?

Kana crawled eastward along the stream. Prime lay in this direction and if he found the Blademaster again it would be along this route. He became aware of movement ahead—stealthy but assured. Hansu? Or some policeman who had suspected what had really happened?

The recruit unbuckled the belt of his coverall and prepared to use it as he had the rifle sling on Fronn. The rustling stopped. Then came the faintest of whispers.

“Karr?”

“Yes, sir!”

“This way—”

Kana broke into a jog trot to keep up with his commander. They passed far to one side of the point of the police barrier where the glare of the lamps eclipsed that of the burning jopper. And now they crept half in the water until the illumination was behind. Hansu kept to their creek road until a rise in the ground and a turn in the sweep of the highway put both barrier and road out of sight.

“Where are we heading, sir?” Kana asked at last as they sloshed soggily up the bank behind a screen of trees and brush.

“To that river road the driver mentioned.” The Blademaster walked at a slower pace now, and he carried his right arm across his body, supporting it with his left hand.

“Are you hurt, sir?”

“Just scorched a little. Had to put that pad up on the seat before I jumped.”

Now Kana understood. Dimly seen by those who dared not venture too close to the flaming jopper, that seat pad might be mistaken for two occupants trapped within.

“Can’t I see to your burn, sir?” he persisted.

“Later—” Hansu appeared intent only in putting distance between them and the police.

And “later” was a long time away. The Blademaster’s sense of direction and his study of the map brought them out on a narrower road which cut away from the main highway southeast. Since there seemed to be little or no travel along it, they dared to walk in the open, making better time where the footing was sure.

The moon was up when Hansu slowed to a stop. He turned as if on a pivot until he had made a half circle. And Kana, imitating him, saw what his officer had been searching for—trenches cut into the earth just off the road.

“Your flash—” Hansu bit off the two words as if to say that much had cost him real effort.

Kana unlooped his hand torch, set it on low, and pointed the ray into the nearest of those gashes. There was broken masonry at the bottom of the excavation. These must be the ruins the driver had mentioned. Hansu counted the trenches audibly.

“—four—five—six. That’s the one—the sixth on the left—”

Kana’s beam flicked to number six and, as it picked out the stones and ancient brickwork at the bottom, Hansu slid awkwardly down into it. The recruit jumped after the Blademaster, trying to keep his footing in the rubble of embedded blocks. Though he had no idea of what his companion was seeking, he knew better than to ask any questions just then.

This trench was longer than the others, running farther back from the road, but at last they came to a pile of loose dead brush and stones which marked the end of the excavation. Hansu pulled at the brush with his left hand and Kana sprang forward to help. Under their tugging the stuff came away, to display a dark hole.

“What—?” Kana began.

“Underground ways—running into Prime—from the old days—” Hansu’s answer was broken by curious pauses and Kana swept the torch beam across the Blademaster’s face. Sweat trickled down through the grime and dust and under that Hansu wore the look of a man forcing himself to go on nerve alone.

But Kana sensed that this was no time to offer help. He allowed the light to travel on, back into the hole. And then he stepped into what was clearly a manmade tunnel. Under his boots were two strips of rust which must have once been metal rails.

These ancient ways were often almost death traps. As the Swordsmen advanced they passed side corridors choked with cave-ins and twice they had to dig through piles of gravel and earth. However, surprisingly, the further they went from the entrance, the better the condition. Kana could not believe that these hidden ways had been abandoned ever since the days of the nuke wars. And his suspicion of that was confirmed as he caught sight—in a side tunnel—of some metal shoring, which reflected the beam of the torch, undimmed by the prevailing damp.

The main passage which they followed widened as more and more side corridors emptied into it. This must have once been a main entrance to Prime, or rather to the now almost forgotten seaport upon the ruins of which Prime had been erected.

“How much farther—?”

“Don’t know.” Hansu walked mechanically. “I’ve heard about this. We should be able to contact the Reachers—maybe one of their cars will find us—”

That did not make sense to Kana, but he did not challenge it. Who Hansu’s “Reachers” might be he was beginning to guess—the mysterious underground within Combat of which Matthias was the probable head. But why the Blademaster expected to encounter them here was a puzzle beyond his solving.

They rounded a turn, a wide sweep which now embraced not one set of tracks but four, and came out into a space which echoed hollowly to the sound of their boots and in which the torch beam was swallowed in the dark. Kana switched on its full power and pointed the beam at the walls, sweeping it from one dark arch of entrance to the next. They were in a vast circle, the center of a web the strands of which led out to every point of the compass. And which of those archways should they enter? As far as he could see they were all exactly alike.

The unease Kana had always felt when confined in a small space began to operate now—although the area of the crossing tracks was large. But beyond the limit of his torch the dark had a thickness to it which was almost tangible, as if they were truly buried far below the surface of the earth with no hope of winning to the open air again. The dank smell he thought born of the damp and earth carried other faint taints—nose-tickling reminders of the far past. And now that they had paused he was sure he could hear not too far away the gurgle of running water.

“Which way now?” His basic dislike of the dark, of being closed in by tons of earth, brought that query from him in an impatient demand.

Hansu grunted but made no other answer as Kana continued to mark the edges of the circle with his moving torch beam.

Their problem was given a sudden and dramatic solution. From one of the archways, Kana could not be sure of just which, there came a humming sound, which began as a drone and grew to the proportion of a siren as it moved toward them. He grabbed at Hansu’s arm, striving to draw the Blademaster with him in retreat into one of the other passages, wanting to take cover until they had a chance to investigate.

But it was already too late. They were caught—pinned in a wide beam of light which blistered their eyes as if it had been blaster fire. And from beyond the source of that luminescence a voice snapped an order they dared not disregard:

“Up with your hands—and stand where you are!”

With a sinking heart Kana obeyed. They were helpless, unarmed prisoners.

And that capture had only one logical conclusion—as he might have foreseen, Kana thought bitterly some time later. The wall facing the bunk shelf where he sat was an even, solid gray without a single seam or crack to distract his eyes or give a slight root for his imagination and so relieve the monotony of a time which was no longer divided into minutes, hours, days, or even weeks.

Even the indirect lighting of his cell waxed or waned at intervals which had no regularity so that he could not gauge the passing of time by that. When he was hungry he opened the door of a tiny chute beside the bunk and took out the capsules and plastic water bubble he found there. How they were placed there, he had no knowledge.

The continual silence was the worst. It was a thick deadening blanket which he fought until his nerves were tense, pacing the floor, exercising in a frantic endeavor to wear himself out physically so that he could sleep away a small portion of the endless hours. He was caught in a trap from which there was no escape. And the worst was that he knew the time would come when he could erect no more barriers against the silence, when the demon which was his own particular fear would close in to inhabit his mind.

The whole world had narrowed to this windowless, doorless cell somewhere deep in the foundations of Prime. The functions of the room were entirely automatic. Kana could be forgotten by his human captors, left here for countless years, and still he would continue to receive rations, the light would go on and off according to some weird pattern set up on a machine. But he himself would cease to live—

It was when his thoughts centered in that groove that Kana had to fight for control, make himself think of something else. If he only had a record-pak or writing material— But for that matter, he might as well wish for freedom! He did not even know if he were already judged and condemned or was still awaiting trial.

Hansu had been wrong—so wrong—in believing that the underground ways of Prime were any secret to the Combat officials. There had been a C.C. Agent in the group to welcome them when they were herded from the rail truck at the brilliantly lighted station under the headquarters building.

They had been taken without a struggle. What had happened since to Hansu, he wondered dully. His last glimpse of the Blademaster had come when they were separated at the interrogation room, just before he had been turned over to the questioners.

Those specialists at Interrogation were not crude in their methods. The use of torture to loosen tongues of stubborn captives had vanished long ago. Now after he had been given certain drugs there was nothing a man could conceal. Kana knew that he must have babbled every secret of his life to any ears caring to listen. When he recovered consciousness he had been here, stripped to the shorts of a prisoner, and here he had remained ever since.

Now he began his self-allotted task for the period after each meal, the attempted recall of all X-Tee lore he had managed to absorb. Sometimes he could really lose himself in that mental labor for as much as several minutes.

“Zacan”—he spoke the word slowly, trying to give it the proper hissing accent—“is a planet of Terra type. The continental land masses are mainly archipelagoes of islands. The largest of these is Zorodal. The citadel of Zorodal was first founded in the semi-mythical reign of the Five Kings, now a period almost legendary. Archaeological excavations have verified some of the legends and have proved that there are the remains of at least ten civilizations on the same site, sometimes with a lapse of a thousand years between the downfall of one and the rise of the next. The Zacathans are a reptilian race, comparable to Terran lizard forms. Their life span is many times that of man. They are not aggressive, being contemplative with a well-developed interest in historical studies, producing many historians and philosophers of note—”

There was a click. A square space in the wall before him gaped like an opening mouth. Within rested a uniform case. For a moment Kana froze. Then his hands shot out and he snatched the case in desperate fear that it was there only to tantalize him and would disappear.

A uniform case, containing the complete new uniform of a Swordsman Third Class! His hands were still shaking as he began to dress. This must mean release, at least release from the cell. Was he on his way to trial—or to return to duty—or—? He was clumsy over buckles, awkward with the fastenings. But at last he was clothed. Only the sword was missing, the sheath at his new waist belt hung empty. And he had no Grace Knife.

He was latching the chin strap of his helmet when a second opening in the wall confronted him and he stepped through into a corridor. Base guards closed in, two before, two behind him. He wondered if he should be flattered by the size of that escort. But he fell into step with their pace, knowing it useless to ask any questions.

A lift took them up in a dizzy rise past level after level of headquarters’ Administrative core. When they disembarked they were in a wide hallway on one of the staff floors. Murals of other world scenes where Hordes and Legions had made or unmade history alternated with windows which gave Kana his first sight of Terra since he had gone underground. It was mid-morning as far as he could judge, and below, the bay gave on the sea. Tradition said that the ancient ruins which were the base of Prime were merely the outer fringes of a once great city which had covered an island in that bay, a city which the sea had licked over during the nuclear wars. ’Copters swung in heavy traffic between the buildings standing now along the shore. It was just the same sort of day on which he had first entered Prime to accept enlistment in Yorke’s Horde—

But the guard allowed him no time to stare through windows or think philosophically of the past. He was speedily ushered into an audience chamber. There he found himself facing a Tribunal. High Brass—just about the highest! Three of Combat’s four Councilors sat there and the fourth and fifth members of the court were a C.C. Agent and an officer of the Galactic Patrol, a sub-sector commander by his badges. Kana stiffened. What right had those aliens to be his judges? He was sure that he could protest that, and be backed by the Combat Code. But, biding his time until he was more certain, he came to attention and made the formal announcement expected of him.

“Kana Karr, Swordsman Third Class, under enlistment in Yorke’s Horde, place of service, Fronn.”

Hansu—where was Hansu? Why were they to be tried separately? More than anything else at that moment Kana wished that he could have a moment’s conversation with the Blademaster. For he had just made another and more upsetting discovery—one of the Combat officers facing him was Matthias—the same Matthias that Hansu had been so sure would stand their protector, fight on their side if they could only reach him.

The faces of the combat officers were impassive, but the C.C. Agent, an Ageratan—the brilliant scarlet and gold of his cloak somewhat garish against the green-gray of the Terrans—shifted impatiently in his chair as if he wished to speed up the proceedings and did not quite dare, while his alien companion, the Patrol officer, affected in contrast a vast boredom.

Then Kana saw what lay before the senior of the Combat officers—an Arch sword. That answered one of his questions. He had been brought here for sentencing. They had condemned him without allowing him a chance to speak in his own defense. But—how could they? The interrogators had the exact truth out of him. These men must know of the massacre on Fronn, of that strange scene by the plundered Patrol ship, of everything else which had happened, know it as if they had witnessed the events in his place. How could they then—?

“For unauthorized dealings with an X-Tee race against all regulations,” began the Combat senior, “for desertion of your comrades on another world, for the theft of a cruiser belonging to the Galactic Patrol, you, Kana Karr, Swordsman Third Class, Arch rating, are hereby declared unfit for off-world service. You shall be stripped of all Combat rating and privileges and sent to the labor gangs for the rest of your natural life.”

Long discipline kept him at attention. Labor gangs for the rest of his life—the closest thing to slavery. But—a fierce, blinding anger uncoiled within him—he was going to answer those frozen-faced devils with a few home truths before they shipped him off. And he was not in the gangs—not yet!

When he spoke it was not to his superior officers but directly to the C.C. Agent.

“I’ve learned to know you for what you are—you and your kind,” he said slowly between set teeth. The ancient blood lust which had once sent his Malay ancestors into battle swinging a bolo might have been thinned by interbreeding with other and more peaceful races but it was still there and rising in him now. “You may be able now to force Terrans to obey your will. But someday you’ll pay in kind—”

The Ageratan’s white face did not change expression, only now he sat very quiet, his long eyes narrowed into slits, a bird of prey preparing to swoop.

“How long”—Kana’s attention was now on his fellow Terrans—“do you think you can cover up such messes? You know from my testimony—whether I gave it drugged or not—what they are doing to us out there. I”—he paused until he was sure his voice was once more under full control—“I gave Grace to Deke Mills after I heard his story. You know—all of you—what he had to tell. We are supposed to be fighting men—if only mercenaries selling our skill to others. Isn’t it time we began to fight—against murderers!” He hurled that charge straight at the Ageratan, at the Patrol officer.

Kana was trying hard to pick and choose the proper words, to keep his red rage battened down. Then his mood changed. Why should he stand there mouthing statements which made no impression on their impassivity when he wanted to leap that table between them, to feel the Ageratan’s flesh pulp beneath his fist? What was the use in talking—nothing he said—could say—would break through to them—would ruffle the composure of that traitor Matthias.

He brought his hand up in salute and wheeled to fall in with his waiting guard. Would they take him back to the underground cell? Or try to—for it would be a case of trying. He was determined to escape somehow, somewhere along the route.

Hansu— If they had given him life in the labor gangs, they must have executed the Blademaster! How wrong Hansu had been in his belief in Matthias and the new day about to dawn. With Matthias ready to betray them the rebels had never had a ghost of a chance.

They marched back to the lift and whisked down, not to the cells. Instead Kana was escorted to a small room just off the main corridor near some entrance to the building—he was sure of that as he watched the constant stream of Combatants passing in the hall. Except for a sentry left at the door he was alone—to wait— To wait? No, to act!

18 — NO GUARD ON THE STARS!

Kana’s mind raced as he assessed the situation. He was in full uniform, except that he lacked arms. If it weren’t for the sentry he could simply walk out of this room, join the crowd in the hall, and leave the building, before the alarm was given. Once free in Prime he could find a way out of the city itself. There remained the problem of the sentry.

He watched the man narrowly. The fellow was in the act of suppressing a yawn as Kana first studied him. It was plain that he did not expect trouble from the prisoner. And this was no proper detention room, rather more like a waiting lounge for low-ranking visitors. The bench Kana had been ordered to occupy was cushioned and there was a visa-plate set in the wall to his left, out of sight range of the doorway. The guard’s attention was often attracted by those passing without— Kana’s eyes flickered to the visa-plate. Was there some way of using that? A little improvising— He waited until the guard’s attention was fixed upon something in the corridor and then he jumped to his feet.

“Red alert!” he cried out as if startled.

The guard whirled, took one step in, glancing at the visa-plate.

“I don’t see anything—” he began, and then shot a sour look at Kana as if angry at being tricked into speaking to the captive against express orders.

“It was red alert!” Kana insisted, pointing to the screen.

The guard came all the way in, uneasily. If the visa-plate had flashed a red signal—then his duty was clear, he must call back at once for instructions. And he couldn’t be sure that it had not.

“Keep me covered with your blaster,” urged Kana. “I tell you it was a red alert!”

The guard drew his blaster, aiming it at the recruit’s middle. And, with his back to the wall, his eyes on the prisoner, he made a crabwise march along toward the visa-plate.

“You sit down!” he snapped at Kana.

The recruit dropped down on the bench, but his body was tense, his muscles ready—

There would come a single second when the guard had to turn half away from him in order to push the question button below the plate. And if he could move then—

It came, the guard’s head turned a fraction. Kana flung himself forward almost at floor level. His shoulders struck just behind the other’s knees and there was a dull crack as the man’s head struck against the screen, slammed into it by the force of Kana’s attack. The recruit twisted on top, ready to carry on the fight. But the body beneath him was limp.

A little startled by such phenomenal luck—the fellow must have been knocked out when his head hit the screen—Kana got to his knees and hurriedly appropriated the guard’s sword and blaster. But a moment later he reluctantly abandoned the gun. Only a base guardsman could go so armed and he would be picked up on the street if he were seen carrying that. He sheathed the sword—and hoped that luck would continue to ride with him.

The prostrate guard, bound with his own belts and gagged with a thick strip torn from his undershirt, was rolled back under the bench, well out of range of any casual glance from the door. Then Kana settled his clothing, donned the helmet he had lost during the brief struggle, and taking a deep breath, he stepped out into the corridor, closing the door of the waiting room behind him. He might have five minutes—perhaps more—before the hunt would be on. And now that he was again wearing a sword there was nothing to distinguish him from any other of the hundreds of Archs on the streets of Prime.

The streets of Prime—the sooner he got away from those same streets the better. This escape was all pure improvisation and it might work all the more effectively because of that, but he wanted to get away from Prime as quickly as he could. He covered the remainder of the corridor with the brisk strides of a man on an official errand and came out of the building on a ’copter landing some twenty floors above ground level. One of the dragonfly machines had just deposited a veteran and was about to rise when Kana waved. The pilot waited for him impatiently.

“Where to?”

It was a pity he did not know more of the geography of the city. But he was sure that it would do little good to approach the space port or any of the transcontinent air ports—those were well guarded and the alarm would be flashed to them the moment his escape was detected. A little rattled by the pilot’s demand he gave as his destination the only place in the city where he had been before.

“The Hiring Hall.”

They arose and drifted west while Kana attempted to identify points below. Would escape by water be possible? There were only five surface roads out of Prime and each passed a patrolled barrier where vehicles were searched for smuggled goods.

“Here y’are.”

The ’copter came to rest on a Hiring Hall staging. Kana gave curt thanks and took the lift down, heading not to the hall itself nor to any of the levels where the enlistment officers had their cubbys, but straight to the one place he thought would offer not only concealment for a space, but help in planning his next move.

The record room was as quiet as it had been the first time he had stepped within its sound-proof doors. One booth near the entrance displayed the light which signified occupancy, but the rest were dark. Kana punched for four paks in rapid succession, and with them retreated to the booth at the far end of the row. Feeding his paks into the machine he settled back in the reclining chair.

Three-quarters of an hour later the last pak had spun to its conclusion. So—now he possessed two possible answers to his dilemma. He removed the head piece but did not leave the seat. Well, at least he was given a choice. On impulse he went to the door of the booth to survey the room. The light on the other booth had gone out. But now there were three others in use. Was that suspicious? Did it show an unusual amount of study for one interval? Or was some big expedition being planned?

He could not see any way that they might have traced him here. The logical move for any escape would be to get out of Prime with the least possible delay. Certainly they would not expect to find him using record-paks in the Hiring Hall archives.

Two ways—his mind returned to the problem as he settled down in the booth to stare unseeingly at the ceiling and try to plan. The sea way—he was able to swim though he had not had much practice lately. And the underground ways built by the Old Ones. Would the Combat police believe that having been captured down there he would be reluctant to try the maze of passages for a second time?

He was hungry. The carefully balanced prison diet had not been intended to build up any store of energy. And he didn’t quite dare to enter the transient mess here, could not in fact without displaying the armlet which would betray him at once. First things first—let him get out of Prime and then he could worry about food. Out of Prime—the two choices were still before him.

And sitting here was not speeding him on his way. He had absorbed all the information the record-paks held. It was time to go. And in a snap second Kana made his decision.

The oldest building in modern Prime was the Histo-laboratory Museum. Since history was not a subject popular with the general public on Terra, the building was never crowded. But, according to one of the paks Kana had just consulted, it had been erected on the foundations of a prewar structure. And so it might provide an entrance to the ancient underground ways said to feed all buildings of that era—a thousand-to-one chance. But he had been trained to consider such chances.

Kana gathered up the paks and left the booth. Three others were still occupied and he hurried past their doors. He returned the paks and went out, concentrating on presenting an unhurried, casual demeanor. Luckily the building he sought was not more than three blocks away and his uniform would render him anonymous on the streets.

As he went down the four wide steps to the pavement he was aware of a clatter behind him. Someone in a hurry. He quickened his pace and caught his thumb in his belt not too far from the hilt of his sword. If he were cornered now he would fight. Better be cooked at once in a blaster flame than live in a labor camp for life.

A hand clamped hard above his elbow, dragging his fingers away from his weapon before he could draw it. To the right and left grim-faced Archs had fallen into step with him.

“Keep marching—”

Kana did, mechanically, his eyes after one wild glance centered straight ahead. But they were not herding him toward headquarters. No ’copter settled down at their signal to collect guards and prisoners. They were still headed for the Museum.

Unable to guess what was going to happen now, Kana simply kept on between his silent companions. To anyone passing they might have been three friends on a sightseeing tour of Prime.

Just before they reached the entrance to the Museum the man who had kept that paralyzing grip on his arm spoke:

“In here—”

Completely bewildered, Kana turned in, the other two matching him step for step. They met no one in the wide hall lined with cases containing prewar relics unearthed in the vicinity. And no one appeared as they stepped on the down conveyor which lowered them to the depths under the street.

That sudden pick-up when he had believed himself safe had been a stunning blow, but now Kana was recovering, marshaling his energy to try another break at the first opportunity. But why had he been brought here? Could it be that they were under the impression that he was a member of some secret organization—the one Hansu had hinted about—and expected him to lead them to his comrades? Curiosity replaced surprise and he resigned himself to wait until they showed their hand one way or another.

More hallways and exhibit cases, gloomy rooms with displays or ranks of filing cabinets. Once or twice they sighted a man at work at desk or file, but none looked up or appeared aware of Kana and his escort—the three might have been invisible.

They marched on until they reached the end of that maze, a single large room crowded with machinery which probably was a heating or air-conditioning unit. Then the guard at his left took several paces ahead, threading through the machinery to an inconspicuous door which gave on a flight of stairs leading down into a dimly lit area where several small track-running trucks were pulled up at a platform.

There were men loading bulky packages on these, but they, too, gave the three no heed.

“In.” A pointing finger emphasized the order and Kana climbed into an unloaded truck, hunkering down on a small seat. One of his companions took his place on an even smaller rest in front and the other crowded in beside him. The vehicle started away from the platform, gathering speed as it spun along the rails, and then whipped into the semi-darkness of a tunnel opening.

Were they on their way to Headquarters? But why travel underground when it would have been much easier to bundle him into a ’copter and make the short trip in the open? As the minutes of their swift journey began to pile up Kana guessed that now they were not only beyond Headquarters, but that they must be fast approaching the limits of Prime itself. He was completely confused over direction. They might have been out under the floor of the bay, or far inland, when the car came to a stop beside a second platform and his guards ordered him out of it.

This time they did not ascend but walked along a lighted side corridor into a place of regulated activity. Here, too, were series of file-filled rooms, and some laboratories with busy workers.

“In here—”

Again Kana obeyed that command, entered a room and—stopped short.

“Three hours, ten minutes.” Hansu was consulting his watch. Now he turned to the man beside him, the man wearing a deputy-commander’s uniform. “Pay me that half credit, Matt. I told you he could do it. Only a fraction slow—but entirely sure. I know my candidate!”

The other drew a coin from his belt pouch and solemnly passed it over. Kana shut his mouth. For the High Brass who had just dropped that metal token in the Blademaster’s waiting palm had, not long before, sat granite-faced to sentence him to a labor camp for life.

Now Hansu’s attention came back to him and Kana found himself measured with a critical stare.

“Rather lively for a dead man,” was the Blademaster’s strange comment. “You”—he pointed an accusing finger—“were blasted an hour ago when you tried to force your way on board a transport to the Islands.”

For the second time Kana opened his mouth and this time he was able to get out words.

“Interesting—if true—sir—”

Hansu was grinning with an open light-heartedness Kana had never seen him display before.

“Amusing dramatics.” Still his explanation made little sense. “Welcome to Prime—the real Prime. And meet its governor—Commander Matthias.”

“You pick up your cues well, son.” The Commander nodded at Kana approvingly. “Made that escape as smoothly as if you had had a chance to rehearse it.”

“I told you,” Hansu broke in. “He’s good enough to make it worthwhile enlisting him.”

Kana began to understand why he had been left in that corridor waiting room at Headquarters, how he had been able to trick the guard so easily.

“You set up that break for me,” he said, half accusingly. “Did you have me tailed?”

“No. Your escape had to look natural. We just supplied the time, place, and opportunity—the raw materials as it were. The rest was up to you,” Hansu replied.

“Then how did your men find me?”

“Through those paks you dialed out of the archives. That combination was a give-away—History of Prime, Ancient Remains in the Prime District, The Sea Coast, Map of Prime—all asked for at the same time by one person. So we just sent the boys along to pick you up.”

Kana dropped down on a bench without having been invited to such relaxation. This was moving a little too fast for him. Easy—logical— But everything Hansu said spoke of a city-wide net of surveillance, of a tight and well-functioning organization. What kind and for what purpose?

“And the labor camp?” He asked the first question of the many in his mind at that moment.

“Oh, there are labor camps right enough—supposedly established for criminals and malcontents of all kinds,” the Commander returned cheerfully. “Only we differ somewhat from the C.C. Agents in our definition of both ‘labor camp’ and ‘crime against the Galactic peace.’ And those Agents would be quite surprised if they visited any camps except the two or three we maintain for official display purposes. Right now you’re in what might be termed ‘Camp Number One.’ And we can introduce you to a lot of hardened offenders against the status quo if you wish. So you’re going to serve the sentence which was imposed on you this morning—there’s no getting around that. However, I don’t believe you will offer any objections to your fate. Hansu hasn’t. Or do you harbor some deep, dark reservations, Trig?”

The Blademaster’s grin grew even broader. “Not that you can see, Matt. I’ll toil under your whips just as long as you’ll persuade the powers that be to let me. I only wish that I had been let into the whole secret a lot earlier in life—there’re a lot of things I could have done—” He ended on a wistful note.

“What about Kosti and Larsen, sir? And the rest of the Horde on Fronn?”

“Kosti and Larsen earthed in the far south and have been picked up by our men—the C.C. Agents won’t ever know about them. As for the Horde—well, that will take some arranging here and there. For the present they’re safe with the Venturi—and I think we can make a deal with those traders. They’re the sort we want to contact. We’ll lift the Horde out of that pinch before those renegades and the C.C. get to them. On the other hand we can’t slap Device down or spill all we have discovered about his backers. But the Venturi will be allowed in on part of the secret so that they will know you have not gone back on your word. Here in Prime Two we have a rather odd idea that promises should be kept—if it is humanly possible.”

Kana felt as if he had been whirled through space without benefit of a ship. If someone would just explain everything from the beginning, carefully, and in words simple enough for his reeling mind to gather in, he would be happier.

“You’d like a few facts, wouldn’t you?” Commander Matthias might have been reading his thoughts. “Well, this set-up isn’t so simple that it can be explained in a couple of sentences. The whole project reaches back into our past—three hundred years back. You know—if you asked an Ageratan or a Rassami what he thought of a Terran, he’d paint you a mighty crude picture of a simple-minded barbarian. That has been our shield all along, and we have fostered the idea that we are rude savages of limited intelligence. It inflates the ego of the enemy and doesn’t bother us at all.

“In reality Terra for at least two hundred and fifty years has been a double world—though that fact is known to a relatively small number of her inhabitants. One Terra and one Prime was fitted quickly and neatly into the pattern Central Control demanded and is a law-abiding member of their lesser confederacy, content with the role of third-class citizenship.

“But in the past hundred years one troop transport in every twenty which lifted from this planet was no troop transport at all, but a pioneer carrier. Men and women selected for certain qualities of mind and body—survivor types—went out in deep sleep to settle on planets our mercenaries had explored. On some of those worlds the native races had dwindled and retrogressed until civilization had faded almost to extinction, others were bare of intelligent life, or had dominant races, young, vigorous and humanoid with whom we could interbreed. There is even reason to believe that the latter may be descendents of the passengers of those legendary starships which left this world during the nuclear wars—though the people have long since forgotten their origin.

“So Terrans have been planted secretly on almost a thousand worlds now. On thirty our colonies could not take root, native diseases, adverse climatic changes, malignant life forms blotted them out. On six more they are still fighting a war for survival. On the rest they flourish and spread.

“Central Control has noted the decline in our planet birth rate, the fact that our race, which might have challenged the rule of the older groups, seems to be on the wane. They believe that this is due to their wise plans of the past, that as mercenaries we are bleeding our species out of existence. Only very recently have they had any hints as to what is really occurring. They may or may not have discovered that Terran Combatants, almost always hired to serve on backward, frontier planets, know of hidden colonies of their own kind—that our casualty lists often cover men who remain on the earth there and not in it when their Horde or Legion returns to base.

“We are leaving Terra for the stars just as we planned from our first Galactic flight. And now that Central Control suspects that, she is going to move against us. But she will discover that she is perhaps ten generations too late. One cannot move against colonies on almost a thousand different worlds, not and keep up the fiction of justice to all which must be maintained to preserve their carefully guarded balance of power.”

“You are forgetting our allies,” Hansu pointed out.

“The man in the field does right to correct the desk merchant at home,” Matthias conceded. “Yes, several other young and vigorous races have fallen under the same ban against exploration and colonization which C.C. attempted to force upon us. And when these discriminated against X-Tees learned what we were doing—usually from our AL men sent to explain it in detail—they copied our methods all the way. There are about twenty of these worlds now following our pattern. This trouble on Fronn—the bald design of crediting a massacre of Patrolmen to an outlawed Horde, the betrayal of Yorke and his officers—is a blow back at us and may bring the whole scheme into the open. If so, we don’t really care too much, we’ve been preparing lately for such an eventuality and we have our case far better organized for a general hearing than they suspect—too much of their planning won’t bear the light of day. In the meantime—” He nodded to Hansu as if suggesting that it was now time for the Blademaster to take over.

“In the meantime operations shall continue as usual, both here and out in space. And as an AL man you’re going to labor all right—just as you were sentenced to do.”

Kana took it all in at last.

“I’ll accept that sentence gladly, sir. When and where do I begin?”

Hansu crossed to the wall and pulled down the map hanging there—and the Galaxy was spread out for their viewing.

“They’ve tried to keep a guard on the stars and they have failed. No race or species has the power to do that, ever! You have a wide choice of operations, son. The whole of space is free!”