Star Hunter (14 page)

Vye edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of his
boot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up to
where he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his knee
Hume spoke again:

"Watch for trouble!"

"They all went in," Vye protested.

But Hume's eyes had closed again. "Trouble—maybe...." His voice
trailed off. Vye rested his hand on the stock of the needler.

"Hoooooo!"

That beast wail—as they had heard it in the valley! Somewhere from
the wood. Vye brought the needler around, so that the sights pointed
in that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothing
he could do.

A scream, filled with all the agony of a man in torment, caught up on
the echoes of that other cry. Vye sighted a wild waving of bushes. A
figure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands and
knees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Again
the beast's cry, and a shouting!

Vye watched a second man back out of the trees, still facing whatever
pursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube.
Leaves crisped into a black hole, curls of smoke arose along the path
of that blast.

The man kept on backing, passed the inert body of his companion,
glancing now and then over his shoulder at the slope up which he was
making a slow but steady way. He no longer rayed the bush, but there
was the crackle of a small fire outlining the ragged hole his beam had
cut.

Back two strides, three. Then he turned, made a quick dash, again
facing around after he had gained some yards in the open. Vye saw now
it was Wass.

Another dash and an about face. But this time to confront the enemy.
There were three of them, as monstrous as those Vye and Hume had
fought in the same place. And one of them was wounded, swinging a
charred forepaw before it, and giving voice to a wild frenzy of roars.

Wass leveled the ray tube, centered sights on the beast nearest to
him. The man hammered at the firing button with the flat of his other
hand, and almost paid for that second of distraction with his life,
for the creature made one of those lightning swift dashes Vye had so
luckily escaped. The clawed forepaw tore a strip from the shoulder of
Wass' tunic, left sprouting red furrows behind. But the man had thrown
the useless tube into its face, was now running for the gap.

Vye held the needler braced against his knee to fire. He saw the dart
quiver in the upper arm of the beast, and it halted to pull out that
sliver of dangerously poisoned metal, crumpled it into a tight twist.
Vye continued to fire, never sure of his aim, but seeing those slivers
go home in thick legs, in outstretched forelimbs, in wide, pendulous
bellies. Then there were three blue shapes lying on the slope behind
the man running straight for the gap.

Wass hit the invisible barrier full force, was hurled back, to lie
gasping on the turf, but already raising himself to crawl again to the
gateway he saw and could not believe was barred. Vye closed his eyes.
He was very tired now—tired and sleepy—maybe the pain pills were
bringing the secondary form of relief. But he could hear, just beyond,
the man who beat at that unseen curtain, first in anger and fear, and
then just in fear, until the fear was a lonesome crying that went on
and on until even that last feeble assault on the barrier failed.

"We have here the tape report of Ras Hume, Out-Hunter of the Guild."

Vye watched the officer in the black and silver of the Patrol, a black
and silver modified with the small, green, eye badge of X-Tee, with
level and hostile gaze.

"Then you know the story." He was going to make no additions nor
explanations. Maybe Hume had cleared him. All right, that was all he
would ask, to be free to go his way and forget about Jumala—and Ras
Hume.

He had not seen the Hunter since they had both been loaded into the
Patrol flitter in the gap. Wass had come out of the valley a witless,
dazed creature, still under the mental influence of whoever, or
whatever, had set that trap. As far as Vye knew the Veep had not yet
recovered his full senses, he might never do so. And if Hume had not
dictated that confession to damn himself before the Patrol, he might
have escaped. They could suspect—but they would have had no proof.

"You continue to refuse to tape?" The officer favored him with one of
the closed-jaw looks Vye had often seen on the face of authority.

"I have my rights."

"You have the right to claim victim compensation—a good compensation,
Lansor."

Vye shrugged and then winced at a warning from the tender skin over
ribs.

"I make no claim, and no tape," he repeated. And he intended to go on
saying that as long as they asked him. This was the second visit in
two days and he was getting a little tired of it all. Perhaps he
should do as prudence dictated and demand to be returned to Nahuatl.
Only his odd, unexplainable desire to at least see Hume kept him from
making the request they would have to honor.

"You had better reconsider." Authority resumed.

"Rights of person—" Vye almost grinned as he recited that. For the
first time in his pushed-around life he could use that particular
phrase and make it stick. He thought there was a sour twist to the
officer's mouth, but the other still retained his impersonal tone as
he spoke into the intership com:

"He refused to make a tape."

Vye waited for the other's next move. This should mark the end of
their interview. But instead the officer appeared to relax the
restraint of his official manner. He brought a viv-root case from an
inner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vye, who gave an instant
and suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one of
the small tubes, snapped off the protecto-nib, and set it between his
lips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabin
door pushed open, and Vye sat up with a jerk as Ras Hume, his head
banded with a skin-core covering, entered.

The officer waved his hand at Vye with the air of one turning over a
problem. "You were entirely right. And he's all yours, Hume."

Vye looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official hands
why wasn't the Hunter under restraint? Unless, because they were
aboard the Patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closer
confinement was necessary. Yet the Hunter wasn't acting the role of
prisoner very well. In fact he perched on a wall-flip seat with the
ease of one completely at home, accepted the viv-root Vye had refused.

"So you won't make a tape," he asked cheerfully.

"You act as if you want me to!" Vye was so completely baffled by this
odd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively.

"Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing you
in the position where you
could
give us that tape, I must admit some
disappointment."

"Give
us
?" Vye echoed.

The officer removed the viv-root from between his lips. "Tell him the
whole sad story, Hume."

But Vye began to guess. Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, either
sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishing
process. "A set-up?"

"A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer a
little defensively. "I might as well tell the whole truth—this
didn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons for
wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the
credits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found that
L-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day
dreaming—I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as it
happens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the Masters and
told him the whole story—why I hadn't taped on the records my
discovery on Jumala.

"When he passed along the news of the L-B to the Patrol, he also
suggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I had
thought it out. That started a chain reaction. It happened that the
Patrol wanted Wass. But he was too big and slick to be caught in a
case which couldn't be broken in court. They thought that here was
just the bait he might snap at, and I was the one to offer it to him.
He could check on me, learn that I had excellent reason to do what I
said I was doing. So I went to him with my story and he liked it. We
made the plan work just as I had outlined it. And he planted Rovald on
me as a check. But I didn't know Yactisi was a plant, also."

The Patrol officer smiled. "Insurance," he waved the viv-root, "just
insurance."

"What we didn't foresee was this complicating alien trouble. You were
to be collected as the castaway, brought back to the Center and then,
once Wass was firmly enmeshed, the Patrol would blow the thing wide
open. Now we do have Wass, with your tape we'll have him for good,
subject to complete reconditioning. But we also have an X-Tee puzzle
which will keep the services busy for some time. And we would like
your tape."

Vye watched Hume narrowly. "Then you're an agent?"

Hume shook his head. "No, just what I said I am, an Out-Hunter who
happened to come into some knowledge that will assist in straightening
out a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for the
Kogan clan, but to help bring down a Veep of Wass' measure does aid in
reinstating one's self-esteem."

"This victim compensation—I
could
claim it, even though the deal
was a set-up?"

"You'll have first call on Wass' assets. He has plenty invested in
legitimate enterprises, though we'll probably never locate all his
hidden funds. But everything we can get open title to will be
impounded. Have something to do with your share?" inquired the
officer.

"Yes."

Hume was smiling subtly. He was a different man from the one Vye had
known on Jumala. "Premium for the Guild is one thousand credits down,
two thousand for training and say another for about the best field
outfit you can buy. That'll give you maybe another two or three
thousand to save for your honorable retirement."

"How did you know?" Vye began and then had to laugh in spite of
himself as Hume replied:

"I didn't. Good guess, eh? Well, zoom out your recorder, Commander. I
think you are going to have some very free speech now." He got to his
feet. "You know, the Guild has a stake in this alien discovery. We may
just find that we haven't seen the last of that valley after all,
recruit."

He was gone and Vye, eager to have the past done with, and the future
beginning, reached for the dictation mike.