The Game of Stars and Comets (26 page)

"So I fight," Rees repeated grimly. "Well, it's a good thing I know how, whether I like it or not. Listen here, Gordy, you're just tired and hungry and I know you want your mother. But we must get to Nagassara. The Crocs. . . ."

"Dad said 'Crocs' is a bad word!" Gordy's voice was shrill. "You say bad words and you tell lies and I'm not going to stay here!"

He whirled and dashed out of the doorway. Rees got to his feet and stumbled after. The persona-locks—Gordy could pass by them—leave either gate without interference. Rees must reach the child, keep him from leaving the plantation fort.

"You, you let me alone! I'm going home right now!" Gordy struggled in Isiga's grip, hitting and kicking, his voice now a scream of pure hysteria. But, as Rees had discovered earlier, the Salarika's hold was strong. And she not only continued to restrain the boy but bent over him with a soothing croon.

Her eyes met Rees' and he read reassurance in them. This was now woman's business and the Terran trusted the Salarika to handle the rebel. He must go back and hunt for the com.

He had located the unit and was seated before the call mike when she slipped in to join him.

"Gordy?"

"He has eaten, now he sleeps. Also I have put a catch on the door. But his purpose is firm. We shall have to watch him. He does not know that those of his inner court are dead?"

"No, how can you tell a child a thing like that?" Rees appealed. "I had to keep him in the roller, away from the mission. So I told him his mother and father had gone, that we would catch up with them later."

"Such evasions always lead to complications," she pointed out. "But, yes, I can understand how you found it too hard to speak the truth to a little one. Perhaps, when he wakes and is quieter, I may be able to tell him something. He is now too angry and frightened to listen."

"I suppose so. The sooner we can raise Nagassara the better!"

"There are those there who are his kin?"

"No." For the first time Rees considered Gordy's future. "No, there's no one and I don't think he even has any close kin off-world. He'll be the responsibility of the mission foundation."

"And you, you have other kin?"

"No. My father was a Survey Scout. He did not return from Rim run. Dr. Naper was my uncle."

Her green-blue eyes regarded his thoughtfully. "We heard that you sought animals in the jungle with the tamer of beasts. You did not work at the mission?"

"Hardly!" His old bitterness was sour and heavy. "Uncle Milo took me away from the Survey Academy, he was strongly opposed to the Service. But he could not make his ideas mine. So now I am neither one thing, nor another!"

"And what will you do when we reach Nagassara?"

Rees shrugged. "I don't know. Join the militia maybe. Hunt up Captain Vickery anyway. We have to get there first."

She flexed her slender fingers, casing and uncasing her claw nails, and there was a spark centering each slit pupiled eye.

"Yes, that is true, we must reach Nagassara before we can earn a future. But, Lord Rees, keep this in your mind; I am now Name-Head of a clan, a trade clan. In Nagassara you may have more than one chance. Are not Free Traders explorers too?"

Rees blinked, not really taking in the meaning of her words. Nagassara was the width of a mountain range and more away. What did any future beyond the immediate one of trying to reach there mean now?

He pressed the key of the com. The call light sparked on the board. Wrexul's personal call symbols he did not know, so he resorted to those of the mission. And such coming in on the Wrexul beam length would alert any operator at the port to the fact that this was a distress call.

Tip-tap-tock.
Rees beat out the pattern. But the plate to receiver remained obstinately blank. The com was alive, sending. Why no answer? Cold squeezed Rees' middle, added to the leaden weight fatigue had hung on his arms and shoulders. Was—was Nagassara already abandoned, had the last spacer lifted? Or had the Crocs erupted all over the planet and crushed the stronghold of the off-world government?

"No answer!" Isiga's fingers hooked, claws fully out, as if she would tear the symbols out of the plate by force. He could hear her heavy breathing through the beat of the key.

"Could—could they have gone? She put one of his fears into words as desperate moments lengthened into minutes—two—four—six . . .

"I don't see how." Rees bore down the sending key. "There may be a mountain storm, those cut the beams at times. It must be that, it has to!"

He stared at the blank mirror face of the receiver as if by the demands of will alone he could bring a responsive flash to it.
Tip—tap—tock.

"Identify!" Imperious, demanding, that single signal on the key. Two Terrans, he gave their names and place of origin; two Salariki, cut off without transportation at Wrexul's, an appeal for a robo-copter. He reeled that off, began to repeat the message with the same ragged speed.

"Naper—give name of X-Tee instructor, Survey Academy five years ago."

Rees stared blankly at the symbols on the mirror, wondering for a dread filled second or two if he had cracked under the strain, as the message had no earthly, or galactic, connection with the S.O.S. he had broadcasted. But the symbols remained there without alteration when he asked for the reason.

"This is no time to play games!" The Terran burst out, banging his fist on the edge of the panel.

"Not games, I think," Isiga said. "There is some need for them to be sure that you are who you say you are. Can it be that the snake-beasts are using coms to call out either would-be rescuers or to gain transportation into Nagassara?"

Rees relaxed. That made some sense. But Crocs using the com units that way? Only they had been armed with a force beam, too, he had to remember that. They were not just up against primitive jungle runners after all.

"X-Tee instructor—Zorkal." Luckily they had asked him to name Zorkal and not, say, the astro-math man. But Zorkal had given Rees extra instruction when he had discovered how keen the young Terran was on X-Tee.

"Set your field guide beam on C-2-59 over Y," the mirror told him, apparently satisfied now that he was Rees Naper in the flesh. "You will have to wait. There is a flash storm in Nass Pass and we can not send the Robo until that clears."

"A storm!" Isiga's voice was close to a sigh. And Rees could have echoed that sound of frustration in a far more vigorous outburst if his weariness was not so complete.

The Nass Pass could be storm blocked for minutes, hours or days. And it was very true that a robo could not fight the winds there and get through with only a ride-beam to bring it in. Rees set the guide as directed and then let his hands fall into his lap. He was literally too worn out to move. Then Isiga's warm clasp on his bowed shoulders roused him a little.

"Come eat, sleep," she purred close to his ear. "You will have time if there is a storm."

"You need rest also," Rees suggested. But he was standing up under her surprisingly strong pull, staggering to the door where she steered him.

She had found supplies left by the plantation staff, produced a meal Rees ate his way through, hardly aware of what he chewed and swallowed, or why, while she sat opposite him at the table drinking some liquid of her own choosing in delicate sips from a cup she held in both hands.

He was in the jungle clearing of Vickery's camp, facing the three walls of cages. And in each cage crouched a Croc, their snouts high, their teeth bared. The horrible stink of their hatred and anger choked him. Now the cage controls were weakening. Rees knew that without actually seeing the give of the latches. And there were no weapons at his belt, nothing but his two bare hands with which to face their charge.

To escape—to escape he must get into one of those plated bodies, see through those red eyes. But how? How did one become a Croc? Yet he must, he must!

Rees was sitting up, gasping, his heart pounding heavily within the wall of his chest. He flailed out with an arm, grazed a body which dodged that blow. Then his gaze steadied on Isiga. He must have been dreaming!

"The robo—it's here!" He got up from the bunk, ready to go.

Rees wavered. Her tone, eyes—the expression in them brought him into full wakefulness. He drew a deep breath and the air seemed to catch in his throat. That smell, that couldn't be any hazy hold over from his dream! Less heavy than the stench of his nightmare, but unmistakable for what it was. Rees whirled to face the window open above the bunk. The breeze pushed in through the sonic unchecked. It was the cool wind of early evening and the gray shadows of dusk fogged out there.

"They've come," he said in a half whisper.

Croc stink; he would never forget it as long as he was able to breathe.

"Have they shown themselves yet?" Rees' head swung back to Isiga.

"No. But that is plain that they are there." She waved a hand at the window and the wind.

"And there must be a lot of them."

"Gordy is gone."

Rees didn't take that in at once. He had been too busy listening, thinking about the force which must now ring in around the plantation fort.

"Gordy . . ." The Terran repeated absently and then the meaning of her report sank in. "How long?" he snapped.

"Zannah says only a half hour perhaps. We searched the rooms first."

Rees ran, heading for the gate, that gate through which only a Terran could pass, which should have meant their safety and escape. But which to Gordy could mean . . . No, not that—please, not that!

"Gordy!"
Rees yelled with the full force of his lungs. There was a faint echo resounding from the higher land, but no other answer. And the gate was closed.

Rees pulled up. "He could be hiding," he said to Isiga who had run along behind him. She shook her silvery head.

"We searched as I told you. Zannah also says he went to look for his mother."

The boy could be anywhere in that wall of vegetation beyond the burned strip. And with the Croc smell this strong. To try to track a missing child in the jungle which was the enemies' own hunting ground was the rankest folly.

Eye of the Spider! Rees froze. He knew, now he knew what was going to happen as clearly as if his brain did occupy one of those armored, saurian skulls, look through the red alien eyes. Gordy was a key, a key to be used to open Wrexul's.

Perhaps the Crocs had already tried to cross the barrier, found the persona-locks past their breaking. Some scout, left on sentry at one of the high points cupping in the stronghold, could have witnessed the fugitives' entrance, marked the ease with which the Terrans had passed the gate. The Ishkurians might have been just waiting for some such chance, and Gordy had given it to them!

Rees turned, began to walk back to the building at a slower pace.

"What is it?" Isiga matched her steps to his. "What is it that you have thought of?"

"Gordy, they won't harm him yet. Because he's their key to the gate!"

"The lock!" Again her voice was a hiss of anger. "They will use him to open the gate for them."

"So they must bring him back to us," Rees held to that fact which was the only one holding a fraction of hope.

"And what do we do?" she wanted to know.

"You and Zannah must wait at the 'copter park, ready if and when it comes. Maybe we can find weapons."

"No, for those I have already looked. There are none left."

"Maybe no apparent ones but I want to see what is in those store rooms." Rees headed purposefully for the windowless building he had marked down as the warehouse.

"That is time locked, I think. I could not open it."

"A lock can be shorted," he snapped.

The dusk was deepening. Night came fast here in the foothills and the darkness would provide cover for the Crocs using Gordy. Lights, they needed floods to cover the whole inner area. Wrexul possessed a flood system, the standards and lamps were in sight.

Rees set about preparing for the attack he knew was on the way. Even if the robo arrived now, they could not leave. Or he could send Isiga and Zannah. But he would have to remain until the natives moved in with Gordy. The robo could be sent back again.

The control room gave him the power of turning on the floods and Rees made a glittering day within the perimeter of the stronghold. He tried to keep his mind on what he must do, tried to forget what could happen to Gordy. But the tightness in him was a physical pain by now.

Now the store rooms! Rees, carrying tools, went to work, making the necessary adjustments to wiring, watched the portal open. Bales, boxes that were the last crop ready to be shipped, supplies from off-world. He tore open boxes, read labels with feverish haste. In the end he brought out his selected loot, rolling two bales into the open before he tore at the sacking bagging their contents.

"Oganna!" Isiga came to him. "What is it that you would do?"

"This." Rees pulled the closely packed leaves apart, the oily drops gathered on their surfaces, pasting them together so that separating them was a task. "Spread these around to wall in the 'copter park. Pile them thick."

"Yes," her eyes held the feral spark of a hunting cat's. "Yes!" She snatched up an armload of the stuff and sped away. Zannah pattered out of the shadows, her injured arm in a sling. But in the other hand, she, too, picked up a bundle of the oganna and hurried after Isiga.

The flood lights which made day about the barrier were dimmed here by building shadows. Rees did not believe any Croc watchers could be sure what the activity of the off-worlders meant. Croc eyes did not adjust well to bright light. The enemy must now be considering ways and means of putting out the floods.

He went on with his leaves, piling them up, watching Isiga and Zannah working to outline the square on their side. Only directly facing the space before the outer gate did Rees leave a break in that low wall of odorous vegetable material.

"That is the last." Isiga came to him, brushing one hand vainly against the other in a useless try to rub away the sticky oil. She saw the gap and glanced from it to Rees with sudden understanding.