Time Traders (40 page)

They could be fruit, seeds, a form of grain. Oddly enough, Travis was sure they were food of a sort. And plainly, too, they were an offering—a gesture of friendship—an overture on the part of the blue flyers. Why? For what purpose?

"You didn't see a flyer leave it?" questioned Ashe.

"No. I went to the port—and there it was."

One of the seed things had dropped out of the packet, rolled across the table. Travis put a fingertip to it and the globe promptly burst as an over-ripe grape does when pressed. Without thinking, he raised his sticky finger to his mouth. The taste was tart, yet sweet, with the fresh cleanness of mint or some similar herb.

"Now you've done it," observed Ross. "Well, we can watch while you break out in purple spots, or turn all green and shrivel up." His words were delivered in his usual amused tone, but there was a heat beneath that Travis did not understand. Unless once more Ross believed the Apache had taken too much on himself in that unthinking experiment.

"Good flavor," he returned with stolid defiance. And deliberately he chose another, transferring it to his mouth and breaking the skin with his teeth. The berry, or seed, or whatever it was, did not satisfy his desire for fresh meat, but it was not a concentrate or something out of one of the aliens' cans and the taste was good.

"That is enough!" Ashe swept up the leaf bag and its contents. "We'll have no more unnecessary chances taken."

But when Travis experienced no ill effects from his sampling, they shared out the rest of the gift at the evening meal, relishing the flavor after their weeks of the ship's supplies.

"Maybe we can trade for some more of these," Ross had begun almost idly. Then he gave a start and sat straighter in the uncomfortable mess seat.

Ashe laughed. "I wondered just when that possibility was going to dawn on you."

Ross grinned. "You may well ask. You'd think nothing stuck long between my ears, wouldn't you? All right—so we set up as traders again. I never did get a good chance to try out my techniques when we were on the Beaker run—too many interruptions."

Travis waited patiently for them to explain. This was another of those times when their shared experiences from the past shut him out, to remind him that only chance had brought him into this adventure, after all.

"There ought to be some things among all that stuff we routed out to study which should attract attention." Ross wriggled around Ashe to leave the mess cabin. "I'll see."

"Trade, eh?" Renfry nodded. "Heard how you boys on the time runs play that angle."

"It's a good cover, one of the best there is. A trader moves around without question in a primitive world. Any little strangeness in his speech, his customs, his dress, can be legitimately accounted for by his profession. He is supposed to come from a distance, his contacts don't expect him to be like their fellow tribesmen. And a trader picks up news quickly. Yes, trade was a cover the project used from the first."

"You were a trader, back in time?" Travis asked.

Ashe appeared willing enough to talk of his previous ventures. "D'you ever hear of the Beaker Folk? There
were
traders for you—had their stations from Greece to Scotland during the early Bronze Age. That was my cover, in early Britain, and again in the Baltic. You can really be fascinated by such a business. My first partner might have retired a millionaire—or that period's equivalent to one." Ashe paused, his face closing up again, but Travis asked another question.

"Why didn't he?"

"The Russians located our station in that era. Blew it up. And themselves into the bargain because they gave us our fix on their own post when they did that." He might have been discussing some dry fact in a report—until you saw his eyes.

Travis knew that Ross was dangerous. He thought now that Ashe probably could surpass his young subordinate in ruthless action, was there any need to do so. Ross came back, his hands full. He set out his selections for their appraisal.

There was a length of material—perhaps intended for a scarf—which they had found in one of the crew lockers. A small thread of a vivid purple barred the green length, both colors bright enough to rivet attention. Then there were four pieces of carved wood, a coral-shaded wood with flecks of gold. They were stylized representations of fern fronds or feathers, as far as the humans could tell, and Ashe believed they might be part of some game, though playing board and other pieces had not been located. Lastly was the plaque which could so mysteriously reproduce a picture of home for the one holding it. That Ashe pushed aside with a shake of his head.

"That's too important. We needn't be too generous the first time, anyway. After all, we've only a small offering to top. Try the scarf and two of these."

"Put them in the port?" Ross asked.

"I'd say no. No use encouraging visitors. Use your judgment in picking out some place below."

Ashe might have told Ross to take the initiative in that venture, but he followed him out. Travis, his leg having given him a sudden severe twinge, retired to his bunk, to try out the healing properties that resting pad had to offer in the circumstances. He stripped off his suit, stretched out with a grimace or two, and relaxed.

He must have gone to sleep under the narcotic influence of the healing jelly which seeped out and over him, triggered by his need. When he roused, it was to find Ross pulling at him.

"What's the matter?"

Ross allowed him no time for protest. "Ashe's gone!" His face might be schooled and impassive, but twin cold devils looked out of his eyes.

"Gone?" The drowsiness induced by the healing of the bunk did not make quick thinking easy. "Gone where?"

"That's what we have to find out. Get moving!"

Travis, his bruises and aches gone, dressed and buckled the arms belt Ross pushed into his hands. "Let's have the story."

Ross was already in the corridor, every line of his taut body expressing his impatience.

"We were out there—fixed up a trading stone. There were a couple of flyers watching us and we waited to see if they would come down. When they didn't, Ashe said we had better take cover, as if we were going on to the buildings. Ashe detoured around a fallen tree—I saw him go. I tell you—I saw him! Then he wasn't there—or anywhere!" Ross was clearly shaken well out of his cultivated imperviousness.

"A ground trap?" Travis gave the first answer probable as he followed Ross to the air lock. Renfry was there making fast two lengths of silky cord barely coarser than knitting yarn but which, as they had discovered earlier, was surprisingly strong. Thus hitched to the ship, they could prowl the vicinity and yet leave a guide to their whereabouts.

"I crawled over that ground inch by inch," Ross said between set teeth. "Not so much as a worm or ant hole showing. He was there one minute—the next he wasn't!"

Making fast their lines and leaving Renfry as lookout, they descended into the trampled and blasted area about the globe where the green was now withering under a late afternoon sun. Darkness would complicate their search. They had better move swiftly, find some clue before they were hampered further.

Ross took the lead, balancing along a fallen tree trunk to its crown of dropping fern fronds, now crushed and broken. "He was right here."

Travis swung down into the crushed foliage. The sharp smell of sticky sap, as well as the heavy scents of flowers and leaves, was cloying. But Ross was right. The vegetation on the ground had been pulled away in a wide sweep, and there was no sign that the dank earth beneath had been disturbed. He sighted a round-toed track, but it was twin to the ones he was leaving in the mold and could have been pressed there by either Ashe or Ross. But, because it was the only possible trace, he turned in the direction it pointed.

A moment or two later, at the very edge of the clearing Ross had made during his search, Travis saw something else. There was another tree trunk lying there, the remains of a true forest giant. And it had not been brought down by the landing of the ship, but had lain there long enough for soil and fallen leaves to build up around it, to grow a skin of red-capped moss or fungi.

Across that moss there were now two dark marks, ragged scars, suggesting that someone or something had clawed for a desperate hold against irresistible force. Ashe? But how had he been captured without Ross's seeing or hearing his struggles?

Travis vaulted the tree trunk. There was his confirmation—another footprint deep in the mold. But beyond it—nothing—absolutely nothing! And no living creature could have continued along that stretch of soft earth without leaving a trace. From this point it did appear that Ashe had vanished into thin air.

Air! Not on the ground but above it was where they would have to search. Travis called to Ross. There were tall trees about them now, trees with twenty feet or more of smooth bole before their first fern branches broke from the trunks. The wind rustled here, but they could sight no movement that was not normal, hear no sounds aloft.

Then one of the blue flyers came along, hovering over Travis, watching him with all four of its stalked eyes. The flyers—had they taken Ashe? He couldn't believe that. A man of Ashe's weight and strength, undoubtedly struggling hard into the bargain—at least the scraping on the moss suggested that—could not have been airborne unless by a large flock of the blue creatures working together. But the Apache believed as completely as if he had witnessed it, that Ashe had been taken away either through the air or along a road of treetops.

"How did they get him up?" Ross puzzled. He appeared willing to accept Travis' idea, but the Apache, in turn, was forced to agree such a maneuver would be difficult. "And getting up," the time agent continued, "where in the world did they take him?"

"This lies in the opposite direction from the three nearest buildings," Travis pointed out. "To transport a prisoner might force them to travel in a direct line to their own quarters—speed would matter more than concealment."

"Which means a direct strike out into the jungle." Ross eyed the wilderness of trees, vines and brush with disfavor. "Well, there's one little trick—let me have your belt. This was something they showed us in basic training—good old basic." He took Travis' belt, made it fast to his own, increasing its expansion to the last hole before he measured it about the tree. But the girth of the bole was too great. Ross untied his cord connection with the ship, slashed off a length to incorporate in the circle of belts. This time it served, linking him to the bole. With the belt to support him, he hitched up the trunk which overhung the signs of struggle.

The fronds shook as he forced his way between them. "Here's your clue," he called down. "There's been a rope strung about this limb—worn a groove in the bark. And—Well, well, well—they're not so bright, after all—or they don't think we are. Here's a way to travel, all right—by the upper reaches. Come and see!"

A line made of cord and belts slapped down the trunk and Travis caught at it, making the climb with less agility than Ross had shown, to join the other at his perch among the fronds. He found the agent folding up between his hands another rope, a supple green one which aped the vines native to this aerial place.

"You do a Tarzan act." Ross flipped the rope end for emphasis. "Swing over to that tree, probably find another rope end there—and so on. I still don't see how they boosted Ashe along. Though"—his eyes narrowed—"maybe they waited to go until I went back to the ship for you."

Travis eyed the rope. "Leaving that here means one thing—"

"That they intend to return?" Ross nodded. "They may have some bright plans about scooping us up one by one. But who are `they'? Not those blue flyers . . ."

"Those might act as their hounds." Travis tried not to glance at the ground, for his present perch inspired little confidence in him.

"And that fruit present was bait for a trap," Ross agreed. "It fits. The fruit to get us out of the ship, the flyers to report when we came. Then—pounce!—one of us is snaffled! Only Ashe isn't going to stay a prisoner."

"This could be a trap, too," Travis reminded him as he gave the rope a jerk and discovered Ross had been right, the line was very firmly attached to its tree anchorage.

"True enough. But we'll find some way."

"At night?" The sun was close to setting. Travis wanted to be on the trail just as much as Ross, but common sense would pay off better than a reckless dash to the rescue.

"Night—" Ross squinted at the patches of sunlight. "These things move around in the daytime. And they're used to heights."

"Which suggests there may be good reasons for not travelling on the ground or in the dark." Travis was growing a little tired of talking. "Our friend in the red house may be one of those reasons. What is your solution?"

"We go back to the domed place—up to the top. There is a balcony around the dome itself, and we can take our bearings from there."

Travis could agree with that. But they had to argue down the protests of Renfry. The technician's demands to accompany them Ross was able to overcome by pointing out crisply that alone of their party Renfry possessed the knowledge, or fraction of knowledge, which might mean their eventual control of the ship, and so of their future. And the need for a scouting party before dark urged the necessity of speed in their try to locate landmarks which might guide them on a hunt for Ashe.

They trod the path they had cut that morning. Travis glanced now and then at the sky when they crossed small glades. He half expected to find the blue flyers on the lookout. But none appeared.

Ross took the inner ramp under the dome at a rapid trot. His pace, however, slowed as they wound their way up past five levels, then six, seven, eight, nine and finally ten. There was no sound in the building, nothing to break the echoing emptiness of the fantastically beautiful shell.

They reached the balcony, a narrow walk curving completely around the bulk of the dome, protected by a breast-high parapet of the carved lace. The wind, now rising in intensity, pulled at their hair, sang weirdly through the openwork. Ross took the lead. He hurried to the vantage point from which they could obtain an unrestricted view in the direction they thought Ashe's captors had headed.