Star Hunter by Andre Norton (reading fiction .TXT) 📕

“I think so. That L-B back there⁠—it made a good landing, and there are supplies missing from its lockers.”

“Which you removed⁠—” Rynch countered.

“No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we found any trace of them. Now I can guess why⁠—”

“But you Guild men were here, and you didn’t run into this!”

“I know.” Hume sounded baffled. “Not a sign then.”

Rynch threw the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against a rock. Hume balanced an object on the palm of his hand.

“Last flare!”

“What’s that? Over there?”

Rynch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the river bank, making a pattern of flickers which bore no relation to the infernal lights at the water’s edge.

Hume’s ray tube pointed skyward as he answered with a series of short bursts.

“Take cover!” The call came weirdly out over the water, the tone dehumanized. Hume cupped his mouth with one hand, shouted back:

“We’re on top⁠—no cover.”

“Then flatten down⁠—we’re blasting!”

They flattened, lay almost in each other’s arms, curled on that narrow space. Even through his closed eyelids Rynch caught the flash of vivid, man-made lightning crashing first on one side of the islet and then on the other, and sweeping every crawling horror out of life, into odorous ash. The backlash of that blast must have caught the majority of the lights also. For when Rynch and Hume cautiously sat up, they saw only a handful of widely scattered and dulling globes below.

They choked, coughed, rubbed watering eyes as the fumes from the scorched rocks wreathed up about their perch.

“Flitter with life line⁠—above you!”

That voice had come out of what should have been empty air over their heads. A gangling line trailed across their bodies, a line with a safety belt locked to it, and a second was uncoiling in a slow loop as they watched.

In unison they grabbed for those means of escape, buckled the belts about them.

“Haul away!” Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up clear of the blasted river island, as their unseen transport headed for the eastern shore.

A subdued but steady light all around him issued from stark gray walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he’d better be on the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to reduce most humans to helpless obedience.

Vye blinked again. But this wasn’t his cubby hole at the Starfall, his nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self was a wide, scaled belt and a loin cloth. Clumsy sandals shod his feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing scratches and blotched with bruises.

Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he tried to think back. Sluggishly, memory associated one picture with another.

Last night⁠—or yesterday⁠—Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And “here” was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a man named Wass. It had been Wass’ pilot in the flitter which snaked them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them.

This was a concealed, fortified camp⁠—Wass’ hideout. And he was a prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the Veep and a man named Hume.

Hume, the Out-Hunter, had shown no surprise when Wass stood up in the lamplight to greet the rescued. “I see you have been hunting.” His eyes had moved from Hume to Rynch and back again.

“Yes⁠—but that does not matter!” the Hunter had returned impatiently.

“No? Then what does?”

“This is not a free world, I have to report that. Get my civs off planet before something happens to them!”

“I thought all safari worlds were certified as free,” Wass countered.

“This one isn’t. I don’t know how or why. But that fact has to be reported and the civs lifted⁠—”

“Not so fast.” Wass’ voice had been quiet, almost gentle. “Such a report would interest the Patrol, would it not?”

“Of course⁠—” Hume began and then stopped abruptly.

Wass smiled. “You see⁠—complications already. I do not wish to explain anything to the Patrol. Nor do you either, my young friend, not when you stop to think about what might result from such explanations.”

“There wouldn’t have been any trouble if you’d kept away from Jumala.” Hume’s control had returned; both voice and manner were under tight rein. “Weren’t Rovald’s reports explicit enough to satisfy you?”

“I have risked a great deal on this project,” Wass replied. “Also, it is well from time to time for a Veep to check upon his field operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the moment we make no moves. No, Hume, your civs will have to take their chances for a time.”

“And if there is trouble?” Hume challenged him. “A report of an alien attack will bring in the Patrol quickly enough.”

“You forget Rovald,” Wass corrected. “The chance that one of your civs can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote, and Rovald will see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brodie, I see.”

“Yes.”

“No!” What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had realized the folly of his outburst the moment Wass had looked at him.

“This becomes more interesting,” the Veep had remarked with that deceptive gentleness. “You are Rynch Brodie, castaway from the Largo Drift, are you not? I trust that Out-Hunter Hume has made plain to you our concern with your welfare, Gentlehomo Brodie.”

“I’m not Brodie.” Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth