service officers trained to meet the nonproven with wary disbelief.
“Bister –” Quade repeated thoughtfully. “Coll Bister. Anybody here know him?”
Dort Lancin answered first. “He rode down from the port as trail herder, “long with me and Storm. Just like the kid here tells it. Seemed just like any other drifter to me. Only I heard about apers when I was with the outfit. Seems like they captured two of them close to the end, wearing Confed uniforms and runnin’ a side show to the big muddle. Might have fouled up that whole sector if one of the messes they cooked up hadn’t been called to the attention of a section commander in time. After that mix-up a lot of the boys looked close at each other, providin’ they weren’t born and raised together in the same river valley or such! Bister didn’t come in on our ship, and he was a new light and tie with Larkin, never rode for Put before. Don’t know where he came from – except Put picked him as a hire rider along with the rest of us.”
“Guilt,” Kelson observed, “is a queer thing. Bister hated Terrans, and he was probably, as you say, afraid of you, Storm, because you were trained for a duty not unlike his own. If he hadn’t been guilty – and afraid – he wouldn’t have tipped his hand by his treatment of you. Bister is one man we are going to rope tomorrow – or rather today – and tight! If Dumaroy’s moved out, we’ll trail him. But we don’t want to tangle with the Xiks. Since they are provided with the type of weapons you report, Storm, we’ll need a Patrol ship in here to really mop up. Quade, you’ll want to collect your kid anyway – you strike in that direction, angle up with a scout party to the east. I’ll ride on with the rest of you and try to head Dumaroy off. I think we can learn a lot more by splitting –”
So they did as Kelson suggested. Quade, with Storm as a guide, and two of the settler’s riders, took the side trail after they found Dumaroy’s river bank camp deserted and indications that the Peaks settler had proceeded with his plan to trace the Norbies and his missing herd into the mountains.
Storm rode in a dreamy haze. He located his landmarks, made his calculations as to where they must avoid possible ambush. But all of that was handled mechanically by a part of him operating as a robot set to a well- defined task and keeping to the pattern of a work tape. Whether the stun ray had more lasting effects than he had supposed, the Terran could not tell. But nothing about him appeared to have much meaning. He rode beside Quade for a space and answered questions concerning his meeting with Logan, their escape from the Xiks and through the cave of the gardens, and the final disastrous attack of the yoris. Yet to the Terran the conversation was all a part of a dream. Nor was he conscious when Quade began to study him covertly as they bored farther into the wild territory of the foothills.
However much that haziness clouded his mind, it did not prevent an instant reaction to trouble when attack did come. They were in the narrow opening of that gorge leading to the valley of Gorgol’s cave entrance, riding single file as the ground demanded. Storm had perhaps five seconds of time to sound the alert. He saw that yellow-red arm move, the blue streaks of painted horns against a domed skull.
“Ahuuuuuuu!” The war cry of his people was a warning as bowstrings sang. Then the ground erupted with men about them. A numbing blow just below his shoulder almost sent Storm crashing from his saddle. His left arm hung heavy and limp as a blue-horned Norbie grabbed for his belt.
The Terran struck out with his other hand in a Commando blow but the weight of the falling native dragged him to the ground where they rolled into a pocket between two rocks. For a frenzied space of time Storm fought one-handed to keep a sword-knife from his throat. Only the fact that his first blow had practically disabled the Norbie saved his life. He brought his knee up and toppled the other off balance, rolling over again to send the Nitra senseless, sprawling out into the floor of the valley where the struggle was still in progress.
Storm struggled to his feet, only to collapse again as a stun ray clipped the side of his spinning head. He slid, bonelessly limp, behind the rocks and did not feel it when he landed full upon his wounded shoulder, driving the cruelly barbed arrowhead deeper into his flesh, snapping off its painted shaft.
Perhaps that second dose of the ray neutralized in a measure the effects of the first, for when Storm opened his eyes, he remembered clearly all that had happened just before his raying.
The bright sunlight had left the gorge and the small passage was chill, chill and very quiet. Shivering, catching his breath at the twinge in his stiff shoulder, Storm somehow dragged himself upright to lean against the small wall of rocks that had protected him. He must have been overlooked, he decided. The Nitra had not mutilated his body after their custom.
There were no bodies in the narrow way, though broken arrows, and churned earth, a splash or two of blood marked the field. Storm staggered into the open and attempted to read the trail. Bootmarks leading away – prisoners forced to walk?
Storm pressed his hand tightly over the ragged hole in his shoulder and squinted down at that mixture of hoof, boot, and Norbie tracks. With one hand out to fend him off from the walls he reeled along, heading for the garden cave.
Just how he reached the mouth of the outer doorway he could not tell. But he was there, calling softly for the two he had left behind. There was no reply out of the dark. Storm stumbled on, guided by the light seeping from the garden cavern. The doorway they had half-closed and then reopened was still unblocked. The Terran wavered in and went to his knees on the path between two flanking gardens.
“Logan!” He called weakly. “Gorgol!” He could not get to his feet again. But somewhere there was a pine tree – and green grass – and the fragrance of the hills of home. Storm wanted that as much as he wanted cool water in his throat, an end to the burning pain in his shoulder, cool green grass and the arch of pine boughs over his head.
He was crawling now, and there was an object barring his path, a yellow-red barrier. He touched the softness of flesh, saw Gorgol’s face turned up to his, the eyes closed, the mouth a little open. But the native was still alive. Storm could see the beat of a labouring pulse in a vein running beneath one of the ivory white horns. There were no visible wounds; the Norbie might have been peacefully asleep.
“Gorgol!” Storm shook him. Then raised his good hand and slapped the Norbie’s face stingingly. Until at last those eyes opened and the native stared bewildered up at him. With one hand Storm asked his question:
“Who?”
Gorgol levered himself up, both hands going to his head. He moaned softly, pressed his fingers hard over his eyes, before he used them to answer.
“I come – go find water – Head hurt – fall – sleep –”
“Rayed!” Storm looked about him. There was no Logan, Surra and Hing were missing, as were the horses.
“Nitra?” He doubted that. Would the Nitra, who could hardly be familiar with a settler’s side arm, use the ray on Gorgol?
“Nitra kill with arrows – knife –” Gorgol was signing. Then he caught sight of Storm’s wound, that inch or so of arrow shaft showing out of the ragged tear. “Nitra – that! Here?”
“Ambush – down valley –”
“Come!” Gorgol, one hand going again to his head as he arose, stooped to draw Storm up beside him. Supporting the Terran, he led him along through the maze of gardens. Until at last Storm realized that he was indeed lying on a bed of pine needles, looking up once more into the green tent of the Terran tree. Not too far away Gorgol had built a small pile of dry twigs and was now engaged in coaxing a spark from his firestone to ignite it. When a tongue of flame sent fragrant smoke curling up, the native drew his knife and passed its sharp point into the red heart of the fire.
Storm, guessing what was to come, watched those preparations grimly. They were necessary and he knew it. Logan was gone – the animals had vanished – but he must be able to carry on if they were to find either, or trace Quade’s scouts. When the Norbie came across to him, the Terran managed a stretch of the lips that curved them briefly into something still far from the smile he intended.
“Arrow stay in – bad!” Gorgol’s fingers spelled out the warning Storm did not need. “Must cut out – now.”
Storm’s good hand, moving restlessly through the carpet of needles on which he lay, closed on a small chunk of dead branch. He clenched his fingers about that in preparation.
“Go ahead!” Though Gorgol could not have understood what were to him meaningless sounds, he read the answer in Storm’s eyes. And go ahead he did.
Norbies were deft and the Terran knew that probably this was not the first time Gorgol had operated to cut out an arrowhead from some companion. But to endure the probing, skilful as it was, was hard. And Storm remembered what Logan had said about the Spartan treatment for arrow wounds and what it cost the victim. He
