knock out the outlaws but would suggest an attack by native Limbians and not betray the identity of the attackers.
Kosti circled around the foot of the cliff and took cover below the perch favoured by Mura, while Dane skimmed across the valley and climbed above eye level to a narrow ledge on which he might crouch with a pile of hastily collected ammunition.
They were not given long for such preparations, the clinking passage of the crawler echoed ahead as a warning and the three Traders took to cover as the vehicle crept into sight across the uneven terrain. It crashed through bushes until the driver slowed to a halt. His helmet com-unit must have been on, for, while his natural voice could only have been an undistinguishable murmur to those in hiding, his words were loud in their ears.
“There’s Snall’s wagon—piled up! What’s been—”
One of Rip’s guards scrambled off the crawler as if to go forward and investigate. And in that moment Mura’s arm signalled Dane to attack.
A stone thudded against the helmet of the would-be investigator, sending him off balance to clutch at the tread of the crawler for support. Dane slammed another in his direction and then aimed for the driver of the machine.
They were yelling now and Rip had come to life. Though his arms were tied behind him, he threw himself at the man to his left, his effort carrying them both to the ground beyond. The driver turned on the power of the crawler so that it ground ahead through the rain of stones the three Traders hurled at it.
One of the outlaws had pulled himself aboard again and now the other wriggled from under Rip’s body. He had his blaster in hand and he bent over Shannon with an evil grin. Then his face was smashed into a red pulp. He screamed horribly and reeled back. The one who had managed to climb aboard looked back in time to witness his fall.
“Kraner—those little beasts got Kraner! No, don’t wait to collect that Trader! If you do they’ll get us!”
The crawler kept on towards the mountains. For some reason the two on board it had not used their blasters to rake the bushes. The very unexpectedness of the attack and the loss of one of their company left them only with the thought of escape.
They rounded the length of the stranded crawler and were out of sight before Kosti crept out of hiding and went down to Rip, where Dane joined him seconds later.
Shannon lay on his side, his arms bound at a painful angle behind him, his face showing a closed eye surrounded with a dark bruise, a cut lip, raw and bloody.
“You have been to the wars,” Kosti grunted as he knelt to saw at the cords with his bush knife.
Rip’s words were mumbled as he tried to move his torn mouth. “They jumped me—I was almost to the Queen when they jumped me. They’ve the ship pinned here—some sort of ray which crashes any ship within a certain distance of the planet—”
Dane slipped an arm under Rip’s shoulders and helped him to sit up. The other gave a grunt and a muffled exclamation as he moved, one hand going to his side.
“More damages?” Kosti reached out to unseal Rip’s tunic but Shannon parried the investigating hand.
“Nothing we can fix here and now. Think I’ve cracked a rib—or maybe two. But, listen, they’ve the Queen —”
“We know. Picked up a prisoner,” Dane told him. “He was driving that crawler over there. Told us all about what’s going on here. Maybe, using him, we can make some sort of a deal. Can you walk—?”
“Yes, it might be well to withdraw,” Mura stepped down to where they were. “They had their coms on when we jumped them. It is uncertain how much of the succeeding events have been overheard by their fellows.”
Rip could walk, with support. And they got him around to their own crawler and Wilcox.
“Any sign of Kamil?” Kosti wanted to know.
“They have him all right,” Rip replied. “But I think that he’s with their main party. They have quite a few men. And they can keep the Queen here until she rusts away—if they want to.”
“So Snall here has already informed us,” Wilcox observed bleakly. “He also says that he does not know where this mysterious installation is. I’m inclined to doubt that—”
At that the bound and gagged prisoner wriggled and made muffled sounds, trying to indicate his sincerity.
“Down that valley is one way in, at least in to their major supply depot and barracks,” Rip informed them. “And the installation can’t be too far from that.”
Dane touched the wriggling Snall with the toe of his boot. “D’you suppose we could exchange this one for Ali? Or at least use him to get us into the place?”
Rip answered that. “I doubt it. They’re a pretty hard lot. Snall’s life or death wouldn’t matter much as far as they are concerned.”
And the look in those bloodshot eyes above the gag Kosti had planted, bore out that Snall agreed with that. He had little faith in assistance from his own companions unless his rescue was necessary to their preservation.
“Three of us on our feet and able to go, and two crooks,” Wilcox mused. “How many men have they in the mountains, Shannon, any idea of that?”
“Maybe a hundred. It seems to be a well organized outfit,” Rip replied dispiritedly.
“We can sit here until we starve,” Kosti broke the ensuing silence, “and that won’t get us anywhere, will it? I’d say take some chances and hope for luck. It can’t all be bad!”
“Snall could show us the way in—at least into the part he knows,” Dane said. “And we could scout around— size up the country and the odds.”
“If we could only contact the Queen!” Wilcox beat his knee with his fist.
“With the sun up—it is now—there is perhaps a way,” Mura began.
His way entailed going back to the wrecked crawler in the second valley and unscrewing a bright metal plate which backed the driver’s seat. With Dane’s help, the steward got this to the top of the cliff. And they wedged their prize at an angle until they caught the sun on its surface and flashed the light across the mile or so of rugged territory which lay between them and the ship.
Mura smiled. “This may do it. It should be as good as our torches in the night if it works. And unless those outlaws down there have eyes in the back of their skulls, it will not be seen except from control—”
But once their crude com was in place they had other preparations to make. Wilcox, Rip, Kosti and the prisoner moved from the hideout in one valley on into the other. The strange crawler was righted and found to be undamaged and ready to move. And while the other four waited Mura and Dane climbed once more to the heights where they sweated over the plate until they laboriously flashed twice over their message to the Queen.
Then there was nothing to do but stay to see if their code had been read. Only if the ship made the proper reply in action could they move.
And that answer came just as Dane had given up hope. Round ports blinked like eyes on the sides of the Queen! There was a bark of sound and smoke arose by a hidden pocket of the besiegers—the one which lay between the ship and the valley. Their message had been read, those on the ship would keep the enemy bracketed while the party in the valley made their dash for the outlaw headquarters on a desperate attempt at surprise.
They were all able to ride on this carrier, the prisoner sandwiched in between Dane and Mura, Kosti at the controls. It had what their own crawler had lacked, handholds, and they clung to these as the thing rattled along.
Dane watched the bushy slopes they passed. He had not forgotten the bogy attack. It might be true that the creatures were nocturnal. But on the other hand, once aroused, perhaps the globes might still be in hiding there, waiting to cut off any small party.
The valley curved and narrowed. Now under the jolting carrier the surface was mostly stream-bed and the water crept up to lap at the edge of the platform. There were signs here, as there had been in the valley near the ruins, that this way had been in use as a road—scratches on the rocks, tracks crushed in the gravel.
Then before them the stream became a small falls, splashing into a pool and the valley ended in a barrier cliff. Kosti jerked the gag from Snall’s mouth.
“All right,” he said in the tone of one who was not going to be put off, “what do we do to get through here, bright boy?”
Snall licked his puffed lips and glowered back. Bound and gagged as he had been, helpless as he was, he had
