“The salkars opened a way for us—” That was Torgul.
“But we can not move a pack of those inland to the mountains,” Vistur pointed out reasonably.
Ross studied the Captain. That Torgul was groping for a plan and that it had to be a shrewd one, the Terran guessed. His respect for the Rover commander had been growing steadily since their first meeting. The cruiser-raiders had always been captained by the most daring men of the Rover clans. But Ross was also certain that a successful cruiser commander must possess a levelheaded leaven of intelligence and be a strategist of parts.
The Hawaikan force needed a key which would open the Baldy base as the salkars had opened the lagoon. And all they had to aid them was a handful of facts gained from their prisoners.
Oddly enough the picklock to the captives’ minds had been produced by the dolphins. Just as Tino-rau and Taua had formed a bridge of communication between the Terran and Loketh, so did they read and translate the thoughts of the galactic invaders. For the Baldies, among their own kind, were telepathic, vocalizing only to give orders to inferiors.
Their capture by these primitive “inferiors” had delivered the first shock, and the mind-probes of the dolphins had sent the “supermen” close to the edge of sanity. To accept an animal form as an equal had been shattering.
But the star men’s thoughts and memories had been winnowed at last and the result spread before this impromptu council. Rovers and Terrans were briefed on the invaders’ master plan for taking over a world. Why they desired to do so even the dolphins had not been able to discover; perhaps they themselves had not been told by their superiors.
It was a plan almost contemptuous in its simplicity, as if the galactic force had no reason to fear effective opposition. Except in one direction—one single direction.
Ross’s fingers tightened on the shell cup. Had Torgul reached that conclusion yet, the belief that the Foanna could be their key? If so, they might be able to achieve their separate purposes in one action.
“It would seem that they are wary of the Foanna,” he suggested, alert to any telltale response from Torgul. But it was Jazia who answered the Terran’s half question.
“The Foanna have a powerful magic; they can order wind and wave, man and creature—if so be their will. Well might these killers fear the Foanna!”
“Yet now they move against them,” Ross pointed out, still eyeing Torgul.
The Captain’s reply was a small, quiet smile.
“Not directly, as you have heard. It is all a part of their plan to set one of us against the other, letting us fight many small wars and so use up our men while they take no risks. They wait the day when we shall be exhausted and then they will reveal themselves to claim all they wish. So today they stir up trouble between the Wreckers and the Foanna, knowing that the Foanna are few. Also they strive in turn to anger us by raids, allowing us to believe that either the Wreckers or Foanna have attacked. Thus—” he held up his left thumb, made a pincers of right thumb and forefinger to close upon it, “they hope to catch the Foanna, between Wreckers and Rovers. Because the Foanna are those they reckon the most dangerous they move against them now, using us and weakening our forces into the bargain. A plan which is clever, but the plan of men who do not like to fight with their own blades.”
“They are worse than the coast scum, these cowards!” Ongal spat.
Torgul smiled again. “That is what they believe we will say, kinsman, and so underrate them. By our customs, yes, they are cowards. But what care they for our judgments? Did we think of the salkars when we used them to force the lagoon? No, they were only beasts to be our tools. So now it is the same with us, except that we know what they intend. And we shall not be such obedient tools. If the Foanna are our answer, then—” He paused, gazing into his cup as if he could read some shadowy future there.
“If the Foanna are the answer, then what?” Ross pushed.
“Instead of fighting the Foanna, we must warm, cherish, try to ally ourselves with them. And do all that while we still have time!”
“Just how do we do these things?” demanded Ongal. “The Foanna you would warn, cherish, claim as allies, are already our enemies. Were we not on the way to force their sea gate only days ago? There is no chance of seeking peace now. And have the finned ones not learned from the women-killers that already there is an army of Wreckers camped about the citadel to which these sons of the Shadow plan to lend certain weapons? Do we throw away three cruisers—all we have left—in a hopeless fight? Such is the council of one struck by loss of wits.”
“There is a way—my way,” Ross seized the opening. “In the Foanna citadel is my sword-lord, to whose service I am vowed. We were on our way to attempt his freeing when your ship picked us out of the waves. He is learned beyond me in the dealing with strange peoples, and if the Foanna are as clever as you say, they will already have discovered that he is not just a slave they claimed from Lord Zahur.”
There it was in the open, his own somewhat tattered hope that Ashe had been able to impress his captors with his knowledge and potential. Trained to act as contact man with other races, there was a chance that Gordon had saved himself from whatever fate had been planned for the prisoners the Foanna had claimed. If that happened, Ashe could be their opening wedge in the Foanna stronghold.
“This also I know: That which guards the gate—which turns your minds whirling and sent you back from your raid—does not affect me. I may be able
