“They are not fools; a close look would tell them it is a wreck,” Jil-Lee countered.
Travis walked on. Not too far ahead a yellow-brown shape moved out of the brush, stood stiff-legged in his path, facing the ship and growling in a harsh rumble of sound. Whatever moved or operated in that wreck was picked up by the acute sense of the coyote, even at this distance.
“On!” Travis edged around the snarling animal. With one halting step and then another, it followed him. There was a sharp warning yelp from the brush, and a second coyote head appeared. Naginlta followed Travis, but Nalik’ideyu refused to approach the grounded globe.
Travis surveyed the ship closely, trying to remember the layout of its interior. To turn the whole sphere into a trap—was it possible? How had Ashe said the Redax worked? Something about high-frequency waves stimulating certain brain and nerve centers.
What if one were shielded from those rays? That tear in the side—he himself must have climbed through that the night they crashed. And the break was not too far from the space lock. Near the lock was a storage compartment. And if it had not been jammed, or its contents crushed, they might have something. He beckoned to Jil-Lee.
“Give me a hand—up there.”
“Why?”
“I want to see if the space suits are intact.”
Jil-Lee regarded Travis with open bewilderment, but Manulito pushed forward. “We do not need those suits to walk here, Travis. This air we can breathe—”
“Not for the air, and not in the open.” Travis advanced at a deliberate pace. “Those suits may be insulated in more ways than one—”
“Against a mixed-up Redax broadcast, you mean!” Jil-Lee exclaimed. “Yes, but you stay here, younger brother. This is a risky climb, and you are not yet strong.”
Travis was forced to accede to that, waiting as Manulito and Lupe climbed up to the tear and entered. At least Buck and Deklay’s experience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weird ghosts haunting the interior.
But when they returned, pulling between them the limp space suit, both men were pale, the shiny sheen of sweat on their foreheads, their hands shaking. Lupe sat down on the ground before Travis.
“Evil spirits,” he said, giving to this modern phenomenon the old name. “Truly ghosts and witches walk in there.”
Manulito had spread the suit on the ground and was examining it with a care which spoke of familiarity.
“This is unharmed,” he reported. “Ready to wear.”
The suits were all tailored for size, Travis knew. And this fitted a slender, medium-sized man. It would fit him, Travis Fox. But Manulito was already unbuckling the fastenings with practiced ease.
“I shall try it out,” he announced. And Travis, seeing the awkward climb to the entrance of the ship, had to agree that the first test should be carried out by someone more agile at the moment.
Sealed into the suit, with the bubble helmet locked in place, the Apache climbed back into the globe. The only form of communication with him was the rope he had tied about him, and if he went above the first level, he would have to leave that behind.
In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along the rope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, to find it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and was climbing to the control cabin.
They continued to wait with what patience they could muster. Naginlta, pacing up and down a good distance from the ship, whined at intervals, the warning echoed each time by his mate upslope.
“I don’t like it—” Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared again at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulito reached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and then stood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.
“Well?” Travis demanded.
“I see no ghosts,” Manulito said, grinning. “This is ghost-proof!” He slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. “There is also this—from what I know of these ships—some of the relays still work. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Reds in and then …” His hand moved in a quick upward flip.
“But we don’t know anything about the engines,” Travis replied.
“No? Listen—you, Fox, are not the only one to remember useful knowledge.” Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. “Do you think we are just the savages those big brains back at the project wished us to be? They have played a trick on us with their Redax. So, we can play a few tricks, too. Me—? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you no longer remember, Fox?”
Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until this very minute. From the beginning, the Apache team had been carefully selected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was their basic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Just as Travis’ grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so had Manulito’s technical training made a valuable, though different, contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smothered that training, perhaps the effects were now fading.
“You can do something, then?” he asked eagerly.
“I can try. There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least. And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be tough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?”
“Not until after we use it on our captive,” Jil-Lee decided. “Then there would be some time before the Reds come—”
“You talk as if they will come,” cut in Lupe. “How can you be
