The Defiant Agents Page 10

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  "Beyond this--" Menlik worked his way to the very lip of a drop, raisinga finger cautiously--"beyond this we do not go."

  "But you say that the camp of your people lies well out in the plains--"Jil-Lee was up on one knee, using the field glasses they had broughtfrom the stores of the wrecked ship. He passed them along to Travis.There was nothing to be sighted but the rippling amber waves of the tallgrasses, save for an occasional break of a copse of trees near thefoothills.

  They had reached this point in the early morning, threading through thepass, making their way across the section known to the outlaws. Fromhere they could survey the debatable land where their temporary alliesinsisted the Reds were in full control.

  The result of the conference in the south had been this uneasy alliance.From the start Travis realized that he could not hope to commit the clanto any set plan, that even to get this scouting party to come againstthe stubborn resistance of Deklay and his reactionaries was a majorachievement. There was now an opening wedge of six Apaches in thenorth.

  "Beyond this," Menlik repeated, "they keep watch and can control us withthe caller."

  "What do you think?" Travis passed the glasses to Nolan.

  If they were ever to develop a war chief, this lean man, tall for anApache and slow to speak, might fill that role. He adjusted the lensesand began a detailed study-sweep of the open territory. Then hestiffened; his mouth, below the masking of the glasses, was tight.

  "What is it?" Jil-Lee asked.

  "Riders--two ... four ... five.... Also something else--in the air."

  Menlik jerked back and grabbed at Nolan's arm, dragging him down by theweight of his body.

  "The flyer! Come back--back!" He was still pulling at Nolan, prodding atTravis with one foot, and the Apaches stared at him with amazement.

  The shaman sputtered in his own language, and then, visibly regainingcommand of himself, spoke English once more.

  "Those are hunters, and they carry a caller. Either some others haveescaped or they are determined to find our mountain camp."

  Jil-Lee looked at Travis. "You did not feel anything when the woman wasunder that spell?"

  Travis shook his head. Jil-Lee nodded and then said to the shaman: "Weshall stay here and watch. But since it is bad for you--do you go. Andwe shall meet you near this place of the towers. Agreed?"

  For a moment Menlik's face held a shadowy expression Travis tried toread. Was it resentment--resentment that he was forced to retreat whenthe others could stand their ground? Did the Tatar believe that he lostface this way? But the shaman gave a grunt of what they took as assentand slipped over the edge of the lookout point. A moment later theyheard him speaking the Mongol tongue, warning Hulagur and Lotchu, hiscompanions on the scout. Then came the clatter of pony hoofs as theyrode their mounts away.

  The Apaches settled back in the cup, which gave them a wide view overthe plains. Soon it was not necessary to use the glasses in order tosight the advancing party of hunters--five riders, four wearing Tatardress. The fifth had such an odd outline that Travis was reminded ofMenlik's sketch of the alien. Under the sharper vision of the glasses hesaw that the rider was equipped with a pack strapped between hisshoulders and a bulbous helmet covering most of his head. Highlyspecialized equipment for communication, Travis guessed.

  "That is a 'copter up above," Nolan said. "Different shape from ours."

  They had been familiar with helicopters back on Terra. Ranchers usedthem for range inspection, and all of the Apache volunteers had flown inthem. But Nolan was correct; this one possessed several unfamiliarfeatures.

  "The Tatars say they don't bring those very far into the mountains,"Jil-Lee mused. "That could explain their man on horseback; he gets inwhere they don't fly."

  Nolan fingered his bow. "If these Reds depend upon their machine tocontrol what they seek, then they may be taken by surprise----"

  "But not yet!" Travis spoke sharply. Nolan frowned at him.

  Jil-Lee chuckled. "The way is not so dark for us, younger brother, thatwe need your torch held for our feet!"

  Travis swallowed back any retort, accepting the fairness of that rebuke.He had no right to believe that he alone knew the best way of handlingthe enemy. Biting on the sourness of that realization, he lay quietlywith the others, watching the riders enter the foothills perhaps aquarter of a mile to the west.

  The helicopter was circling now over the men riding into a cut betweentwo rises. When they were lost to view, the pilot made wider casts, andTravis thought the flyer's crew were probably in communication with thehelmeted one of the quintet on the ground.

  He stirred. "They are heading for the Tatar camp, just as if they knowexactly where it is--"

  "That also may be true," Nolan replied. "What do we know of theseTatars? They have freely said that the Reds can hold them in mind ropeswhen they wish. Already they may be so bound. I say--let us go back toour own country." He added to the decisiveness of that by handingJil-Lee the glasses and sliding down from their perch.

  Travis looked at the other. In a way he could understand the wisdom ofNolan's suggestion. But he was sure that withdrawal now would onlypostpone trouble. Sooner or later the Apaches would have to standagainst the Reds, and if they could do it now while the enemy wasoccupied with trouble from the Tatars, so much the better.

  Jil-Lee was following Nolan. But something in Travis rebelled. Hewatched the circling helicopter. If it was overhanging the action areaof the horsemen, they had either reined in or were searching arelatively small section of the foothills.

  Reluctantly Travis descended to the hollow where Jil-Lee stood withNolan. Tsoay and Lupe and Rope were a little to one side as if the finalorders would come from their seniors.

  "It would be well," Jil-Lee said slowly, "if we saw what weapons theyhave. I want a closer look at the equipment of that one in the helmet.Also," he smiled straight at Nolan--"I do not think that they can detectthe presence of warriors of the People unless we will it so."

  Nolan ran a finger along the curve of his bow, shot a measuring glanceright and left at the general contours of the country.

  "There is wisdom in what you say, elder brother. Only this is a trail weshall take alone, not allowing the men with fur hats to know where wewalk." He looked pointedly in Travis' direction.

  "That is wisdom, _Ba'is'a_," Travis promptly replied, giving Nolan theold title accorded the leader of a war party. Travis was grateful forthat much of a concession.

  They swung into action, heading southeast at an angle which should bringthem across the track of the enemy hunting party. The path was theirs atlast, only moments after the passing of their quarry. None of the fiveriders was taking any precautions to cover his trail. Each moved withthe confidence of one not having to fear any attack.

  From cover the Apaches looked aloft. They could hear the faint hum ofthe helicopter. It was still circling, Tsoay reported from a highercheck point, but those circles remained close over the plains area--theriders had already passed beyond the limits of that aerial sentry.

  Three to a side, the Apaches advanced with the trail between them. Theywere carefully hidden when they caught up with the hunters. The fourTatars were grouped together; the fifth man, heavily burdened by hispack, had climbed from the saddle and was sitting on the ground, hishands busy with a flat plate which covered him from upper chest to belt.

  Now that he had a chance to see them closely, Travis noted the lack ofexpression on the broad Tatar faces. The four men were blank of eye,astride their mounts with no apparent awareness of their presentsurroundings. Then as one, their heads swung around to the helmetedleader before they dismounted and stood motionless for a long moment ina way which reminded Travis of the coyotes' attitude when theyendeavored to pass some message to him. But these men even lacked thesigns of thinking intelligence the animals had.

  The helmeted man's hand moved across his chest plate, and instantly hisfollowers came into a measure of life. One put his hand to his foreheadwith an
odd, half-dazed gesture. Another half crouched, his lipswrinkling back in a snarl. And the leader, watching him, laughed. Thenhe snapped an order, his hand poised over his control plate.

  One of the four took the horse reins, made the mounts fast to near-bybushes. Then as one they began to walk forward, the Red bringing up therear several paces behind the nearest Tatar. They were going upslope tothe crest of a small ridge.

  The Tatar who first reached the crest put his hands to cup his mouth,sent a ringing cry southward, and the faint "hu-hu-hu" echoed on and onthrough the hills.

  Either Menlik had reached the camp in time, or his people were not to beso easily enticed. For though the hunters waited for a long time, therewas no answer to that hail. At last the helmeted man called hiscaptives, bringing them sullenly down to mount and ride again--a movewhich suited the Apaches.

  They could not tell how close was the communication between the riderand the helicopter. And they were still too near the plains to attackunless it was necessary for their own protection. Travis dropped back tojoin Nolan.

  "He controls them by that plate on his chest," he said. "If we wouldtake them, we must get at that--"

  "These Tatars use lariats in fighting. Did they not rope you as a calfis roped for branding? Then why do they not so take this Red, bindinghis arms to his sides?" The suspicion in Nolan's voice was plain.

  "Perhaps in them is some conditioned control making it so that theycannot attack their rulers--"

  "I do not like this matter of machines which can play this way and thatwith minds and bodies!" flared Nolan. "A man should only _use_ a weapon,not be one!"

  Travis could agree to that. Had they by the wreck of their own ship andthe death of Ruthven, escaped just such an existence as these Tatars nowendured? If so, why? He and all the Apaches were volunteers, eager andwilling to form new world colonies. What had happened back on Terra thatthey had been so ruthlessly sent out without warning and under Redax?Another small piece of that puzzle, or maybe the heart of the wholepicture snapped into place. Had the project learned in some way of theTatar settlement on Topaz and so been forced to speed up thattranslation from late twentieth-century Americans to primitives? Thatwould explain a lot!

  Travis returned abruptly to the matter now at hand as he saw a peakahead. The party they were trailing was heading directly for the outlawhide-out. Travis hoped Menlik had warned them in time. There--that wallof cliff to his left must shelter the valley of the towers, though itwas still miles ahead. Travis did not believe the hunters would be ableto reach their goal unless they traveled at night. They might not knowof the ape-things which could menace the dark.

  But the enemy, whether he knew of such dangers or not, did not intend topress on. As the sun pulled away, leaving crevices and crannies shadowdark, the hunters stopped to make camp. The Apaches, after their customon the war trail, gathered on the heights above.

  "This Red seems to think that he shall find those he seeks sittingwaiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoayremarked.

  "It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe theyare greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking intothe arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.

  "A man with a rifle does not fear a man armed only with a stick," Traviscut in quickly. "This one is armed with a weapon which he has goodreason to believe makes him invulnerable to attack. If he rests tonight,he probably leaves his machine on guard."

  "At least we are sure of one thing," Nolan said in half agreement. "Thisone does not suspect that there are any in these hills save those he canmaster. And his machine does not work against us. Thus at dawn--" Hemade a swift gesture, and they smiled in concert.

  At dawn--the old time of attack. An Apache does not attack at night.Travis was not sure that any of them could break that old taboo andcreep down upon the camp before the coming of new light.

  But tomorrow morning they would take over this confident Red, strip himof his enslaving machine.

  Travis' head jerked. It had come as suddenly as a blow between hiseyes--to half stun him. What ... what was it? Not any physicalimpact--no, something which was dazing but still immaterial. He bracedhis whole body, awaiting its return, trying frantically to understandwhat had happened in that instant of vertigo and seeming disembodiment.Never had he experienced anything like it--or had he? Two years or moreago when he had gone through the time transfer to enter the Arizona ofthe Folsom Men some ten thousand years earlier--that moment of transferhad been something like this, a sensation of being awry in space andtime with no stable footing to be found.

  Yet he was lying here on very tangible rock and soil, and nothing abouthim in the shadow-hung landscape of Topaz had changed in the slightest.But that blow had left behind it a quivering residue of panic buried farinside him, a tender spot like an open wound.

  Travis drew a deep breath which was almost a sob, levered himself up onone elbow to stare intently down into the enemy camp. Was this someattack from the other's unknown weapon? Suddenly he was not at all surewhat might happen when the Apaches made that dawn rush.

  Jil-Lee was in station on his right. Travis must compare notes with himto be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now thanto be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave thechittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer ina cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect.

  "Did you feel something just now--in your head?" Travis found itdifficult to put that sensation into words.

  "Not so. But you did?"

  He had--of course, he had! The remains of it were still in him, thatpoint of panic. "Yes."

  "The machine?"

  "I don't know." Travis' confusion grew. It might be that he alone of theparty had been struck. If so, he could be a danger to his own kind.

  "This is not good. I think we had better hold council, away from here."Jil-Lee's whisper was the merest ghost of sound. He chirped again to beanswered from Tsoay upslope, who passed on the signal.

  The first moon was high in the sky as the Apaches gathered together.Again Travis asked his question: Had any of the others felt that oddblow? He was met by negatives.

  But Nolan had the final word: "This is not good," he echoed Jil-Lee'scomment. "If it was the Red machine at work, then we may all be sweptinto his net along with those he seeks. Perhaps the longer one remainsclose to that thing, the more influence it gains over him. We shall stayhere until dawn. If the enemy would reach the place they seek, then theymust pass below us, for that is the easiest road. Burdened with hismachine, that Red has ever taken the easiest way. So, we shall see if healso has a defense against these when they come without warning." Hetouched the arrows in his quiver.

  To kill from ambush meant that they might never learn the secret of themachine, but after his experience Travis was willing to admit thatNolan's caution was the wise way. Travis wanted no part of a secondattack like that which had shaken him so. And Nolan had not ordered ageneral retreat. It must be in the war chief's thoughts as it was inTravis' that if the machine could have an influence over Apaches, itmust cease to function.

  They set their ambush with the age-old skill the Redax had grafted intotheir memories. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

  It was an hour after dawn when Tsoay signaled that the enemy was coming,and shortly after, they heard the thud of ponies' hoofs. The first Tatarplodded into view, and by the stance of his body in the saddle, Travisknew the Red had him under full control. Two, then three Tatars passedbetween the teeth of the Apache trap. The fourth one had allowed a widergap to open between himself and his fellows.

  Then the Red leader came. His face below the bulge of the helmet was nothappy. Travis believed the man was not a horseman by inclination. TheApache set arrow to bow cord, and at the chirp from Nolan, fired inconcert with his clansmen.

  Only one of those arrows found a target. The Red's pony gave a shrillscream of pain and terror, reared, pawing at the air, toppled back,pinn
ing its shouting rider under it.

  The Red had had a defense right enough, one which had somehow deflectedthe arrows. But he neither had protection against his own awkward seatin the saddle nor the arrow which had seriously wounded the nowthreshing pony.

  Ahead the Tatars twisted and writhed, mouthed tortured cries, thendropped out of their saddles to lie limply on the ground as if thearrows aimed at the master had instead struck each to the heart.