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  He looked to Gorgol for enlightenment. The young Norbie had flattened himself out on an overhanging rock from which he could get the fullest view of the other native, his chin supported on the injured arm, his features impassive, but his cat-eyes very much alive. Then his lips drew flat against his teeth in the humorless grin that signified anger or batle excitement among his kind, and his other hand, resting on the rock next to the Terran, made the finger-sign for Nitra.

  Was that a hidden scout traveling alone? Or did he act as the advance ranger for a war party? Norbie custom allowed for either answer. A youngster out on a personal hunt for a warrior trophy could prospect these ranges on his own. Or a raiding party might have marked down this hidden valley and its secret herds and decided to make the Butchers their prey. From these terraces with their thick cover an ambush attack by expert bowmen could cause a good deal of trouble.

  Gorgol’s fingers moved again. “One only—”

  Though the Terran could not speak Gorgol’s language, nor the native do more than imitate the team call, Storm had discovered that he could convey information in a sketchy way, or ask a question with extravagant movements of his lips and be half-understood. He held his lenses still but turned his head to ask:

  “War party?”

  Gorgol dipped his chin and moved his head from side to side in empathic negation.

  “One only.”

  Storm longed for Surra. He could have set the dune cat to shadow that warrior, make sure in her own way that he was the only one of his kind along the terraces. Now the Terran’s own plan for trailing those three riders must be revised. Without Surra to run interference it would be folly to venture down into the lower reaches of the valley and perhaps be cut off from the pass. Yet he wanted to see where those riders were headed.

  The Terran worked his way along the small plateau, passing once more the very dead yoris, to reach the northernmost tip. There he dared to get to his feet and lean back against a rust-red finger of rock, sure that he was a part of the stone to anyone who was more than a few rods away.

  This valley was surely a wide expanse, roughly in the outline of a bottle, of which the south was the narrowest part. And the outlaws could, and probably had, camouflaged everything at ground level. He could pick out no buildings, no indication that this was anything but virgin wilderness.

  Except for that one thing planted there, stiffly upright, sending small sparks of reflected sunlight through a masking of skillfully wrought drapery, a piece of work that made Storm grant those below very full marks.

  He judged that sky-pointing length narrowly, knowing that its landing fins must now be sunk well below the surface of the meadow-land. That meant that a great amount of labor had been expended—as well as pointing to the fact that the pilot who had ridden down his ship’s tail flames into that constricted area had been a very expert one. From the appearance of the drapery it must have been some time since the ship had been landed and apparently built into the general surroundings. If he could see the thing stripped, he might be able to identify the type—though with that slender outline it was no cargo carrier—Storm believed it might be a scout or a very fast courier and supply ship, the kind a man might latch onto during the break-up immediately before surrender for a fast getaway. Whatever its kind, Storm knew that on its scarred side he would find only one symbol. But was he now spying on a secret and well-established colony, set up while the Xiks were still powerful, or just a hideaway for holdouts who had fled the order to lay down their arms?

  Gorgol came up beside him. “Nitra go—” He flicked a finger north. “Maybeso hunt for trophies—” His hand remained outspread, his gaze centered on the half-hidden ship. Then his head snapped around and his astonishment was very plain to read.

  “What?” he signed.

  “Faraway sky thing.” Storm used the native term for space ship.

  “Why here?” countered Gorgol.

  “Butchers—evil men bring—”

  Again the thin-lipped fighting grin of Norbie anger stretched Gorgol’s mouth.

  “Faraway sky thing no come Norbie land.” He strained the fingers of his right hand to join the left in making that protest. “Norbie drink blood faraway men—talk straight—swear oaths of warriors. Faraway ship thing only come one place on land—not near mountains where Those-Who-Drum-Thunder be angry! Faraway men not talk straight—here sky thing too!”

  Trouble! Storm caught the threat in this. The Norbies allowed the space port to be located well away from the mountains that to them were sacred. And the treaty that had made the settlers’ holdings safe to them allowed only that one place of landing and departure for off-world ships. To let the rumor get started that there was a second port right in the heart of their mountains would be enough to break every drink-blood tie on Arzor.

  Storm let his lenses swing from their strap, held out his hands to focus Gorgol’s attention.

  “I warrior—” He underlined that statement by drawing his index finger along the faint scar line on his shoulder. “Gorgol warrior—” With the same finger he touched the other’s bandaged forearm gently. “I get warrior scar, not from Nitra, not from other tribe like mine—I get wound fighting evil men—of that tribe!” He made a spear of his finger, stabbing the air toward the grounded space ship. “Gorgol wounded by those evil men—from there!” Again he pointed. “They are of those who eat THE MEAT—” He added the worst symbol the sign language contained.

  Gorgol’s yellow eyes held the Terran’s unblinkingly before he signed:

  “Do you swear this by Those-Who-Drum-Thunder?”

  Storm drew his knife from his belt, pushed its hilt into the Norbie’s hand and then drew it up by the blade until the point pricked the skin encircled in the necklace on his breast.

  “Let Gorgol push this home if he does not believe I speak true,” he signed slowly with his free hand.

  The Norbie drew back the knife, reversed it with a flip of his wrist and proffered the hilt to the Terran. As Storm took the blade from him, he replied, “I believe. But this—bad thing. Faraway man fight evil men his kind—or oath broken.”

  “It is so. What I can do, I shall. But first we must know more of these men—”

  Gorgol looked down into the valley. “Nitra hunts—and the night comes. In the day we can move better—you have not the eyes that see in darkness—”

  Storm knew an inward relief. If the Norbie had wanted to keep up with the scout, now it would have been hard not to agree. But this suggestion coming from the native fitted in with the Terran’s own wishes.

  “Big cat—” Storm suggested, “get well—be able to hunt Nitra while we watch evil men—”

  Gorgol agreed to that readily, having seen Surra in action. And with a last detailed examination of the concealed ship, which told him no more than he had learned earlier, Storm started back to the outer valley, to plan an active campaign.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A

  lthough it was close to dark when they returned to the outer valley, Storm set about building a screen of rocks behind which they could shelter a night fire, with Gorgol’s one-handed aid. There was, of course, the cave in which he had been imprisoned. But that was the width of the valley away. And, in addition, he shrank from experiencing again its turgid air and the faint exhalation of stale death he recalled only too vividly.

  Rain had been turned loose to graze. Should the stallion be sighted from the heights by any lurking Nitra or outlaw sentry he would be thought a stray from the destroyed Survey camp. And with Surra on guard there was no danger of a thief getting close enough to steal the mount. Perhaps he could even be used as bait in some later plan.

  Storm suggested as much to Gorgol and the Norbie agreed with enthusiasm. Such a horse as Rain was a treasure—a chief’s mount—a trophy to be flaunted in the faces of lesser men.

  “There remains the road—” Storm’s fingers moved in the firelight after they had eaten. “The path that we found today is not for herd-driving. We mu
st discover their other road—”

  “Such a way does not lie through this valley,” Gorgol answered with conviction.

  Their explorations before the flash flood seemed to confirm that. The Survey party had discovered no evidence of frawn-grazing around the mounds. Storm drew his knife and with the point began to scratch out a map of the valley as he knew it—in its relation to the outlaws’ hold. He explained as he went and the Norbie, used to his own form of war and hunting maps, followed with concentration, correcting, or questioning.

  When they had pooled their knowledge of the terrain Storm could see only one explanation for the lack of a connecting link between the valleys—save for the narrow cleft they had explored that day. There must be a way from the southeast or southwest, running between the heights that separated the two cups of lowland.

  “In dark—Nitra maybe raid—” Gorgol had been watching their handful of fire thoughtfully. “In dark Norbie see good—night raid big trick on enemy—good against Butchers.” He glanced at Storm. “You no see so good in dark—? Maybeso not. But cat—she does!”

  The Terran aroused at that half-hint for more immediate action. Norbie scouts would not hang about the outlaw camp too long. The Nitra they had sighted on watch today might well hole up for the first part of the night and then raid the horses of the Xik hideout in the early hours of the morning, a favorite trick of the natives. If a man were on the spot, then he could learn a lot in the ensuing confusion.

  However, it was a very thin chance, depending so much on luck and on factors over which Storm had no control. He had taken slim chances before and had been successful. This was like the old days. A well-remembered prickle ran along the Terran’s nerves, and he did not know it but the yellow light of the flames gave him something of the look of Surra, Surra when she crouched before taking off in deadly spring.

  “You will go.” Gorgol signed. “We shall try for the lower way now—wait then for the zamle’s hour—”

  “You too?”

  The Norbie’s thin grin was answer enough, but his fingers added:

  “Gorgol is now a warrior. This is a good trail with much honor on it. I go—seeing ahead our path—”

  They ate of the frawn meat methodically. And to that more tasty food Storm added two of the small concentrate tablets from his service days. If they had to go without food for a full day or more, they would not feel the lack.

  He gave Surra her silent orders, noting that the dune cat moved with much of her old strength and litheness, and swung Hing on his shoulder. Night exploits were not for Baku, but the Terran knew that with the coming of light the eagle would be up and questing. Should her aid be required then he could summon her.

  They reclimbed the frawn pass and came out once more upon the plateau. Surra charged forward and something half her size scuttled away from the body of the yoris, leaving a musky odor almost as strong as the hunting reptile’s stench hanging in the air. The dune cat coughed, spat angrily, plunging on into the growth below as if she must wipe that contagion from her fur.

  Storm had to admit to himself within five minutes that, had it not been for Surra and the Norbie’s excellent night sight, he would have had to call off his ambitious plan. The thick growth on the ancient terraces cut off the sky, doubled the gloom of the night. He locked hands with Gorgol, his other arm protecting Hing against his body lest she be swept from her hold by low-swinging branches. But somehow, with raw scratches on his face and the welts of lashing boughs crisscrossing his shoulders and ribs, Storm made it to the floor of the valley.

  By day he could have used the terraces for cover, and indubitably now both cat and Norbie could have taken that way with ease. But the Terran knew he must keep to the fringe of the open land or give up entirely. Luckily the frawns would bed down for the night well out in the open. Though they would gallop away from a mounted man, to meet them on foot was a different matter, as Dort and Ransford warned him during his early days on Arzor. Frawns were curious and they were hostile, especially in calving season. A man fronted by a suspicious bull and caught afoot was in acute danger.

  It was not until they were almost in line with the disguised ship that Storm saw the first light. Perhaps long immunity had made someone careless. But that prick showed clearly from the base of one huge peak whose bulk furnished the major northern wall of the second valley. And there was no mistaking the nature of that blue glare. It was cast by no fire or atom-powered lamp such as the settlers used, but was a type of installation Storm had seen before, half the galaxy away.

  Using the grounded ship as a mark point, the Terran fixed the general location of that bright dot. Then he pressed his fingers to Gorgol’s wrist, giving the Norbie’s arm a slight jerk in one of the simple signals they had agreed to use in the dark. Gorgol’s fingers tightened on his twice in assent and Storm dropped his hold, getting down to his knees, with Hing now riding crouched low on his back and Surra to act as his advance guard.

  Leaving the Norbie in the screen of bushes, the three worked their way into the open, making for the vicinity of the ship. Luckily the frawns had not grazed this section, and the rank grass grew so high that Storm had to rise from hands and knees at intervals to be sure he was on course. But he came at last to the edge of a pit.

  Under his exploring hands the earth was wet, the clay very recently disturbed. He wriggled forward until his head and shoulders projected over the drop, and aimed his torch on its lowest power into the emptiness below. He was right, the digging was recent and it was not yet finished, for only half of the soil had been cleared away from around the fins of the ship. The cruiser had been buried after it had been landed, partly to help conceal it, partly to keep it steady in a proper position for a take-off where there was no cradle to hold it. If a storm here had battered it off fin level, with no port cranes to right it, the ship would be useless scrap until it rusted away.

  But this digging now meant that it was about to be recommissioned. Storm wished he knew more about its type. He moved the torch from the nearest half-unearthed fin upward to the body. All ports were sealed. His light went back to the fins again. Had he still been able to order both Ho and Hing, a little judicious excavation under one fin to overbalance the other two, he might have caused trouble enough to spoil Xik plans. But the job below was too big for one meerkat, no matter how willing, in the limited time granted them tonight.

  Hing had plans of her own. Scrambling down from Storm’s shoulders she patted the soft earth approvingly with her digging paws and half-rolled, half-coasted down into the pit of shadows about the excavation where she went to work vigorously, snorting with disgust when Storm called her back. And she took her own time about obeying, sputtering angrily as she climbed, avoiding the Terran’s hand as he would have pulled her to him again.

  He tried to restore her good will with an order. She consented grumpily and then chirruped in a happier frame of mind as she scuttled off to the first of the net ties, digging at the stake that held it. There was just a faint chance that the tightly drawn net itself helped to steady the ship in the pit, now that the digging was in progress, and to release the main ropes could rock it off center. Any gamble was worth the effort and this was something the meerkat could do.

  Storm made his retreat to the terraces backwards, pulling up as best he could the grass he had beaten down. He could not erase all traces of his visit, but what could be done to confuse the trail he did. Surra’s paw marks threading back and over his would make a queer pattern for any tracker to unravel, since no native Arzoran creature would leave that signature.

  As Storm came back to the bushes Gorgol met him and they locked hands once more, the Norbie giving him a squeeze to indicate he had discovered a hideout. It proved to be a small hollow between two sections of terrace wall that had given way long ago under the impetus of landslips, and they crouched there together with Surra—to be joined sometime later by Hing who nudged at Storm’s arm until he accepted some treasure she was carrying in her mouth and cuddled
her to him.

  They would wait, they had decided, until dawn. If there was no disturbance engineered by the Nitra before that hour, there would be none later. Of course, the scout they had seen that afternoon might have decided that the hideout was too tough a proposition. Storm dozed, as he had learned to sleep between intervals of action, but he was halfway to his feet when a flaming ball arched across the sky—to be followed by another—and then a third.

  The first fire arrow struck on fuel and a burst of flame flashed up. Storm heard the high, frightened scream of a horse as the third ball landed. The fire was burning along a line perhaps five feet above the level of the ground—it could be following the top of some wall or corral. Wall or corral—he remembered a precaution Larkin had used on two different nights along the trail when yoris attacks were to be feared—a temporary corral topped with thornbushes to keep the scaled killers at bay. And dried thorn burned very easily.

  The shrill whinnies and squeals of the horses were answered by shouts. The distant prick of light they had spotted earlier suddenly grew into a wide slit that must mark an open door.

  Gorgol moved, scraping by Storm with a brief tap of a message on the Terran’s shoulder. The milling horses had been freed from the burning corral somehow, the thud of hoofs on the ground, as they raced from the fire, carried to the two in hiding. And the Norbie was about to take advantage of the confusion to catch a mount. The native had the stun rod and so was better prepared to defend himself in the darkness where Storm’s bow was largely useless.