The Defiant Agents Read online

  14

  Travis' back was braced against blanketed packs as he steadied a pieceof light-yellow bark against one bent knee scowling at the lines drawnon it in faint green.

  "We are here then ... and the ship there--" His thumb was set on onepoint of the crude map, forefinger on the other. Buck nodded.

  "That is so. Tsoay, Eskelta, Kawaykle, they watch the trails. There isthe pass, two other ways men can come on foot. But who can watch theair?"

  "The Tatars say the Reds dare not bring the 'copter into the mountains.After they first landed they lost a flyer in a tricky air-current flowup there. They have only one left and won't risk it. If only they aren'treinforced before we can move!" There it was again, that constantgnawing fear of time, time shortening into a rope to strangle them all.

  "You think that the knowledge of our ship will bring them into theopen?"

  "That--or information about the towers would be the only thingsimportant enough to pull out their experts. They could send a controlledTatar party to explore the ship, sure. But that wouldn't give them thetechnical reports they need. No, I think if they knew a wrecked WesternConfederation ship was here, it would bring them--or enough of them tolessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open. Otherwise, they canhole up forever in that ship-fort of theirs."

  "And just how do we let them know our ship is here? Send out anotherscouting party and let them be trailed back?"

  "That's our last resource." Travis continued to frown at the map. Yes,it would be possible to let the Reds sight and trail an Apache party.But there was none in the clan who were expendable. Surely there wassome other way of laying the trap with the wrecked ship for bait.Capture one of the Reds, let him escape again, having seen what theywanted him to see? Again a time-wasting business. And how long wouldthey have to wait and what risks would they take to pick up a Redprisoner?

  "If the Tatars were dependable...." Buck was thinking aloud.

  But that "if" was far too big. They could not trust the Tatars. Nomatter how much the Mongols wanted to aid in pulling down the Reds, aslong as they could be controlled by the caller they were useless. Orwere they?

  "Thought of something?" Buck must have caught Travis' change ofexpression.

  "Suppose a Tatar saw our ship and then was picked up by a Red huntingpatrol and they got the information out of him?"

  "Do you think any outlaw would volunteer to let himself be picked upagain? And if he did, wouldn't the Reds also be able to learn that hehad been set up for the trap?"

  "An escaped prisoner?" Travis suggested.

  Now Buck was plainly considering the possibilities of such a scheme. AndTravis' own spirits rose a little. The idea was full of holes, but itcould be worked out. Suppose they capture, say, Menlik, bring him hereas a prisoner, let him think they were about to kill him because of thatattack back in the foothills. Then let him escape, pursue him northwardto a point where he could be driven into the hands of the Reds? Verychancy, but it just might work. Travis was favoring a gamble now, sincehis desperate one with the duel had paid off.

  The risk he had accepted then had cost him two deep wounds, one of whichmight have been serious if Jil-Lee's project-sponsored medical traininghad not been to hand. But it had also made Travis one of the clan again,with his people willing to listen to his warning concerning the towertreasury.

  "The girl--the Tatar girl!"

  At first Travis did not understand Buck's ejaculation.

  "We get the girl," the other elaborated, "let her escape, then hunt herto where they'll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship tobegin with."

  Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for theleading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck'schoice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures.The Tatars themselves had found wives that way in the past, just as theApache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wickiups. Yes,for raiders to steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as suchby the Reds. For the same woman to endeavor to escape and be hunted byher captors also was reasonable. And for such a woman, cut off from heroutlaw kin, to eventually head back toward the Red settlement as theonly hope of evading her enemies--logical all the way!

  "She would have to be well frightened," Travis observed with reluctance.

  "That can be done for us--"

  Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certaingames out of their common past to be played with Kaydessa. But Buck hadsomething very different from old-time brutality in mind.

  "Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Deklay and Iwent back to the ship--"

  "Deklay?"

  "You beat him openly, so he must restore his honor in his own sight. Andthe council has forbidden another duel or challenge," Buck replied."Therefore he will continue to push for recognition in another way. Andnow that he has heard your story and knows we must face the Reds, notrun from them, he is eager to take the war trail--too eager. So wereturned to the ship to make another search for weapons----"

  "There were none there before except those we had...."

  "Nor now either. But we discovered something else." Buck paused andTravis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by anote in the other's voice. It was as if Buck had come upon something hecould not summon the right words to describe.

  "First," Buck continued, "there was this dead thing there, near wherewe found Dr. Ruthven. It was something like a man ... but all silveryhair----"

  "The ape-things! The ape-things from the other worlds! What else did yousee?" Travis had dropped the map. His side gave him a painful twinge ashe caught at Buck's sleeve. The bald space rovers--did they still existhere somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the patternof their own but manned by Terrans?

  "Nothing except tracks, a lot of them, in every open cabin and hole. Ithink there must have been a sizable pack of the things."

  "What killed the dead one?"

  Buck wet his lips. "I think--fear...." His voice dropped a little,almost apologetically, and Travis stared.

  "The ship is changed. Inside, there is something wrong. When you walkthe corridors your skin crawls, you think there is something behind you.You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes.... When youturn, there's nothing, nothing at all! And the higher you climb into theship, the worse it is. I tell you, Travis, never have I felt anythinglike it before!"

  "It was a ship of many dead," Travis reminded him. Had the age-oldApache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acutephobia--to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck?

  "No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it wasworst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in theRedax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but runningin a wrong way--so that it does not awaken old memories of ourancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have everhaunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I cameout of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were achild. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. Thereis an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl,were she only to stay there a very short time, would be wellfrightened--so frightened that any trained scientist examining her laterwould know there was a mystery to be explored."

  "The ape-things--could they have tried to run the Redax?" Traviswondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly purefolly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the oldcivilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent thedegenerate remnants of a once intelligent species.

  "That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out andkilled one of them. The ship is a haunted place now."

  "But for us to use the girl...." Travis had seen the logic in Buck'sfirst suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship wasas terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, eventemporarily, was still wrong.
/>   "She need not remain long. Suppose we should do this: We shall enterwith her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. Wecould run, leave her alone. When she left the ship, we could then takeup the chase, shepherding her back to the country she knows. Within theship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long."

  Travis could see a good prospect in that plan. There was one thing hewould insist on--if Kaydessa was to be in that ship, he himself would beone of the "captors." He said as much, and Buck accepted hisdetermination as final.

  They dispatched a scouting party to infiltrate the territory to thenorth, to watch and wait their chance of capture. Travis strove toregain his feet, to be ready to move when the moment came.

  Five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay thewrecked ship. With him were Jil-Lee, Lupe, and Manulito. They satisfiedthemselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Deklay;there was no sign that the ape-things had returned.

  "From here," Travis said, "the ship doesn't look too bad, almost as ifit might be able to take off again."

  "It might lift," Jil-Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve ofthe globe--"about that far. The tubes on this side are intact."

  "What would happen were the Reds to get inside and try to fly again?"Manulito wondered aloud.

  Travis was struck by a sudden idea, one perhaps just as wild as theother inspirations he had had since landing on Topaz, but one to bestudied and explored--not dismissed without consideration. Supposeenough power remained to lift the ship partially and then blow it up?With the Red technicians on board at the time.... But he was noengineer, he had no idea whether any part of the globe might or mightnot work again.

  "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 ofthe brush, stood stiff-legged in his path, facing the ship and growlingin a harsh rumble of sound. Whatever moved or operated in that wreck waspicked up by the acute sense of the coyote, even at this distance.

  "On!" Travis edged around the snarling animal. With one halting step andthen another, it followed him. There was a sharp warning yelp from thebrush, and a second coyote head appeared. Naginlta followed Travis, butNalik'ideyu refused to approach the grounded globe.

  Travis surveyed the ship closely, trying to remember the layout of itsinterior. To turn the whole sphere into a trap--was it possible? How hadAshe said the Redax worked? Something about high-frequency wavesstimulating certain brain and nerve centers.

  What if one were shielded from those rays? That tear in the side--hehimself must have climbed through that the night they crashed. And thebreak was not too far from the space lock. Near the lock was a storagecompartment. 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 pushedforward. "We do not need those suits to walk here, Travis. This air wecan breathe--"

  "Not for the air, and not in the open." Travis advanced at a deliberatepace. "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 youare not yet strong."

  Travis was forced to accede to that, waiting as Manulito and Lupeclimbed up to the tear and entered. At least Buck and Deklay'sexperience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weirdghosts haunting the interior.

  But when they returned, pulling between them the limp space suit, bothmen were pale, the shiny sheen of sweat on their foreheads, their handsshaking. 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 acare which spoke of familiarity.

  "This is unharmed," he reported. "Ready to wear."

  The suits were all tailored for size, Travis knew. And this fitted aslender, medium-sized man. It would fit him, Travis Fox. But Manulitowas already unbuckling the fastenings with practiced ease.

  "I shall try it out," he announced. And Travis, seeing the awkward climbto the entrance of the ship, had to agree that the first test should becarried out by someone more agile at the moment.

  Sealed into the suit, with the bubble helmet locked in place, the Apacheclimbed back into the globe. The only form of communication with him wasthe rope he had tied about him, and if he went above the first level, hewould have to leave that behind.

  In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along therope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, tofind it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and wasclimbing 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 appearedagain at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulitoreached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and thenstood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.

  "Well?" Travis demanded.

  "I see no ghosts," Manulito said, grinning. "This is ghost-proof!" Heslapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. "There isalso this--from what I know of these ships--some of the relays stillwork. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Redsin 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 usefulknowledge." Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. "Do you think we arejust 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 fewtricks, too. Me--? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you nolonger remember, Fox?"

  Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until thisvery minute. From the beginning, the Apache team had been carefullyselected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was theirbasic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Justas Travis' grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so hadManulito's technical training made a valuable, though different,contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smotheredthat 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 betough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?"

  "Not until after we use it on our captive," Jil-Lee decided. "Then therewould be some time before the Reds come----"

  "You talk as if they _will_ come," cut in Lupe. "How can you be sure?"

  "We can't," Travis agreed. "But we can count on this much, judging fromthe past. Once they know that there is a wrecked ship here, they will beforced to explore it. They cannot afford an enemy settlement on thisside of the mountains. That would be, according to their way ofthinking, an eternal threat."

  Jil-Lee nodded. "That is true. This is a complicated plan, yes, and onein which many things may go wrong. But it is also one which covers allthe loopholes we know of."

  With Lupe's aid Manulito crawled out of the suit. As he leaned itcarefully against a supporting rock he said:

  "I have been thinking of this treasure house in the towers. Suppose wecould find new weapons there...."

  Travis hesitated. He still shrank from the thought of opening the secretplaces behind those glowing walls, to loose a new peril.

  "If we took weapons from there and lost the fight...."
He advanced hisfirst objection and was glad to see the expression of comprehension onJil-Lee's face.

  "It would be putting the weapons straight into Red hands," the otheragreed.

  "We may have to chance it before we're through," Manulito warned."Suppose we do get some of their technicians into this trap. That isn'tgoing to open up their main defense for us. We may need a biggernutcracker than we've ever seen."

  With a return of that queasy feeling he had known in the tower, Travisknew Manulito was speaking sense. They might have to open Pandora's boxbefore the end of this campaign.