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  On the other hand—Troy’s thoughts readjusted quickly—the colorless man’s chosen hobby was an excellent cover for a connection between him and the shop, a connection above suspicion, since Dragur’s enthusiasm concerning his pet monsters in their globes and aquariums had not been feigned; Troy would swear to that. His only objection to this new revelation was the character of the man himself. He simply could not visualize Dragur as the mastermind behind anything but fussy details of Korwarian bureaucracy.

  Troy’s ears caught the faint plop-plop of water slapping in a bowl as some inhabitant of the marine zoo moved, and he tried to remember how the room had been laid out at the time of his first visit there.

  “Here is your man, Citizen, safe and in one piece.” That was his guard reporting.

  “Most commendable,” Dragur’s slightly high-pitched voice replied. “But I understand that the shipment is not complete. We were to have a complete shipment, Guildsman, complete.”

  “You shall have to ask this one what he did with the others, Citizen. The Big Man will settle with you on the deal. Give me the delivery release.”

  “Your Big Man shall also make an adjustment on the fee,” Dragur snapped. “I bargained for a complete shipment. No release until that matter is settled.”

  “The Big Man will not feel kindly about that, Citizen.” This was no threat, just a statement of fact, a fact to be accepted when the Guild made it clear.

  “Oh, he will not? Well, I share his disappointment!” Dragur actually giggled. “You may tell him that as soon as you wish.”

  “No release, no delivery.” The grip on Troy tightened.

  “And you think you may march out of here, taking him with you?”

  There was a long moment of silence. Troy tried to imagine what might be happening that he could not see.

  “Where did you get that?” his guard asked slowly.

  “I do not ask questions about the source of your equipment, do I?” countered Dragur. “Now you will remove your hands from my shipment and you will withdraw to your flitter. You have my permission, however, to communicate with your Big Man if you wish. I do not know whether he suffers bungling with patience or not. His reaction to your report you are better able to gauge than I. But you may mention to him, as a mitigating point, that a profitable relationship between ourselves may not be at an end, providing, of course, that we come to an equitable agreement now. I will also indicate that I have contracted for a time guardianship with your organization and that still has several hours to run. I am not in any way breaking contract.”

  The hand fell away from Troy. With the grunt of a baffled man who had been outmaneuvered, the guard moved from his side, and a moment later a door panel opened and closed. Troy heard Dragur laugh again.

  “He will beam in his Big Man as soon as he thinks matters over. Better get a rating now than a burn later for not reporting.”

  “The Guildsmen like their credits.” Zul spoke for the first time.

  “But of course, do not all of us? On the other hand their continuing in business—at least the continuance of this particular branch of their business—depends also on a certain integrity. If they promise a shipment in full and deliver only part, then they have broken contract and must take the consequences. But that is a matter to be taken under advisement later. Now, Zul, let us make our visitor more comfortable.”

  Fingers pulled at the cords about Troy’s wrists. His arms fell to his sides and then he rubbed his hands together. Another tug and the blindfold was a loop about his throat. He was blinking, dazzled by the light, subdued as it was, in the room.

  “A most energetic young man—”

  Troy centered his attention on the speaker. Dragur sat there in a most unusual chair. A tall glass slab formed the back, and in it swam with oily ease one of the miniature nightmare monsters, coming to the fore now and then as if peering over its master’s shoulder, or to whisper through the transparent pane into his ear. Similar aquariums on either side, one holding carnivorous dorch crabs and the other a tramjan reef snake, served as armrests. The lid of the crab container was up, and from time to time Dragur tossed in small wriggling creatures to satisfy his pets’ hunger. As an arrangement designed to make the onlooker both queasy and disinclined to argue with its owner, it was extremely successful.

  But across Dragur’s sharp-boned knees there also rested a nerve needler. And, seeing that, Troy could well understand the quick and almost fearful withdrawal of the Guildsman.

  “You must be tired,” Dragur continued in his high, fussy voice. “So much traveling and most of it under what might be termed uncomfortable conditions. Zul, provide Horan with a seat. There is no need for you to be uncomfortable here. No—I believe in comfort. Ehh—that is it, my pretty! Jump!” He was dangling a tidbit over the crab cage. “Did you note that, my boy? Such energy, such spirit! One could not believe that a crab could actually leap, now, could one? I have discovered that many things will cause a crab, or an animal, or a man, to exert himself far past the powers one believes that nature endows him with at birth. Many things—”

  “Such as a needler?”

  Zul had brought a chair, not one furnished with attendant monster cages, Troy was pleased to note, and he sat down.

  “A most crude stimulant to endeavor, only to be used in special cases and under special conditions. No, the action obtained under threat of punishment or death cannot be depended upon for any length of time. Just as torture is an expedient to be tried only by the unimaginative. A man will admit anything to save himself from pain when his breaking point has been found. Needlers have their places. I prefer more attractive methods.”

  “Such as?” Troy tried not to watch a second exhibition of profitable greed in the crab cage.

  “Such as—” But whatever Dragur was about to say was silenced by a low buzz.

  Zul, blaster in hand, sped across the room and vanished through an inner door. Dragur raised the needler so that the spray barrel sighted on Troy.

  “Perhaps I am wrong,” he said in a voice that was this time neither high nor fussy. “This may be an occasion for the cruder settlement after all. Sit where you are, Horan. The slightest move will compel me to press the trigger on this, and I think you know the results of such an action. I will also be compelled to do the same at any vocal warning from your direction. If we do have an unfriendly visitor on the way, he will encounter some surprises.” With his other hand Dragur snapped down the lid of the crab cage, and in the quiet only the noises of the aquarium dwellers could be heard.

  Then there was the sound of a scuffle, followed by a thud. Dragur, Troy noted, did not turn his head in that direction; his full attention was still fixed on his prisoner.

  “An intruder indeed.” The agent’s voice was now hardly more than a whisper. “And I believe that he has fallen into one of our amusing little traps. We shall soon know.”

  They did. Zul led the small procession. Behind him stumbled a man who wove about on rubbery legs, the normal gait of one who has taken a half jolt from a stunner in the motor nerves. And holding him erect and on course was the same Guildsman who had explored the flitter when Troy had been a captive to the pinner beam in the Wild. But it was the identity of the prisoner that startled Troy. Rerne!

  Just as he had not expected to find the ranger in his trap in the cavern of the Ruhkarv, so he had not foreseen his arrival not only in Tikil but in this particular house.

  Dragur surveyed the new captive.

  “Greetings to the noble Hunter.” He used the exaggerated phrase demanded by formal society with a sardonic inflection. “Not that I quite understand why one of the Clans should be moved to enter my modest home by the rear entrance and that without invitation from me. Zul, a chair for our new guest, please. We are becoming quite crowded here, are we not? So you—” He watched the Guildsman slide Rerne onto the seat of the chair Zul drew forward. “You might as well retire, guard. Be sure I shall inform your Big Man of your alert and most appreciated services
. I trust, Hunter Rerne,” he said to the new captive, “your head is sufficiently clear for you to note and be duly apprehensive of this importation of mine.” The needler lifted a fraction of an inch and then went back into a new position, one that would share its deadly and agonizing spray between his prisoners.

  “These interruptions quite put one off.” Dragur shook his head. “We were in the midst of a most serious conversation, Hunter.”

  “Then I ask pardon for the disturbance.” Again the formal words. Save for his loss of control over his muscles, it would appear that Rerne had not been stun-beamed to the point where he suffered too much.

  “Most gracious of you, noble Hunter. Time presses or we could resume our conference later and in more privacy, Horan. But you have no ties with the Clans. Or have you? This sodden and unheralded arrival of the noble Hunter is provocative.”

  His head slightly atilt, Dragur looked speculatively from Troy to Rerne and back again.

  The ranger turned a countenance of blank courtesy to his captor as he replied, “Your men left a trail that was easy enough to follow, Citizen. When a trace of that sort leads from the Wild to Tikil, we are interested.”

  “Interested!” Dragur repeated that word as if he would wring more than one fine shade of meaning from it. His attention returned to Troy, and the latter had his own reply ready. He did not know why Rerne had followed him here, but he was not going to be drawn into any business of the Clans.

  “I have no ties with the Wild.” And the emphasis he put on the statement made it sound unduly harsh in that crowded room.

  “And I shall accept that assurance, Horan. It is easy to believe that you do not have much sympathy for any authority on Korwar.”

  “And I am not a Guildsman.”

  “Have I suggested such a thing?” Dragur demanded. “I merely comment upon certain unpleasant facts of life. You surely cannot nurse any fondness for the Dipple, nor accordingly for the laws that have confined you there. On the other hand”—his fingers moved to one of the seam pockets of his tunic, came out to display a white card—“this is your permission to leave this world.”

  “Going where?”

  “Norden.”

  The answer was so unexpected that Troy was as shocked as if he had met a needler face on. Then caution, learned painfully through the years, took cool control of his brain again. He hoped he had given no outward sign of his shock and surprise, knowing that Dragur was perhaps the most dangerous man he had ever faced—not because of the outlawed off-world weapon he now held across his knees, but because he did not really have to use it. The agent was right; there were other ways to bend a man to his will, and he had just produced an effective one to level Troy Horan.

  “Why?” Troy came out with the question flatly.

  “Let us say that I have—”

  “A tidbit for a crab to jump for?” Troy countered. He was afraid, afraid with a different sort of chill than that which had seeped along his backbone when he had faced the needler.

  “A tidbit, just so. Norden is now under the jurisdiction of the Confederation. The Horan holding there was, I believe, the Valley of the Frost Range—a good-sized range—a very fruitful one. There was the stockade of the Home Place, and five out-towers, a fruit setting, and an excellent stand of skinwood in the heights. Quite a pleasant little kingdom of your own, Range Master Horan, was it not? Your family and their riders must have been practically self-sufficient. Such a pity—less than a century to grow and all swept away by the arbitrary orders of one man with his mind on a war that did not even come near that planet. Commander Di was impulsive, a little too firm a believer in his own edicts.

  “I fear you will have to do some reorganizing and start from the beginning along some lines. The tupan have run wild. But a roundup should bring them under brand control again. And you will be permitted to recruit your own riders, as well as be given all possible assistance from Confederation officers.”

  “Promising quite a lot, are you not, Citizen?” Troy kept as tight a control over his emotions as he could. Every one of Dragur’s words had been a whip laid on sensitive skin. He dared not believe that there was a fraction of truth in the offer, dared not for the sake of his own equilibrium of heart and mind.

  “I am promising nothing that I cannot deliver. Range Master Horan.” And in that moment Troy was forced to believe him.

  “Korwar is a Council planet.” Troy hedged, tried to test his assurance from another angle.

  “Which again means nothing—to me.” And once more his tone and the will behind it carried conviction.

  “And in return for Norden what do you ask?”

  “A small task successfully performed—by you, Range Master. It seems by some quirk of fate you alone now on this world are able to communicate with some runaway servants of mine. I want them back, and you can get them for me.”

  That was it: produce the animals—and get Norden. Norden and everything his father had held ten years ago! Simple and deadly as that.

  “They must be very special, these servants of yours,” Rerne cut in.

  “Indeed, noble Hunter, as you already know. Their breeding is the result of many years of research and experimentation. They are the only ones of their species—”

  “On Korwar.” Rerne’s words were not a question, but a statement that carried both force and meaning. Troy caught the inference. Yes, the five he had left in the Wild might be the only ones of their species on Korwar. And yet in other places, other solar systems, similar tools were being employed by Confederation agents.

  Dragur shifted slightly in the weird chair. “What happens on other planets is none of my concern, noble Hunter, nor the Clans’. In fact I will assure you that once my servants are returned to me, there shall be no cause to fear any more activity of this type on Korwar. The experiment, due to the human element here, has been a failure. We shall admit defeat and withdraw.”

  And that, too, Troy believed.

  “And the animals themselves?”

  “Are now expendable. I do not think that you will hesitate for a moment to weigh the lives of five animals against your return to Norden, will you, Range Master?”

  Troy’s tongue tip wet his dry lips. He had to use all his will power to fight shivers running along arms and legs.

  “You cannot be sure I can bring them in.”

  “No, but you are the only contact with them. And I think my crab will jump with all his energy for this tidbit, do you not agree?”

  “Yes!” Troy’s answer came in a harsh explosion of breath. “Yes, I do!” He saw, from the corner of his eye, Rerne’s head turn in his direction, a flash of surprise deepen to bleak distaste on the ranger’s face. But Rerne’s opinion of him could not matter now. He must keep thinking of the future. Dragur was so right; this crab was willing to jump—very high!

  “So!” The agent spoke to Rerne now. “You see how simply matters can be arranged. There is no need for Clan interference—or their hope to have a hand in this. I take it, Range Master, that the animals still are in the Wild?”

  “They left the flitter for the woods just before your men slapped that pinner on me.”

  “How easy to understand once one knows the facts. Very well, we need have no worries now. You, noble Hunter, shall be our passport to the Wild. A happy chance brought you here in time. One might almost begin to believe in the ancient superstitions regarding a personified form of Fate that could favor or strike adversely at a man. We shall be a hunting party, just Zul and I, you, noble Hunter, Range Master Horan, and my Guildsman. And if all goes well, we shall have this matter decided before nightfall tomorrow. I am sure we are all sensible men here and there will be no trouble.” He raised the needler.

  Troy was not sure Rerne noted that warning gesture. When the ranger replied, his voice was remote.

  “There is no argument, Citizen. I am at your service.”

  “But, of course, noble Hunter, did I not say you would be? And now we shall go.”

 
; EIGHTEEN

  Troy had no idea how far into the Wild they had penetrated. As Dragur had foreseen, Rerne talked them safely through the Clan patrols. Dawn came and mellowed into day, the day sped west as they bore east. Troy put his head back against the cabin walls, closed his eyes, but not to sleep.

  His right hand braceleted his left wrist, moving around and around on the smooth, cool surface of the band he had involuntarily worn out of Ruhkarv, until that movement fell into rhythm with his reaching thoughts.

  The flitter moved at top speed, but surely thought could thrust farther and faster than any machine. He tried to call up a sharp picture of that tongue of woodland into which the animals had fled—was it hours, or days, ago? Simba, if he could contact Simba! If he could persuade the cat, and through him the others, to come back to that meeting point, be waiting there—

  Norden—No, he must not think of Norden now, of how it would be to ride free once more down the valley. With a wrench of thought that was close to physical pain, Troy crushed down memory and dreams born of that memory. He must concentrate with every part of him, mental and physical, on the job at hand.

  There was only Dragur’s word that none of them here could communicate with the animals. But if that was not true, why did they want his help so badly?

  His whole body was taut with effort. He was not aware that his face grew gaunt with strain or that dark fingershaped bruises appeared under his eyes. He did not know that Rerne was watching him again with an intentness that approached his own concentration.

  Slip, slip, right, left, his fingers on the bracelet—his silent call fanning out ahead of the ship. Troy aroused to chew a concentrate block passed to him, hardly conscious of the others in that cabin, so tired only his will flogged him into that fruitless searching.

  And to undermine his labors there was a growing dismay. Perhaps the animals, having witnessed his capture, had pressed on past any hope of their being located now. Only Sahiba’s injury could curtail such a flight.