The Beast Master bm-1 Read online

  “You be frawn herder?” the Norbie continued.

  “No. I have no land – no herd –”

  “Be hunter. Kill evil flyer – kill yoris – trade their skins –”

  “I stranger,” Storm pointed out, making the signs slowly as he launched bravely into expressing more complicated ideas. “Norbies hunt Norbie lands – off-world men do not so hunt –”

  The hunting law was one of the few rigidly enforced by the loosely knit government of Arzor, as the Terran had been warned at the Centre and again at the space port. Norbie rights were protected. Herd riders could kill yoris or other predatory creatures attacking their stock. But any animal living in the mountains, or in the native-held sections of the plains was taboo as far as the settlers were concerned.

  Gorgol objected. “You bird totem warrior – Krotag’s people bird totem – you hunt Krotag’s land – no one say no –”

  Far within Storm a feeling stirred faintly, some emotion, frozen on that day when he had returned from a hazardous three months of duty behind the enemy lines to discover that he was a homeless man. He moved restlessly on the saddle pad and Rain snorted nervously, as if the stallion, too, had felt that painful tug. The Terran’s face, beneath his mask, was set in passionless endurance as he fought against that feeble response to Gorgol’s impulsive offer.

  “You’re pullin’ it late –” Bister’s dust-hoarsened voice rasped not only on Storm’s ears but on his awakened nerves. “Sure got you a big bunch this time. The goat here lead you to where he had ‘em all salted away nice and neat?”

  That new aliveness in Storm rose in answer to the prod of antagonism. He did not like Bister, but he no longer accepted that passively as just another unpleasant fact of his present existence. There might be cause for him to do something positive to counter the other’s needling. The Terran did not know that over the edge of the scarf his eyes, usually better controlled, now gave him away. Coll Bister was more alert to small points than he seemed.

  The settler pulled his own scarf away from his mouth and spat. “Maybe you don’t believe these goats have brains enough to plan it all out – eh?”

  Storm was more interested in the idle swing of Bister’s right hand. A quirt dragged from the man’s thick wrist, a quirt with an extra-long length of a doubled yoris-hide lash.

  “We wouldn’t have found as many horses as we have if Krotag’s men weren’t nosing them out for us.” Storm’s position on the riding pad looked lazy, his hands were well away from the weapons at his belt. But he sensed, with a good moment’s grace in which to act, what was coming, as if he had sucked that knowledge out of the air along with the grit and dust.

  That dangling right arm rose as the last straggler of the stray bunch trotted by. It could be that Bister was aiming to snap his quirt at the tired yearling. But Storm did not believe that. A sudden pressure of knee sent Rain forward so that the yoris-hide strap did not strike Gorgol’s bare thigh, but landed in a stinging slap on Storm’s own better protected leg.

  Bister had not been prepared for that, nor for what happened next. Storm’s well-timed retaliation sent the bigger man to the ground – the arm that had wielded the quirt temporarily numb to the elbow. With an inarticulate roar of rage Bister struggled to his feet only to go down again, sent sprawling by a Commando blow delivered by the edge of Storm’s open hand. The Terran had thought out his strategy in advance.

  To his surprise Bister did not get up to rush him again. Instead when the big man did rise to his feet he stood still, his chest heaving, his face flushed, but making no move to continue the fight.

  “We’re not through –” he spat. “I’ve heard about you, Storm. You Commandos can kill a man with your bare hands. All right. Wait until we get to the Crossin’ and let’s see you stand up to a stun meetin’! I’m not done with you – nor with those goat pals of yours neither!”

  Storm was bewildered enough to be shaken out of some of his self-confident complacency. Bister’s restraint now did not fit into the type of character he appeared to be. Neither, Storm was certain, was it a case of the Arzoran rider being just all bluster and no bite. Looking down at that flushed face, into the dark eyes raised to his, Storm wondered if he had completely misread Coll Bister. The man was not in the least afraid, he was confident – and he hated! So why had he refused to continue to fight now? The Terran watched the other swing up into the saddle. He would allow Bister to call the next move in the game – until he learned more about the stakes.

  “Remember –” Bister’s fingers were busy with his face scarf, ready to jerk the mask up over his square jaw once again – “we aren’t through –”

  Storm shrugged. Bister doubtless could bear watching, but there was no advantage to be gained from allowing the other to think so.

  “Ride your side of the trail,” he returned shortly, “and I’ll ride mine, Bister. I’m not out to rope trouble.”

  The other cantered off and Storm turned to find Gorgol watching that retreat. The Norbie drew level with the Terran once more and his eyes held an unmistakable note of inquiry as he signed:

  “He challenged but he did not fight – why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Storm said and then made more halting finger-talk. “I know not. But he does not like Norbies –” He thought it best to give a warning that might save the boy future trouble with the trail bully.

  “So do we know. He thinks we steal horses – hide and then find them for Larkin. Maybe that good trick for Nitra – for wild men of the Peaks. Not for Krotag’s men. We make bargain with Larkin – we keep bargain.”

  “Somebody hid those horses, made yoris come to stampede,” Storm observed.

  “That true. Maybe outlaws. Many outlaws in mountains. Not Norbies, but raid on Norbie land. Norbie fight – kill!”

  Gorgol sent his horse on after the disappearing bunch of strays and Storm followed at a slower pace. The Terran had his own motive for coming to Arzor, for riding into this Basin country. He certainly did not want to become involved in others’ quarrels. Larkin’s stampede had just happened and Storm could do no less than help the trader out, but he was not going to pursue his trouble with Bister, or get pulled into any fight between the settlers and the Norbies.

  The threatened rain broke upon them with a wild drumming of thunder that evening. After its first fury it turned into a steady, drenching downpour. And from then on Larkin’s riders had little time to think of anything except the troubles of the trail.

  Surra crawled under a tarp on the wagon to join the meerkats, growling her stubborn refusal for any venture into the wet, and even Baku sought shelter. This steady fall of moisture was beyond the team’s past experience and they resented it, a state of mind Storm came to share as, ankle deep in mud, he helped to fill the softer spots of the trail with branches and grass, or rode into the swirling waters of a river to rope and guide loose horses along a line of stakes the Norbies had set up to mark a questionable ford.

  By the end of the second day of rain the Terran was sure they could not have advanced a mile without the aid of the native scouts. The mud did not seem to tire the Norbies’ wiry, range-bred horses, though it constantly entrapped the off-world stock. The natives did not display any weariness either as they dashed about ready with a dragrope or an armload of brush to fill in a bad mudhole.

  But on the third day it began to clear, and word was passed that two more days’ travel should bring them into the auction town – news they all greeted with relief.

  4

  The soil had absorbed water like a sponge. Now the heavy heat of the sun drew out in return luxuriant foliage such as Storm would not have guessed this waste could produce. The horses had to be restrained from grazing lest they founder. And the Terran also needed to keep close watch on Ho and King who relished digging in the easily excavated earth. It was almost impossible to believe that after six more weeks of such plenty this country would again be close to desert.

  “Pretty, eh?” Dort set his mo
unt to climb a small hillock, joining Storm. The yellow-green ground blanket ahead was patterned with drifts of white, golden, and scarlet flowers. “But wait a month or so and” – he snapped his fingers – “all dried and gone. Just sand and rocks, some of the thorn bushes, and the rest a lot of nothing. Fastest changing country you ever saw!”

  “Surely the grazing can’t disappear that fast in the Basin. Or do you have to move the frawn herds continually?”

  “No. Give any of this land water and it’ll grow all you need. There’s year “round water in the Basin, and a different kind of grass with long tough roots. You can drive a trail herd through here spring and fall. But you can’t hold animals on range in this district. Prawns are big eaters, too – need a wide range. My dad has seventy squares and he runs about two thousand head on ‘em “round the year.”

  “You were born on Arzor, Dort?” Storm asked his first personal question.

  “Sure was! My dad had a little spread down Quipawa way then. He was born here, too. We’re First Ship people,” he ended with a flash of pride. “Three generations here now and there’re five spreads runnin’ under our ear notch – my dad’s, me an” my brother’s, my sister and her man’s over in the peninsula country, my Uncle Wagger and his two sons – they have theirs, the Borggy and the Rifts, over on the Cormbal Slopes.”

  “A good world to come back to –” Storm’s gaze swept over the level land eastward to those mountains that had called him since he had first sighted them.

  “Yes.” Dort glanced at Storm and then quickly away again. “It’s good country – wide. A man can ride free here. Me – when I was in the forces and saw Grambage and Wolf Three and some of those other worlds where people live all stuck together – well, it wouldn’t suit me.” Then, as if his curiosity pushed him past politeness, he said:

  “Seems like you knew a country like this once, you act right at home –”

  “I did – once. Not the same colours – but desert and mountains, short springs to make a waste bloom – dry, dead summers – hot sun – open range –”

  That burn-off wasn’t war – it was plain murder!” Dort’s face was flushed, anger against the irredeemable past alight in his eyes.

  Storm shrugged. “It is done now.” He lifted his reins and the stallion single-footed it down the other side of the hillock.

  “Say, kid,” Dort caught up with him again, “you’ve heard about the land grants open for veterans –”

  “I was told – ten squares to a qualified settler.”

  “Twenty to a Terran,” the other corrected. “Now me and my brother, we’ve got us a nice spread on the eastern fork of the Staffa and beyond that the land is clear to the Paszo Peaks. If you aren’t going to stay on with Larkin and run herd, you might ride on with me and take a look in that direction. It’s good country – dry around the edges maybe – but the Staffa doesn’t give out even in high-sun season. You could bite out your twenty squares clear up to the Peaks. Quade has a section there –”

  “Brad Quade? I thought his holdings were in the Basin –”

  “Oh, that’s his big spread. He’s First Ship family, too, though he did a hitch in Survey and has gone off-world other times. He’s imported horses and tried Terran sheep here. Sheep didn’t last, the groble beetles infected them the first year. Anyway, he set up the Peak place for his son –”

  “His son?” Storm’s dark face remained expressionless, but he was listening very closely now.

  “Yes. Logan’s just a kid and he and Brad don’t rub along together too smooth. The kid doesn’t like just herding – goes off with the Norbies a lot and is as good as one of their scouts at tracking. He tried to get in the forces here, raised merry Hades down at the enlistment centre when they wouldn’t take him because of his age. So Brad gave him this wilder grant down at the Peaks about two years ago and told him to take out his fight on taming that. Haven’t heard how he’s made out lately.” Dort laughed. “Home news took a while catching up with our outfit while we were star shootin’.”

  “Hey!” Larkin’s shout was a summons to them both. “Ride circle, you two, we want them bedded down here –”

  Storm rode to the right while Dort took the left. To bed down here meant they would wait to hit the Crossing late tomorrow. Larkin wanted to rest the horses before the auction. As he rode, the Terran was thinking. So Brad Quade had a son, had he, a fact which altered Storm’s plans somewhat. He had been willing to confront Quade where and when he found him and have their quarrel out. He still wanted to see Quade, of course he did! Why did the fact that his enemy had a family make any difference? Storm pushed that last puzzle to a dead end without solving it.

  He carried through his duties with his usual competence, glad to be busy. The rest of the men were in a festive mood. Even the Norbies twittered among themselves and made no move to leave the camp after they collected their pay. Here the party would split up – the veterans who had joined for the trip at the space port would now ride on to their own spreads or light and tie for the big owners who were coming to buy at the auction, which was also an informal hiring depot. This was one of the two big yearly gatherings that broke the usual solitude of the range seasons, and was a mixture of business, fair, and carnival, attracting the whole countryside.

  “Storm.” Larkin sat down by the Terran where he was settled cross-legged near the fire, the meerkats wrestling playfully before him, Surra lazily tonguing her paws at his back. “You planning to take up land? Law gives you rights to a nice piece –”

  “Not now. Dort was talking about the Staffa River country – running up to the Peaks. I may ride on to see it –” One excuse for remaining foot-loose was as good as another, the Terran thought wearily.

  Larkin brightened. “That’s good grazin’ land – the Peak country. I’ve been thinkin’ some of that lately myself. Me, I’ve been doin’ pretty well at importin’ horses. But there aren’t goin’ to be many more brought in from off-world. Sure, we can buy ‘em like these – or other fancy stuff from Argol. But that’s a lighter breed, not suited to range work. The old Terran stock is gone. So I’ve a plan runnin’ around in my head. I’d like to round me up some good basic stock – some of these we got right out here in the herd, and some range stuff of at least two generations Arzoran breeding, plus a few mounts out of the Norbie camps. Mix ‘em and see what I can do “bout buildin’ up a new strain –a horse that needs less water, can live off scrub-feed ground, and follow a frawn drift without givin’ out at the end of one day’s trottin’. Now, son, you’re a master hand with animals. You ride down there and cast an eye over the Peak country. If you’re willin’ – look me up here at the fall auction and we’ll see about a partnership deal –”

  Again that tug deep inside, a blow at the wall he had built around himself. Three times now Storm had been offered a possible future – by Gorgol, by Dort, and now by Larkin. He shifted slightly and used the evasive tactics he had developed as protective armour at the Centre.

  “Let me see the land first, Larkin. We can talk it over in the fall-”

  But long before fall he should meet with Brad Quade – Brad Quade and maybe his son Logan into the bargain.

  Partly to get away from his own thoughts, Storm allowed Dort to persuade him to visit the Crossing at night, leaving his team in camp and riding with Lancin and Ransford into a town that made him blink a little, it was so unlike other villages.

  Arzoran settlements such as this one were almost a hundred Terran years old now. Yet there was a kind of raw newness about them that Storm had not seen elsewhere. Between the half-yearly explosions of auction week, Irrawady Crossing was close to a ghost town, though it was the only village in several thousand squares of range land. Tonight the town was roaring, wide open. Life here was certainly far removed from the peace Storm had known on Terra, or the regimentation and discipline of the Centre.

  The four from the trail camp had no more than stabled their horses when they witnessed the end of a personal argument, both
men having drawn stun rods with speed enough to drop each other flat and unconscious. And they skirted another crowd moments later, watching another dispute being settled bloodily by fists.

  “Boys playful tonight, aren’t they?” inquired Dort, grinning.

  “Anybody here ever try to activate a stun gun with a blast bolt?” Storm asked. He was astonished at the grim chill of Ransford’s reply.

  “Sure – that’s been done – by outlaws. But any fella who tried to blast wouldn’t last long. We don’t hold with murder. If the boys want to play rough with a stun – and that sure leaves an almighty headache to follow a guy for hours – or try to change another fella’s looks with fists, that’s their right. But blastin’s out!”

  “I saw a couple of riders mix it up with Norbie long-knives once,” volunteered Dort. That was a nasty mess and the winner was sent down to Istabu for psychin’. “Course Norbies duel it out to the death when they give a “warrior” challenge. But that’s accordin’ to their customs and we don’t bother ‘em about it. Nobody is allowed to interfere with the tribes –”

  Ransford nodded. Tribe wars are somethin’ like religion to a Norbie. A boy has to get him a scar in personal combat before he can take a wife or speak up in council. There’s a regular system of points for a man to gather “fore he can be a chief –all pretty complicated. Hey, fella, take it easy!”

  A man caromed into Dort, nearly carrying the veteran off his feet. Dort fended him off with a good-natured shove. But the other whirled, moving with better coordination than his weaving progress predicted. Storm went into action as the rod came from the other’s holster, not trained at the bewildered Dort, but directly at Storm.

  The ex-Commando moved with trained precision. His rising hand struck the man’s wrist, sending the stun rod flying before a finger could press the firing button. But the other was not licked. With a tight little strut he bounced forward, to meet a whirlwind attack. The stranger was out on his feet before any of the men passing really understood that a scuffle was in progress.