The Defiant Agents Read online

  4

  Fire, mankind's oldest ally, weapon, tool, leaped high before the nakedstone of the mountain side. Men sat cross-legged about it, fifteen ofthem. And behind, guarded by the flames and that somber circle, were thewomen. There was a uniformity in this gathering. The members wereplainly all of the same racial stock, of medium height, stocky yet fineddown to the peak of stamina and endurance, their skin brown, theirshoulder-length hair black. And they were all young--none over thirty,some still in their late teens. Alike, too, was a certain drawn look intheir faces, a tenseness of the eyes and mouth as they listened toTravis.

  "So we must be on Topaz. Do any of you remember boarding the ship?"

  "No. Only that we awoke within it." Across the fire one chin lifted; theeyes which caught Travis' held a deep, smoldering anger. "This is moretrickery of the Pinda-lick-o-yi, the White Eyes. Between us there hasnever been fair dealing. They have broken their promise as a man breaksa rotten stick, for their words are as rotten. And it was you, Fox, whobrought us to listen to them."

  A stir about the circle, a murmur from the women.

  "And do I not also sit here with you in this strange wilderness?" hecountered.

  "I do not understand," another of the men held out his hand, palm up, ina gesture of asking--"what has happened to us. We were in the old Apacheworld.... I, Jil-Lee, was riding with Cuchillo Negro as we went down tothe taking of Ramos. And then I was here, in a broken ship and beside mea dead man who was once my brother. How did I come out of the past ofour people into another world across the stars?"

  "Pinda-lick-o-yi tricks!" The first speaker spat into the fire.

  "It was the Redax, I think," Travis replied. "I heard Dr. Ashe discussthis. A new machine which could make a man remember not his own past,but the past of his ancestors. While we were on that ship we must havebeen under its influence, so we lived as our people lived a hundredyears or more ago--"

  "And the purpose of such a thing?" Jil-Lee asked.

  "To make us more like our ancestors perhaps. It is part of what theytold us at the project. To venture into these new worlds requires adifferent type of man than lives on Terra today. Traits we haveforgotten are needed to face the dangers of wild places."

  "You, Fox, have been beyond the stars before, and you found there weresuch dangers to face?"

  "It is true. You have heard of the three worlds I saw when the ship fromthe old days took us off, unwilling, to the stars. Did you not allvolunteer to pioneer in this manner so you could also see strange andnew things?"

  "But we did not agree to be returned to the past in medicine dreams andbe sent unknowingly into space!"

  Travis nodded. "Deklay is right. But I know no more than you why we wereso sent, or why the ship crashed. We have found Dr. Ruthven's body inthe cabin with that new installation. Only we have discovered nothingelse which tells us why we were brought here. With the ship broken, wemust stay."

  They were silent now, men and women alike. Behind them lay several daysof activity, nights of exhausted slumber. Against the cliff wall lay thepacks of supplies they had salvaged from the wreck. By mutual consentthey had left the vicinity of the broken globe, following their oldcustom of speedily withdrawing from a place of death.

  "This is a world empty of men?" Jil-Lee wanted to know.

  "So far we have found only animal signs, and the _ga-n_ have not warnedus of anything else----"

  "Those devil ones!" Again Deklay spat into the fire. "I say we shouldhave no dealings with them. The _mba'a_ is no friend to the People."

  Again a murmur which seemed one of agreement answered that outburst.Travis stiffened. Just how much influence had the Redax had over them?He knew from his own experience that sometimes he had an odd doublereaction--two different feelings which almost sickened him when theystruck simultaneously. And he was beginning to suspect that with some ofthe others the return to the past had been far more deep and lasting.Now Jil-Lee was actually to reason out what had happened. While Deklayhad reverted to an ancestor who had ridden with Victorio or MagnusColorado! Travis had a flash of premonition, a chill which made himhalf foresee a time when the past and the present might well split themapart--fatally.

  "Devil or _ga-n_." A man with a quiet face, rather deeply sunken eyes,spoke for the first time. "We are in two minds because of this Redax, solet us not do anything in haste. Back in the desert world of the PeopleI have seen the _mba'a_, and he was very clever. With the badger he wenthunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the_mba'a_ wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those whowould escape that way. Between him and the badger there was no war.These two who sit over yonder now--they are also hunters and they seemfriendly to us. In a strange place a man needs all the help he can find.Let us not call names out of old tales, which may mean nothing in fact."

  "Buck speaks straightly," Jil-Lee agreed. "We seek a camp which can bedefended. For perhaps there are men here whose hunting territory we haveinvaded, though we have not yet seen them. We are a people small innumber and alone. Let us walk softly on trails which are strange to ourfeet."

  Inwardly Travis sighed in relief. Buck, Jil-Lee ... for the moment theirsensible words appeared to swing the opinions of the party. If either ofthem could be established as _haldzil_, or clan leader, they would allbe safer. He himself had no aspirations in that direction and dared notpush too hard. It had been his initial urging which had brought them asvolunteers into the project. Now he was doubly suspect, and especiallyby those who thought as Deklay, he was considered too alien to their oldways.

  So far their protests had been fewer than he anticipated. Althoughbrothers and sisters had followed each other into the team after theimmemorial desire of Apaches to cling to family ties, they were not atrue clan with solidity of that to back them, but representatives ofhalf a dozen.

  Basically, back on Terra, they had all been among the most progressiveof their people--progressive, that is, in the white man's sense of theword. Travis had a fleeting recognition of his now oblique way ofthinking. He, too, had been marked by the Redax. They had all beeneducated in the modern fashion and all possessed a spirit of adventurewhich marked them over their fellows. They had volunteered for the teamand successfully passed the tests to weed out the temperamentally unfitor fainthearted. But all that was before Redax....

  Why had they been submitted to that? And why this flight? What hadpushed Dr. Ashe and Murdock and Colonel Kelgarries, time agents he knewand trusted, into dispatching them without warning to Topaz? Somethinghad happened, something which had given Dr. Ruthven ascendancy overthose others and had started them on this wild trip.

  Travis was conscious of a stir about the firelit circle. The men wererising, moving back into the shadows, stretching out on the blanketsthey had found among other stores on the ship. They had discoveredweapons there--knives, bows, quivers of arrows, all of which they hadbeen trained to use in the intensive schooling of the project and whichneeded no more repair than they themselves could give. And the rationsthey carried were field supplies, few of them. Tomorrow they must beginhunting in earnest....

  "Why has this thing been done to us?" Buck was beside Travis, thosequiet eyes sliding past him to seek the fire once more. "I do not thinkyou were told when the rest of us were not----"

  Travis seized upon that. "There are those who say that I knew, agreed?"

  "That is so. Once we stood at the same place in time--in our thoughts,our desires. Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway,each at his own speed--a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon.Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a seriesof step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble--"

  "The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing ofthis, that I climb with you on these stairs."

  "So I believe. But there comes a time when it is best not to be a womanstirring a pot of boiling stew but rather one who stands quietly at adistance--"

  "You mean?" Travis pressed.
r />   "I say that alone among us you have crossed the stars before, thereforenew things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout. Also thecoyotes run in your footsteps, and you do not fear them."

  It made good sense. Let him scout ahead of the party, taking the coyoteswith him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak small--until thepeople on Buck's stairway were more closely united.

  "I go in the morning," Travis agreed. He could slip away tonight, butjust now he could not force himself away from the fire, from thecompanionship.

  "You might take Tsoay with you," Buck continued.

  Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one ofthe youngest of their group, Buck's own cross-cousin and near-brother.

  "It is well," Buck explained, "that we learn this land, and it hasalways been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of theolder. Also, not only should trails be learned, but also men."

  Travis caught the thought behind that. Perhaps by taking the younger menas scouts, one after another, he could build up among them a followingof sorts. Among the Apaches, leadership was wholly a matter ofpersonality. Until the reservation days, chieftains had gained theirposition by force of character alone, though they might comesuccessively from one family clan over several generations.

  He did not want the chieftainship here. No, but neither did he wantgrowing whispers working about him to cut him off from his people. Toevery Apache severance from the clan was a little death. He must havethose who would back him if Deklay, or those who thought like Deklay,turned grumbling into open hostility.

  "Tsoay is one quick to learn," Travis agreed. "We go at dawn--"

  "Along the mountain range?" Buck inquired.

  "If we seek a protected place for the rancheria, yes. The mountains havealways provided good strongholds for the People."

  "And you think there is need for a fort?"

  Travis shrugged. "I have been one day's journey out into this world. Isaw nothing but animals. But that is no promise that elsewhere there areno enemies. The planet was on the tapes we brought back from that otherworld, and so it was known to the others who once rode between star andstar as we rode between ranch and town. If they had this world set on ajourney tape, it was for a reason; that reason may still be in force."

  "Yet it was long ago that these star people rode so...." Buck mused."Would the reason last so long?"

  Travis remembered two other worlds, one of weird desert inhabited bybeast things--or had they once been human, human to the point ofpossessing intelligence?--that had come out of sand burrows at night toattack a spaceship. And the second world where the ruins of a giant cityhad stood choked with jungle vegetation, where he had made a blowgunfrom tubes of rustless metal as a weapon gift for small winged men--butwere they men? Both had been remnants of that ancient galactic empire.

  "Some things could so remain," he answered soberly. "If we find them, wemust be careful. But first a good site for the rancheria."

  "There is no return to home for us," Buck stated flatly.

  "Why do you say that? There could be a rescue ship later--"

  The other raised his eyes again to Travis. "When you slept under theRedax how did you ride?"

  "As a warrior--raiding ... living...."

  "And I--I was one with _go'ndi_," Buck returned simply.

  "But--"

  "But the white man has assured us that such power--the power of achief--does not exist? Yes, the Pinda-lick-o-yi has told us so manythings. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. Andthose who think in another fashion cannot be measured by his rules, sothey are foolish dreamers. Not all white men think so. There was Dr.Ashe--he was beginning to understand a little.

  "Perhaps I, too, am standing still, halfway up the stairway of the past.But of this I am very sure: For us, there will be no return to our ownplace. And the time will come when something new shall grow from theseed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders ofthat growth. So I urge you, take Tsoay, and the next time, Lupe. For theyoung who may be swayed this way and that by words--as the wind shakes asmall tree--must be given firm roots."

  In Travis education warred with instinct, just as the picture Redax hadplanted in his mind had warred with his awaking to this alien landscape.Yet now he believed he must be guided by what he felt. And he knew thatno man of his race would claim _go'ndi_, the power of spirit known onlyto a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. Itmight have been fostered by hallucination in the past, but the aura ofit carried into the here and now. And Travis had no doubts that Buckbelieved implicitly in what he said, and that belief carried credulityto others.

  "This is wisdom, _Nantan_--"

  Buck shook his head. "I am no _nantan_, no chief. But of some things Iam sure. You also be sure of what lies within you, younger brother!"

  On the third day, ranging eastward along the base of the mountain range,Travis found what he believed would be an acceptable camp site. Therewas a canyon with a good spring of water cut round by well-marked gametrails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrubwood could be used to build the wickiups. Water and food lay withinreach, and the ledge approach was easy to defend. Even Deklay and hisfellow malcontents were forced to concede the value of the site.

  His duty to the clan accomplished, Travis returned to his own concern,one which had haunted him for days. Topaz had been taped by men of thevanished star empire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? Asyet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligencelevel of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed bythe certainty that there _was_ something here, waiting.... And thedesire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache.

  Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come tofollow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis wascontent to scout with only the coyotes for company, and he did not findthe loneliness of the unknown planet as intimidating as most of theothers.

  He was checking his small trail pack on the fourth day after they hadsettled on the plateau when Buck and Jil-Lee hunkered down beside him.

  "You go to hunt--?" Buck broke the silence first.

  "Not for meat."

  "What do you fear? That _ndendai_--enemy people--have marked this astheir land?" Jil-Lee questioned.

  "That may be true, but now I hunt for what this world was at one time,the reason why the ancient star men marked it as their own."

  "And this knowledge may be of value to us?" Jil-Lee asked slowly. "Willit bring food to our mouths, shelter for our bodies--mean life for us?"

  "All that is possible. It is the unknowing which is bad."

  "True. Unknowing is always bad," Buck agreed. "But the bow which isfitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to another.Remember that, younger brother. Also, do you go alone?"

  "With Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu I am not alone."

  "Take Tsoay with you also. The four-footed ones are indeed _ga-n_ forthe service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alonefrom his kind."

  There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did notalways share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. Onother scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the country and aliking for experimentation which was not a universal attribute evenamong those of his own age.

  "I would go to find a path through the mountains; it may be a longtrail," Travis half protested.

  "You believe what you seek may lie to the north?"

  Travis shrugged. "I do not know. How can I? But it will be another wayof seeking."

  "Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper forthe untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours," Buck replied. "Itis in him also, this need to see new places."

  "There is this," Jil-Lee got to his feet, "--do not go so far, brother,that you may not easily find a way to return. This is a wide land, andwithin it we are but a handful of men al
one----"

  "That, too, I know." Travis thought he could read more than one kind ofwarning in Jil-Lee's words.

  * * * * *

  They were the second day away from the plateau camp, and climbing, whenthey chanced upon the pass Travis had hoped might exist. Before them layan abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked ina dusky amber Travis now knew was the thick grass found in the southernvalleys. Tsoay pointed with his chin.

  "Wide land--good for horses, cattle, ranches...."

  But all those lay far beyond the black space surrounding them. Traviswondered if there was any native animal which could serve man in placeof the horse.

  "Do we go down?" Tsoay asked.

  From this point Travis could sight no break far out on the amber plain,no sign of any building or any disturbance of its smooth emptiness. Yetit drew him. "We go," he decided.

  Close as it had looked from the pass, the plain was yet a day and anight, spent in careful watching by turns, ahead of them. It wasmidmorning of the second day that they left the foothill breaks, and thegrass of the open country was waist high about them. Travis could see itrippling where the coyotes threaded ahead. Then he was conscious of apersistent buzzing, a noise which irritated faintly until he wascompelled to trace it to its source.

  The grass had been trampled flat for an irregular patch, with a trailof broken stalks out of the heart of the plain. At one side was abuzzing, seething mass of glitter-winged insects which Travis alreadyknew as carrion eaters. They arose reluctantly from their feast as heapproached.

  He drew a short breath which was close to a grunt of astoundedrecognition. What lay there was so impossible that he could not believethe evidence of his eyes. Tsoay gave a sharp exclamation, went down onone knee for a closer examination, then looked at Travis over hisshoulder, his eyes wide, more than a trace of excitement in his voice.

  "Horse dung--and fresh!"