The Defiant Agents Read online

  7

  "What happened?" Tsoay took a swift stride, stood over the writhing girlwhose strength was now such that Travis had to exert all his efforts tocontrol her.

  "I think that the machine she spoke about is holding her. She is beingdrawn to it out of hiding as one draws a calf on a rope."

  Both coyotes had arisen and were watching the struggle with interest,but there was no warning from them. Whatever called Kaydessa into suchmindless and will-less answer did not touch the animals. And neitherApache felt it. So perhaps only Kaydessa's people were subject to it, asshe had thought. How far away was that machine? Not too near, forotherwise the coyotes would have traced the man or men operating it.

  "We cannot move her," Tsoay brought the problem into the open--"unlesswe bind and carry her. She is one of their kind. Why not let her go tothem, unless you fear she will talk." His hand went to the knife in hisbelt, and Travis knew what primitive impulse moved in the younger man.

  In the old days a captive who was likely to give trouble wasefficiently eliminated. In Tsoay that memory was awake now. Travis shookhis head.

  "She has said that others of her kin are in these hills. We must not settwo wolf packs hunting us," Travis said, giving the more practicalreason which might better appeal to that savage instinct forself-preservation. "But you are right, since she has tried to answerthis summons, we cannot force her with us. Therefore, do you take theback trail. Tell Buck what we have discovered and have him make thenecessary precautions against either these Mongol outlaws or a Redthrust over the mountains."

  "And you?"

  "I stay to discover where the outlaws hide and learn all I can of thissettlement. We may have reason to need friends----"

  "Friends!" Tsoay spat. "The People need no friends! If we have warning,we can hold our own country! As the Pinda-lick-o-yi have discoveredbefore."

  "Bows and arrows against guns and machines?" Travis inquired bitingly."We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future.Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before,"Travis calculated--"ten suns. If I do not, send no search party; theclan is too small to risk more lives for one."

  "And if these Reds take you--?"

  Travis grinned, not pleasantly. "They shall learn nothing! Can theirmachines sort out the thoughts of a dead man?" He did not intend hisfuture to end as abruptly as that, but also he would not be easy meatfor any Red hunting party.

  Tsoay took a share of their rations and refused the company of thecoyotes. Travis realized that for all his seeming ease with the animals,the younger scout had little more liking for them than Deklay and theothers back at the rancheria. Tsoay went at dawn, aiming at the pass.

  Travis sat down beside Kaydessa. They had bound her to a small tree, andshe strove incessantly to free herself, turning her head at an acute andpainful angle, only to face the same direction in which she had beentied. There was no breaking the spell which held her. And she would soonwear herself out with that struggling. Then he struck an expert blow.

  The girl sagged limply, and he untied her. It all depended now on therange of the beam or broadcast of that diabolical machine. From theattitude of the coyotes, he assumed that those using the machine had notmade any attempt to come close. They might not even know where theirquarry was; they would simply sit and wait in the foothills for thecaller to reel in a helpless captive.

  Travis thought that if he moved Kaydessa farther away from that point,sooner or later they would be out of range and she would awake from theknockout, free again. Although she was not light, he could manage tocarry her for a while. So burdened, Travis started on, with the coyotesscouting ahead.

  He speedily discovered that he had set himself an ambitious task. Thegoing was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to asnail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to make careful plans.

  As long as the Reds held the balance of power on this side of themountain range, the rancheria was in danger. Bows and knives againstmodern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter oftime before exploration on the part of the northern settlement--or sometracking down of Tatar fugitives--would bring the enemy across the pass.

  The Apaches could move farther south into the unknown continent belowthe wrecked ship, thus prolonging the time before they were discovered.But that would only postpone the inevitable showdown. Whether Traviscould make his clan believe that, was also a matter of concern.

  On the other hand, if the Red overlords could be met in some practicalway.... Travis' mind fastened on that more attractive idea, worrying itas Naginlta worried a prey, tearing out and devouring the more delicateportions. Every bit of sense and prudence argued against such anapproach, whose success could rest only between improbability andimpossibility; yet that was the direction in which he longed to move.

  Across his shoulder Kaydessa stirred and moaned. The Apache doubled hisefforts to reach the outcrop of rock he could see ahead, chiseled intohigh relief by the winds. In its lee they would have protection from anysighting from below. Panting, he made it, lowering the girl into theguarded cup of space, and waited.

  She moaned again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open,and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and hersurroundings intelligently or not.

  "Kaydessa!"

  Her heavy eyelids lifted, and he had no doubt she could see him. Butthere was no recognition of his identity in her gaze, only surprise andfear--the same expression she had worn during their first meeting in thefoothills.

  "Daughter of the Wolf," he spoke slowly. "Remember!" Travis made that anorder, an emphatic appeal to the mind under the influence of the caller.

  She frowned, the struggle she was making naked on her face. Then sheanswered:

  "You--Fox--"

  Travis grunted with relief, his alarm subsiding. Then she _could_remember.

  "Yes," he responded eagerly.

  But she was gazing about, her puzzlement growing. "Where is this--?"

  "We are higher in the mountains."

  Now fear was pushing out bewilderment. "How did I come here?"

  "I brought you." Swiftly he outlined what had happened at their nightcamp.

  The hand which had been at her head was now pressed tight across herlips as if she were biting furiously into its flesh to still some panicof her own, and her gray eyes were round and haunted.

  "You are free now," Travis said.

  Kaydessa nodded, and then dropped her hand to speak. "You brought meaway from the hunters. You did not have to obey them?"

  "I heard nothing."

  "You do not hear--you feel!" She shuddered. "Please." She clawed at thestone beside her, pulling up to her feet. "Let us go--let us go quickly!They will try again--move farther in--"

  "Listen," Travis had to be sure of one thing--"have they any way ofknowing that they had you under control and that you have againescaped?"

  Kaydessa shook her head, some of the panic again shadowing her eyes.

  "Then we'll just go on--" his chin lifted to the wastelands beforethem--"try to keep out of their reach."

  And away from the pass to the south, he told himself silently. He darednot lead the enemy to that secret, so he must travel west or hole upsomewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessawas no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyondits beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin,just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things.Before dark they must discover a protected camp site.

  They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration tablets. Butthe coyotes could locate water.

  "Come!" Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of himso that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once againto the influence of the enemy. But his burdened early morning flight hadtold on Travis more than he thought, and he discovered he could not spurhimself on to a pace better than a walk. Now and again one of thecoyotes, usually Nalik'ideyu, wo
uld come into view, express impatiencein both stance and mental signal, and then be gone again. The Apache wasincreasingly aware that the animals were disturbed, yet to his tentativegropings at contact they did not reply. Since they gave no warning ofhostile animal or man, he could only be on constant guard, watching thecountryside about him.

  They had been following a ledge for several minutes before Travis wasaware of some strange features of that path. Perhaps he had actuallynoted them with a trained eye before his archaeological studies of therecent past gave him a reason for the faint marks. This crack in themountain's skin might have begun as a natural fault, but afterward ithad been worked with tools, smoothed, widened to serve the purpose ofsome form of intelligence!

  Travis caught at Kaydessa's shoulder to slow her pace. He could not havetold why he did not want to speak aloud here, but he felt the need forsilence. She glanced around, perplexed, more so when he went down on hisknees and ran his fingers along one of those ancient tool marks. He wascertain it was very old. Inside of him anticipation bubbled. A road madewith such labor could only lead to something of importance. He was goingto make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into thesemountains.

  "What is it?" Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge.

  "This was cut by someone, a long time ago," Travis half whispered andthen wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers couldhear him when perhaps a thousand years or more lay between the chippingof that stone and this day.

  The Tatar girl looked over her shoulder. Perhaps she too was troubled bythe sense that here time was subtly telescoped, that past and presentmight be meeting. Or was that feeling with them both because of theirenforced conditioning?

  "Who?" Now her voice sank in turn.

  "Listen--" he regarded her intently--"did your people or the Reds everfind any traces of the old civilization here--ruins?"

  "No." She leaned forward, tracing with her own finger the samealmost-obliterated marks which had intrigued Travis. "But I think theyhave looked. Before they discovered that we could be free, they sent outparties--to hunt, they said--but afterward they always asked manyquestions about the country. Only they never asked about ruins. Is thatwhat they wished us to find? But why? Of what value are old stones piledon one another?"

  "In themselves, little, save for the knowledge they may give us of thepeople who piled them. But for what the stones might contain--muchvalue!"

  "And how do you know what they might contain, Fox?"

  "Because I have seen such treasure houses of the star men," he returnedabsently. To him the marks on the ledge were a pledge of greaterdiscoveries to come. He must find where that carefully constructed roadran--to what it led. "Let us see where this will take us."

  But first he gave the chittering signal in four sharp bursts. And thetawny-gray bodies came out of the tangled brush, bounding up to theledge. Together the coyotes faced him, their attention all for hishalting communication.

  Ruins might lie ahead; he hoped that they did. But on another planetsuch ruins had twice proved to be deadly traps, and only good fortunehad prevented their closing on Terran explorers. If the ape-things orany other dangerous form of life had taken up residence before them, hewanted good warning.

  Together the coyotes turned and loped along the now level way of theledge, disappearing around a curve fitted to the mountain side whileTravis and Kaydessa followed.

  They heard it before they saw its source--a waterfall. Probably not alarge one, but high. Rounding the curve, they came into a fine mist ofspray where sunlight made rainbows of color across a filmy veil ofwater.

  For a long moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry,held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lipsagain to suck the gathered moisture.

  Water slicked the surface of the ledge, and Travis pushed her backagainst the wall of the cliff. As far as he could discern, their roadcontinued behind the out-flung curtain of water, and footing on the wetstone was treacherous. With their backs to the solid security of thewall, facing outward into the solid drape of water, they edged behind itand came out into rainbowed sunlight again.

  Here either provident nature or ancient art had hollowed a pocket in thestone which was filled with water. They drank. Then Travis filled hiscanteen while Kaydessa washed her face, holding the cold freshness ofthe moisture to her cheeks with both palms.

  She spoke, but he could not hear her through the roar. She leaned closerand raised her voice to a half shout:

  "This is a place of spirits! Do you not also feel their power, Fox?"

  Perhaps for a space out of time he did feel something. This was awatering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place--and to hisdesert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be takenfor granted. The rainbow--the Spirit People's sacred sign--old beliefsstirred in Travis, moving him. "I feel," he said, nodding in emphasis tohis agreement.

  They followed the ledge road to a section where a landslide of anearlier season had choked it. Travis worked a careful way across thedebris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn. Then they were on asloping downward way which led to a staircase--the treads weather-wornand crumbling, the angle so steep Travis wondered if it had ever beenintended for beings with a physique approximating the Terrans'.

  They came to a cleft where an arch of stone was chiseled out as aroofing. Travis thought he could make out a trace of carving on thecapstone, so worn by years and weather that it was now only a faintshadow of design.

  The cleft was a door into another valley. Here, too, golden mist swirledin tendrils to disguise and cloak what stood there. Travis had found hisruins. Only the structures were intact, not breached by time.

  Mist flowed in lapping tongues back and forth, confusing outlines, nowshuttering, now baring oval windows which were spaced in diamonds offour on round tower surfaces. There were no visible cracks, no cloakingof climbing vegetation, nothing to suggest age and long roots in thevalley. Nor did the architecture he could view match any he had seen onthose other worlds.

  Travis strode away from the cleft doorway. Under his moccasins was ablock pavement, yellow and green stone set in a simple pattern ofchecks. This, too, was level, unchipped and undisturbed, save for adrift or two of soil driven in by the wind. And nowhere could he see anyvegetation.

  The towers were of the same green stone as half the pavement blocks, aglassy green which made him think of jade--if jade could be mined insuch quantities as these five-story towers demanded.

  Nalik'ideyu padded to him, and he could hear the faint click of herclaws on the pavement. There was a deep silence in this place, as if theair itself swallowed and digested all sound. The wind which had beenwith them all the day of their journeying was left beyond the cleft.

  Yet there was life here. The coyote told him that in her own way. Shehad not made up her mind concerning that life--wariness and curiositywarred in her now as her pointed muzzle lifted toward the windowsoverhead.

  The windows were all well above ground level, but there was no openingin the first stories as far as Travis could see. He debated moving intothe range of those windows to investigate the far side of the towers fordoorways. The mist and the message from Nalik'ideyu nourished hissuspicions. Out in the open he would be too good a target for whateveror whoever might be standing within the deep-welled frames.

  The silence was shattered by a boom. Travis jumped, slewed half around,knife in hand.

  Boom-boom ... a second heavy beat-beat ... then a clangor with aswelling echo.

  Kaydessa flung back her head and called, her voice rising up as iftunneled by the valley walls. She then whistled as she had done whenthey fronted the ape-thing and ran on to catch at Travis' sleeve, herface eager.

  "My people! Come--it is my people!"

  She tugged him on before breaking into a run, weaving fearlessly aroundthe base of one of the towers. Travis ran after her, afraid he mightlose her in the mist.

  Three towers, another stretch of ope
n pavement, and then the mist liftedto show them a second carved doorway not two hundred yards ahead. Theboom-boom seemed to pull Kaydessa, and Travis could do nothing but trailher, the coyotes now trotting beside him.