The Defiant Agents Page 9

  9

  Travis settled his back against the spire of rock and raised his righthand into the path of the sun, cradling in his palm a disk of glisteningmetal. Flash ... flash ... he made the signal pattern just as hisancestors a hundred years earlier and far across space had used trademirrors to relay war alerts among the Chiricahua and White Mountainranges. If Tsoay had returned safely, and if Buck had kept the agreedlookout on that peak a mile or so ahead, then the clan would know thathe was coming and with what escort.

  He waited now, rubbing the small metal mirror absently on the loosesleeve of his shirt, waiting for a reply. Mirrors were best, not smokefires which would broadcast too far the presence of men in the hills.Tsoay must have returned....

  "What is it that you do?"

  Menlik, his shaman's robe pulled up so that his breeches and boots weredark against the golden rock, climbed up beside the Apache. Menlik,Hulagur, and Kaydessa were riding with Travis, offering him one oftheir small ponies to hurry the trip. He was still regarded warily bythe Tatars, but he did not blame them for their cautious attitude.

  "Ah--" A flicker of light from the point ahead. One ... two ... threeflashes, a pause, then two more together. He had been read. Buck haddispatched scouts to meet them, and knowing his people's skill at thebusiness, Travis was certain the Tatars would never suspect theirflanking unless the Apaches purposefully revealed themselves. Also theTatars were not to go to the rancheria, but would be met at a mid-pointby a delegation of Apaches. This was no time for the Tatars to learnjust how few the clan numbered.

  Menlik watched Travis flash an acknowledgment to the sentry ahead. "Inthis way you speak to your men?"

  "This way I speak."

  "A thing good and to be remembered. We have the drum, but that is forthe ears of all with hearing. This is for the eyes only of those onwatch for it. Yes, a good thing. And your people--they will meet withus?"

  "They wait ahead," Travis confirmed.

  It was close to midday and the heat, gathered in the rocky ways, waslike a heaviness in the air itself. The Tatars had shucked their heavyjackets and rolled the fur brims of their hats far up their heads awayfrom their sweat-beaded faces. And at every halt they passed from handto hand the skin bag of kumiss.

  Now even the ponies shuffled on with drooping heads, picking a way in acut which deepened into a canyon. Travis kept a watch for the scouts.And not for the first time he thought of the disappearance of thecoyotes. Somehow, back in the Tatar camp, he had counted confidently onthe animals' rejoining him once he had started his return over themountains.

  But he had seen nothing of either beast, nor had he felt thatunexplainable mental contact with them which had been present since hisfirst awakening on Topaz. Why they had left him so unceremoniously afterdefending him from the Mongol attack, and why they were keepingthemselves aloof now, he did not know. But he was conscious of a threadof alarm for their continued absence, and he hoped he would find theyhad gone back to the rancheria.

  The ponies thudded dispiritedly along a sandy wash which bottomed thecanyon. Here the heat became a leaden weight and the men were pantinglike four-footed beasts running before hunters. Finally Travis sightedwhat he had been seeking, a flicker of movement on the wall well above.He flung up his hand, pulling his mount to a stand. Apaches stood infull view, bows ready, arrows on cords. But they made no sound.

  Kaydessa cried out, booted her mount to draw equal with Travis.

  "A trap!" Her face, flushed with heat, was also stark with anger.

  Travis smiled slowly. "Is there a rope about you, Wolf Daughter?" heinquired softly. "Are you now dragged across this sand?"

  Her mouth opened and then closed again. The quirt she had half raised toslash at him, flopped across her pony's neck.

  The Apache glanced back at the two men. Hulagur's hand was on his swordhilt, his eyes darting from one of those silent watchers to the next.But the utter hopelessness of the Tatar position was too plain. OnlyMenlik made no move toward any weapon, even his spirit wand. Instead, hesat quietly in the saddle, displaying no emotion toward the Apaches savehis usual self-confident detachment.

  "We go on." Travis pointed ahead.

  Just as suddenly as they had appeared from the heart of the goldencliffs, so did the scouts vanish. Most of them were already on their wayto the point Buck had selected for the meeting place. There had beenonly six men up there, but the Tatars had no way of knowing just howlarge a portion of the whole clan that number was.

  Travis' pony lifted his head, nickered, and achieved a stumbling trot.Somewhere ahead was water, one of those oases of growth and life whichpocked the whole mountain range--to the preservation of all animals andall men.

  Menlik and Hulagur pushed on until their mounts were hard on the heelsof the two ridden by the girl and Travis. Travis wondered if they stillwaited for some arrow to strike home, though he saw that both men rodewith outward disregard for the patrolling scouts.

  A grass-leaf bush beckoned them on and again the ponies quickened pace,coming out into a tributary canyon which housed a small pool and a goodstand of grass and brush. To one side of the water Buck stood, his armsfolded across his chest, armed only with his belt knife. Grouped behindhim were Deklay, Tsoay, Nolan, Manulito--Travis tabulated hurriedly.Manulito and Deklay were to be classed together--or had been when he waslast in the rancheria. On Buck's stairway from the past, both hadhalted more than halfway down. Nolan was a quiet man who seldom spoke,and whose opinion Travis could not foretell. Tsoay would back Buck.

  Probably such a divided party was the best Travis could have hoped togather. A delegation composed entirely of those who were ready to leavethe past of the Redax--a collection of Bucks and Jil-Lees--was outsidethe bounds of possibility. But Travis was none too happy to have Deklayin on this.

  Travis dismounted, letting the pony push forward by himself to dip noseinto the pool.

  "This is," Travis pointed politely with his chin--"Menlik, one who talkswith spirits.... Hulagur, who is son to a chief ... and Kaydessa, who isdaughter to a chief. They are of the horse people of the north." He madethe introduction carefully in English.

  Then he turned to the Tatars. "Buck, Deklay, Nolan, Manulito, Tsoay," henamed them all, "these stand to listen, and to speak for the Apaches."

  But sometime later when the two parties sat facing each other, hewondered whether a common decision could come from the clansmen on hisside of that irregular circle. Deklay's expression was closed; he hadeven edged a short way back, as if he had no desire to approach thestrangers. And Travis read into every line of Deklay's body his distrustand antagonism.

  He himself began to speak, retelling his adventures since they hadfollowed Kaydessa's trail, sketching in the situation at theTatar-Mongol settlement as he had learned it from her and from Menlik.He was careful to speak in English so that the Tatars could hear all hewas reporting to his own kind. And the Apaches listened blank-faced,though Tsoay must already have reported much of this. When Travis wasdone it was Deklay who asked a question:

  "What have we to do with these people?"

  "There is this--" Travis chose his words carefully, thinking of whatmight move a warrior still conditioned to riding with the raiders of ahundred years earlier, "the Pinda-lick-o-yi (whom we call 'Reds,') arenever willing to live side by side with any who are not of their mind.And they have weapons such as make our bow cords bits of rotten string,our knives slivers of rust. They do not kill; they enslave. And whenthey discover that we live, then they will come against us--"

  Deklay's lips moved in a wolf grin. "This is a large land, and we knowhow to use it. The Pinda-lick-o-yi will not find us--"

  "With their eyes maybe not," Travis replied. "With their machines--thatis another matter."

  "Machines!" Deklay spat. "Always these machines.... Is that all you cantalk about? It would seem that you are bewitched by these machines,which we have not seen--none of us!"

  "It was a machine which brought you here," Buck observed. "Go you backand look
upon the spaceship and remember, Deklay. The knowledge of thePinda-lick-o-yi is greater than ours when it deals with metal and wireand things which can be made with both. Machines brought us along theroad of the stars, and there is no tracker in the clan who could hope todo the same. But now I have this to ask: Does our brother have a plan?"

  "Those who are Reds," Travis answered slowly, "they do not number many.But more may later come from our own world. Have you heard of sucharriving?" he asked Menlik.

  "Not so, but we are not told much. We live apart and no one of us goesto the ship unless he is summoned. For they have weapons to guard them,or long since they would have been dead. It is not proper for a man toeat from the pot, ride in the wind, sleep easy under the same sky withhim who has slain his brother."

  "They have then killed among your people?"

  "They have killed," Menlik returned briefly.

  Kaydessa stirred and muttered a word or two to her brother. Hulagur'shead came up, and he exploded into violent speech.

  "What does he say?" Deklay demanded.

  The girl replied: "He speaks of our father who aided in the escape ofthree and so afterward was slain by the leader as a lesson to us--sincehe was our 'white beard,' the Khan."

  "We have taken the oath in blood--under the Wolf Head Standard--thatthey will also die," Menlik added. "But first we must shake them out oftheir ship-shell."

  "That is the problem," Travis elaborated for the benefit of hisclansmen. "We must get these Reds away from their protected camp--outinto the open. When they now go they are covered by this 'caller' whichkeeps the Tatars under their control, but it has no effect on us."

  "So, again I say: What is all this to us?" Deklay got to his feet. "Thismachine does not hunt us, and we can make our camps in this land whereno Pinda-lick-o-yi can find them----"

  "We are not _dobe-gusndhe-he_--invulnerable. Nor do we know the fullrange of machines they can use. It does no one well to say'_doxa-da_'--this is not so--when he does not know all that lies in anenemy's wickiup."

  To Travis' relief he saw agreement mirrored on Buck's face, Tsoay's,Nolan's. From the beginning he had had little hope of swaying Deklay; hecould only trust that the verdict of the majority would be the acceptedone. It went back to the old, old Apache institution of prestige. A_nantan_-chief had the _go'ndi_, the high power, as a gift from birth.Common men could possess horse power or cattle power; they might havethe gift of acquiring wealth so they could make generous gifts--be_ikadntl'izi_, the wealthy ones who spoke for their family groups withinthe loose network of the tribe. But there was no hereditarychieftainship or even an undivided rule within a rancheria. The_nagunlka-dnat'an_, or war chief, often led only on the warpath and hadno voice in clan matters save those dealing with a raid.

  And to have a split now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklayand those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the restcould deny him that right.

  "We shall think on this," Buck said. "Here is food, water, pasturage forhorses, a camp for our visitors. They will wait here." He looked atTravis. "You will wait with them, Fox, since you know their ways."

  Travis' immediate reaction was objection, but then he realized Buck'swisdom. To offer the proposition of alliance to the Apaches needed animpartial spokesman. And if he himself did it, Deklay mightautomatically oppose the idea. Let Buck talk and it would be a statementof fact.

  "It is well," Travis agreed.

  Buck looked about, as if judging time from the lie of sun and shadow onthe ground. "We shall return in the morning when the shadow lies here."With the toe of his high moccasin he made an impression in the softearth. Then, without any formal farewell, he strode off, the others faston his heels.

  "He is your chief, that one?" Kaydessa asked, pointing after Buck.

  "He is one having a large voice in council," Travis replied. He setabout building up the cooking fire, bringing out the body of asplit-horn calf which had been left them. Menlik sat on his heels by thepool, dipping up drinking water with his hand. Now he squinted his eyesagainst the probe of the sun.

  "It will require much talking to win over the short one," he observed."That one does not like us or your plan. Just as there will be thoseamong the Horde who will not like it either." He flipped water dropsfrom his fingers. "But this I do know, man who calls himself Fox, if wedo not make a common cause, then we have no hope of going against theReds. It will be for them as a man crushing fleas." He brought his handdown on his knee in emphatic slaps. "So ... and so ... and so!"

  "This do I think also," Travis admitted.

  "So let us both hope that all men will be as wise as we," Menlik said,smiling. "And since we can take a hand in that decision, this remains atime for rest."

  The shaman might be content to sleep the afternoon away, but after hehad eaten, Hulagur wandered up and down the valley, making a lengthybusiness of rubbing down their horses with twists of last season'sgrass. Now and then he paused beside Kaydessa and spoke, his uneasinessplain to Travis although he could not understand the words.

  Travis had settled down in the shade, half dozing, yet alert to everymovement of the three Tatars. He tried not to think of what might behappening in the rancheria by switching his mind to that misty valley ofthe towers. Did any of those three alien structures contain such a grabbag of the past as he, Ashe, and Murdock had found on that other worldwhere the winged people had gathered together for them the artifacts ofan older civilization? At that time he had created for their hosts a newweapon of defense, turning metal tubes into blow-guns. It had beenthere, too, where he had chanced upon the library of tapes, one of whichhad eventually landed Travis and his people here on Topaz.

  Even if he did find racks of such tapes in one of those towers, therewould be no way of using them--with the ship wrecked on the mountainside. Only--Travis' fingers itched where they lay quiet on hisknees--there might be other things waiting. If he were only free toexplore!

  He reached out to touch Menlik's shoulder. The shaman half turned,opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the sparkof intelligence awoke in them quickly.

  "What is it?"

  For a moment Travis hesitated, already regretting his impulse. He didnot know how much Menlik remembered of the present. Remember of thepresent--one part of the Apache's mind was wryly amused at that snarledestimate of their situation. Men who had been dropped into their racialand ancestral pasts until the present time was less real than thedreams conditioning them had a difficult job evaluating any situation.But since Menlik had clung to his knowledge of English, he must be lessfar down that stairway.

  "When we met you, Kaydessa and I, it was outside that valley." Traviswas still of two minds about this questioning, but the Tatar camp hadbeen close to the towers and there was a good chance the Mongols hadexplored them. "And inside were buildings ... very old...."

  Menlik was fully alert now. He took his wand, played with it as hespoke:

  "That is, or was, a place of much power, Fox. Oh, I know that youquestion my kinship with the spirits and the powers they give. But onelearns not to dispute what one feels here--and here--" His long,somewhat grimy fingers went to his forehead and then to the bare brownchest where his shirt fell open. "I have walked the stone path in thatvalley, and there have been the whispers--"

  "Whispers?"

  Menlik twirled the wand. "Whispers which are too low for many ears todistinguish. You can hear them as one hears the buzzing of an insect,but never the words--no, never the words! But that is a place of greatpower!"

  "A place to explore!"

  But Menlik watched only his wand. "That I wonder, Fox, truly do Iwonder. This is not our world. And here there may be that which does notwelcome us."

  Tricks-in-trade of a shaman? Or was it true recognition of somethingbeyond human description? Travis could not be sure, but he knew that hemust return to the valley and see for himself.

  "Listen," Menlik said, leaning closer, "I have heard your tale, thatyou were on that first ship,
the one which brought you unwilling alongthe old star paths. Have you ever seen such a thing as this?"

  He smoothed a space of soft earth and with the narrow tip of his wandbegan to draw. Whatever role Menlik had played in the present before hehad been reconditioned into a shaman of the Horde, he had had theability of an artist, for with a minimum of lines he created a figure inthat sketch.

  It was a man or at least a figure with general human outlines. But theround, slightly oversized skull was bare, the clothing skintight toreveal unnaturally thin limbs. There were large eyes, small nose andmouth, rather crowded into the lower third of the head, giving animpression of an over-expanded brain case above. And it was familiar.

  Not the flying men of the other world, certainly not the nocturnalape-things. Yet for all its alien quality Travis was sure he had seenits like before. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it apart fromlines in the soil.

  Such a head, white, almost like the bone of a skull laid bare, such ahead lying face down on a bone-thin arm clad in a blue-purple skintightsleeve. Where had he seen it?

  The Apache gave a sharp exclamation as he remembered fully. The derelictspaceship as he had first found it--the dead alien officer had stillbeen seated at its controls! The alien who had set the tape which tookthem out into that forgotten empire--he was the subject of Menlik'sdrawing!

  "Where? When did you see such a one?" The Apache bent down over theTatar.

  Menlik looked troubled. "He came into my mind when I walked the valley.I thought I could almost see such a face in one of the tower windows,but of that I am not sure. Who is it?"

  "Someone from the old days--those who once ruled the stars," Travisanswered. But were they still here then, the remnant of a civilizationwhich had flourished ten thousand years ago? Were the Baldies, whocenturies ago had hunted down so ruthlessly the Russians who had daredto loot their wrecked ships, still on Topaz?

  He remembered the story of Ross Murdock's escape from those aliens inthe far past of Europe, and he shivered. Murdock was tough, steel tough,yet his own description of that epic chase and the final meeting hadcarried with it his terror. What could a handful of primitively armedand almost primitively minded Terrans do now if they had to disputeTopaz with the Baldies?