Catseye (23 page)

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.

Nightfall found the flitter well into the plains. Dragur heeded the protests of the Guildsman who alternated with Zul as pilot and agreed to camp for the night.

“Which,” the agent remarked with a courtesy exaggerated enough to approach a taunt, “provides us with a problem, noble Hunter. You, in this, your home territory, will have to be bodily restrained. I trust you will forgive the practical solution. Our young friend here needs no such limits on his freedom.”

Rerne, hands and feet bound, made no protest as he was bedded down between Zul and the Guildsman. Troy, oblivious to his company and surroundings, fell asleep almost at once, his weariness like a vast weight grinding him into darkness. Yet in that dark there was no rest. He twisted, turned, raced breathlessly to finish some fantastic task under the spur of time. And he awoke gasping, sweat damp upon his body.

Stars were paling overhead. This was the dawn of the day in which they would come to the wood. For a fraction of one fast escaping moment he knew again that sensation of freedom and fresh life that had first come to him on the plateau, which would always signify for him the Wild. Then that was gone under the lash of memory. Troy did not stir, save that his hand unconsciously once more sought the band on his wrist, and from the touch of that strange metal a quickening of spirit reached into body and mind. His thoughts quested feverishly, picturing the fringe of saplings and trees as he had seen it last. Simba crouched beneath a bush—waiting—

“Found!”

Troy flung up his arm, the cool band of Ruhkarv pressed tight to his forehead above his closed eyes. And under that touch his mental picture leaped into instant sharp detail.

“You come?”

“I come,” Troy affirmed silently. “Be ready—when I come.” He tried to marshal the necessary arguments and promises that would draw them to the place where Dragur would land.

“So—you have made contact at last, Range Master?”

Troy's arm fell away from his forehead. He frowned up at the Confederation agent. But there was no reason to deny the truth. What he had had to do he had done, to the bust of his ability.

“Yes. They will be waiting.”

“Excellent. I must compliment you, Horan, on your commendable speed in seeking to fulfill your part of the bargain. We shall eat and then get on to the netting.”

Troy ate slowly. So much depended now on Simba's response to his appeal, on the cat's dominance over his fellow mutants. If the slight bond between man and animals was not stout enough to lead them to trust him now—then he had failed completely.

Back in the flitter he made no further attempt to keep in touch with the fugitives. He had done all he could during that early morning contact. Either they would be waiting—or they would not. The future must be governed by one or the other of those facts—which one he would not know until the flyer landed.

In midmorning, bright and clear, the flitter touched with an expert's jarless landing at the edge of the wood. Dragur ordered them out, the barrel of his needler as much on Troy as on Rerne.

“And now”—the agent faced the woodland—“where are they, Horan?”

“In there.” Troy nodded to the cover. Yes, they were all there, waiting in hiding. Whether they would show themselves was again another matter.

The Guildsman drew his blaster, thumbed the butt dial to spray beam. Troy gathered himself for a quick leap if the other touched the button. But the agent spoke first. “No beaming,” he snapped. “We have to be sure we get them all and in one attack.” Then he turned to Troy. “Bring them out.”

“I have no summoner, and they will not obey me to that point. I cannot bring them against their wills. I can only hold them where they are.”

For a second or two he was afraid that Dragur would refuse to enter the shadow of the trees. Then Troy's statement apparently made sense to the agent.

“March!” Dragur's tone sheared away the urbanity of earlier hours. Troy obeyed, the agent close behind him, needler ready.

Horan rounded a bush, stooped under a hanging branch. “Here! Here! Here!”

Simba, Sargon, Sheba—

Troy threw himself face down into the leaf mold, rolled—Dragur shrieked. Troy came to his knees again and faced the man now plunging empty-handed toward him.

Simba clung with three taloned feet to the agent's shoulders, as with a fourth he clawed viciously at the man's face and eyes, while both foxes made a concentrated attack with sharp fangs upon the agent's ankles.

Troy caught up the needler the other had dropped when Simba had sprung to his present perch from a low-hanging tree limb. Horan was still on one knee, but he had the weapon up to cover Zul as the small man burst through the bushes to them.

“Stand—and drop that!”

Zul's eyes widened. Reluctantly his fingers loosened their hold upon the blaster. The weapon thudded to the ground.

“You, too!”

The Guildsman who had prodded Rerne on into this pocket clearing obeyed Troy's order. A furred shadow with a long tail crooked above its back flitted out of cover, mouthed Zul's blaster and brought it to Troy, then went back for the guard's weapon. Dragur staggered around, his arms flailing about his head where the blood dripped from ripped flesh on his face and neck. Simba no longer rode his shoulders, but was now assisting the foxes to drive the man, with sudden rushes and slashes at his feet and legs.

Blinded, crying in pain, completely demoralized by the surprise and the unexpected nature of that attack, the agent tripped and fell, sprawling at Rerne's feet, while Simba snarled and made a last claw swipe at his face. The ranger stared in complete amazement from the team of animal warriors to Troy.

“You planned this?” he asked in a voice loud enough to carry over Dragur's moaning.

“We
planned this,” Troy corrected. He thrust the two blasters into his belt, but he kept the needler aimed at the others.

“Now”—he motioned to the Guildsman—“you gather up Citizen Dragur and we will go back to the flitter.”

There was no argument against the needler. Half carrying the moaning agent, the Guildsman tramped sullenly back to the flyer, Zul and Rerne in his wake, Troy bringing up the rear. He knew the animals were active as flanking scouts though he no longer saw them.

“You”—Troy nodded to Rerne—“unload water, the emergency supplies.”

“You are staying here then?” The ranger showed no surrise.

“We
are staying,” Troy corrected once again, watching as the other dumped from the flitter the things he might need for survival in the Wild. Then the Guildsman under Horan's orders, gave Dragur rough first aid, tied him up and stowed him away, afterwards doing the same for Zul, before he, himself, submitted to binding at Rerne's hands.

“And how do you propose to deal with me?” the ranger asked as he boosted the last of the invaders from Tikil into the flitter.

“You can go—with them.” Troy hesitated for a moment and then, almost against his will, he added roughly, “I ask your pardon for that tap on the head at Ruhkarv.”

Rerne gazed at him levelly. The mask he had worn in the city was back, to make his features unreadable, though there was a spark of some emotion deep in his eyes.

“You were within your rights—an oath breaker deserves little consideration.” But behind those flat words was something Troy thought he could read different meaning into.

“Those waiting were not your men but patrollers?” He demanded confirmation of what he had come to suspect.

Simba appeared out of the grass, by his presence urging an end to this time-wasting talk.

“So you saw that much.” The flicker in Rerne's eyes glowed stronger.

“I saw, and I have had time to think.” It was an apology, one Troy longed for the other to accept, though that acceptance could lead to nothing between them now save a level balancing of the old scales.

“I will come back—you understand that?” Rerne stated a fact.

Troy smiled. The headiness of his victory bubbled in him. Release from the strain of the past hours, or past days, was an intoxicant he found hard to combat.

“If you wish, Rerne. I may not be your equal in the lore of the Wild, but together we shall give you a good run—”

“We?” Rerne's head swung. If he was looking for the other animals, he would not see them. But they were all there, even to Sahiba crouched under the low branches of a bush.

“Still
we
.”

“And Norden?”

Troy's smile faded. That was a wicked backstroke he had not expected from Rerne. His braceleted hand went to the belt where the studs were no longer burnished bright.

“The crab did not jump,” he replied evenly.

“Perhaps it was not offered the right bait.” Rerne shook his head. “This is the Wild and you are no trained ranger. By our laws I cannot help you unless you ask for it, and that would mean surrender.” He waited a long moment, as if he actually hoped for some affirmative sign from Troy.

The other nodded. “I know. From now on it will be you and yours against us. Only do not be too sure of the ending, Rerne.”

He watched the flitter rise in the vertical climb of a master pilot. Then, the carrying strap of the needler across his shoulder, he made a compact bundle of the supplies.

Sunset, sunrise, another nightfall—morning again—though here the sun made a pale greenish shimmer in the forest depths. Troy only knew that they were still pointed east. At least under such cover he could not be tracked by air patrols. Those hunting him would have to go afoot and so be subject to discovery by the keener senses of the animals. Shang took to the treetops, Simba and the foxes ranged wide on the ground, able to scout about Troy as he marched, carrying Sahiba.