Stoat shook his head. “You were impressed with the droms and did not notice the men. There was one for each man only. It is always so.”
Lahks pursed her lips, plucked at them, frowned. “Do you remember when we hid from the first dragon? The droms sat near us and tried to make us move. If we set ourselves some forty or fifty meters apart, would two stay with you and one with me?”
“That is long range for a stunner,” Stoat protested, “and I would not want to hurt the men. They only do as they are ordered.”
“I do not think there will be any need to hurt anyone,” Lahks said, giggling slyly. “Remember, such maneuvers are not unknown to Trade. But we must wait for morning. Listen.”
In the early light of morning, Lahks took a last look around to convince herself that all was ready. A bedroll, untidily open, many tracks leading away, but not far away, and returning erratically, a couple of spots that looked as if someone had thrown herself or fallen to the sand—all gave pathetic evidence of abandonment, search, and fear, incidentally the disturbance of the desert sand also covered any tracks Stoat and Shom may have made and any signs of the extra droms.
Lahks glanced toward a slight hollow some seventy meters in the distance, It was farther than they had wished, but at any closer distance, the droms drew together, two facing toward the men and one, with dizzily swinging eyes (reproachful at both levels, Lahks thought), on her. She laughed aloud at the memory of Stoat’s language and of a furious kick landed on a drom’s flank that merely set the infuriated man hopping with pain without any effect whatsoever on the grinning, head-bobbing drom.
But at that distance even she, who knew where to look and what to look for, could see no sign of her companions. She flicked on the distress caller and flung herself face down on the bedroll, as if exhausted by effort and terror.
There was good reason to believe her wait would not be long. On a map scratched in the sand, Stoat had pointed out that they were not far from the cup, having made a wide circle around it. The caller should reach a flyer if it was searching the central portion of the hilly ridge, or, at worst, if it was on its way home.
In the event it was well that the scene was set and ready, because response was quicker than Lahks had expected. Within a very brief time of casting herself down despondently, the distant hum of a flyer was perceptible. Lahks earnestly thought sad thoughts. She pictured herself as an abandoned orphan waif; she called to mind how much she missed Ghrey; she concentrated on the emptiness inside her when she had cut off Ghrey’s communication. Soon tears were pouring down her face and her body was racked by the most convincing sobs. When the sound of the flyer forced itself past her concentration and rose above her whimpers of grief, she started, sat up, and stared. Leaping to her feet, Lahks ran toward the rapidly approaching machine, waving her arms wildly and screaming for help.
Inside the flyer the men smiled and sighed with heartfelt relief. They would be well rewarded for bringing home this prize and, from appearances, the prize would actually be grateful to them. Moreover, it would be blessedly easy. There would be no hunter to do away with—a breed notoriously hard to kill. Nor would they need to decide whether to make the woman hate them by destroying the idiot or endangering themselves by bringing him along. Wise hunter. Wise in the ways of the Landlords. He had abandoned the woman.
Then one said, “But if he wished to abandon her, why endanger himself by hiding with her for three days?”
The other laughed coarsely. “Are women so plentiful that he would not wish to sup off her before he ran?”
Shocked, but with his doubts removed, the younger man nodded agreement. Of course, a hunter would not care that the Landlord had claimed the woman. A flicker of longing for the freedom of a hunter’s life was quenched immediately by his knowledge of the realities of hardship and danger—and there were no women at all in the deserts.
Within his bubble of concealment, Stoat cursed luridly, and Shom stirred uneasily under the impact of his emotion. Running toward the flyer that way might convince the men in it that she was glad to see them, but it would make them land so far from him that even the laser would lose accuracy. A renewed wave of suspicion—for Stoat no longer doubted either the nerve or intelligence of his companion—slid away into a feral grin of appreciation.
The Trader’s daughter knew flyers. Since landing was a relatively long process—amin rather than secs—and since she had given every sign of being hysterical and foolish to boot, the men would be afraid she would run right into the machine. Naturally, they would overpass her and land well on the far side, knowing that her need to stop and turn would give them extra time. And that would force them much closer to where he and Shom were hiding.
However, that would also mean that the door the men opened would be on the side away from him. Stoat thumbed the stunner charge up to maximum, hoping both that the flyer did not sport sonic-resistant plexi and that the ship would be enclosed. He did not want to scramble any brains. He had another moment of anxiety when it looked as if the ship might set down right on top of them, but realized that the comcov had distorted his view a little. The flyer was definitely settling nearer than hoped. Stoat had lost sight of Lahks, but he was not worried about her; her only real moment of danger had already passed.
Lahks had recognized the peril, too. When the flyer passed overhead, she had thrown up her arms, as if to reach for it, flicking on all the electronic devices in her body at once in the hope that they would disrupt any stun-beam directed at her. None was, but the beeps, buzzes, clicks, honks, and wails of her own equipment responding to the myriad devices on the flyer nearly felled her. The panic-stop shut them off before any harm was done. Giggles now mixed with Lahks’ sobs because she could not help appreciating how effective her stagger and shriek of dismay had been.
Arms still outstretched, she turned and began running back toward the landing flyer. Although her legs were pumping up and down at a great rate and much sand was flying, Lahks was not getting anywhere. She was pretty sure the men would not notice, it was a common effect to feel as if things on the ground were moving slowly after one had been skimming close to the earth in a fast-moving flyer.
When the door slid back and one of the flyer’s occupants began to walk toward her, Lahks started to pick up speed, screaming hysterically all the while. The man called to her comfortingly, and then, moved by her distress, he began to hurry himself. Now Lahks was running all out, rapidly attaining the velocity of a small guided missile. At the last moment, a vague glimmering of doubt seemed to touch the Wumeerian. He stopped and tried to sidestep. It was too late. As if she also realized a collision was imminent, Lahks, too, changed direction but to the same side as her unfortunate opponent. She met him with the impact of a cannonball, at the very last second folding her arms so that she would merely knock the breath from him rather than kill by rupturing all his internal organs.
They went down together, rolling in the sand, giving every appearance of a man struggling with a hysterical woman whom he did not wish to hurt. The remaining occupant of the flyer, who had been watching the scene intently, half-rose and shook his head. It was the last voluntary movement he made for some hours. Under cover of Lahks’ play-acting, Stoat had crept from the comcov’s shield right up to the flyer. He was taking little risk because he could fire the moment the man’s head turned in his direction. In rising, however, the pilot presented a perfect target. Stoat’s stunner promptly sent him into a quiet, curled heap. As soon as he dropped, Stoat ran to Lahks’ bedroll to shut off the distress call. The last thing they wanted was a second flyer. With that silenced, he returned to the machine and climbed in. There he stood and laughed aloud before he called, “Clear here!” through the open door and then directed Shom to go and pick up Lahks’ victim.
“That was funny,” he said as Lahks arrived, dusting the sand from her windsuit, “very funny. Our sleeping friend here was so absorbed, I could have climbed in with him.”
“On a planet where there is a male-dominant society,” Lahks replied, laughing also, “even when a thing should be suspicious to them, if a woman does it they will not let themselves suspect danger.”
“It does not irk you, I see, Trader’s daughter.”
“Only a fool is irked by something that brings her advantage.” Lahks looked around at their prize. It seemed in good condition, though very old-fashioned. “Can you pilot it?” she asked. Given time, Lahks could figure out the controls, and that would be natural-enough knowledge for a Trader’s daughter, but she did not wish to waste either time or, more important, fuel.
There was a brief hesitation and an odd shadow passed behind Stoat’s eyes, but at last he said, “Yes, long ago, very long ago, I flew such a machine. There is little I have not done at one time or another, Trader’s daughter.”
With a grunt, Shom heaved the man Lahks had left unconscious into the flyer. Stoat told him to bring the packs and the comcov. When he turned back to Lahks, the shadow had passed from his face and he was smiling again.
“Well, you have whistled and caught us a flyer. What miracle would you like to work next?”
“I must think about it,” she replied with such gravity that Stoat was snared again and turned to stare. “After all, if I pick the wrong one and it doesn’t work, you will lose faith in me.”
A fine brow quirked upward. “Trade must be a merry way of life if there are many like you in it,” he said dryly. “Meanwhile, what are we to do with these men?”
Shom, had shut off the comcov and Lahks watched him gather their equipment. “How much fuel have we?” she asked.
Stoat slid sinuously into the pilot’s seat, studied the panel, flipped a switch, then sighed. “Your miracle is perfect, Trader’s daughter. The power is all but full.”
“So it worked as we planned. They had just started and planned to go far afield. I think”—her lips quirked—“that since they have been so cooperative, we should save them a long walk. Let us drop them near the cup.”
“No.” Stoat’s voice was positive. “A little nearer if you like, but neither will sleep long. We wish to be well away before they return to the Landlord and tell their tale. Besides, this flyer was not meant for the load we must carry. They have their weapons, and they were born on this planet. They can ride the droms home.”
Lahks did not argue. She had sufficient confidence in Stoat’s consideration for his fellow man and knowledge of the situation to rely upon his judgment. They deposited the original pilot and his companion in the small cave they had used as a campsite. Lahks left a note saying the flyer would be returned or its worth repaid. The men could use it if they thought it would mitigate the Landlord’s wrath. Then they were free. Shom squatted with their packs in the carrying compartment. Lahks turned bright eyes on her pilot, who, after initial caution, was handling his craft with surprising dexterity.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Men have been on this planet a long time, long enough that some history has turned to legend and some legend to history. In the histories it says that when men first came there were ruins. They were very old, however, and so much decayed that nothing of the civilization that built them could be disclosed.”
Lahks nodded. It never occurred to her that Stoat had introduced an irrelevant topic. In fact, she could almost guess what the introduction would lead to. However, since she was interested and there was no hurry, she did not intrude her guess.
“More likely the settlers had neither time, skill, nor energy for archaeological studies. This was an incredibly harsh planet. They used anything they could, dressed stone and such, from the ruins and ignored or flattened the rest. I have spent considerable time trying to pinpoint any place ruins were said to exist, however.”
The sly-hot eyes flicked at her, and Lahks nodded again. “Because where the ruins were, the heartstones are found.”
“So it seems to me, although I have nothing that could be called proof. Correlating a vague legend that there once was a ruin in such-and-such a place with an equally vague rumor that such-and-such a hunter found a stone near there is scarcely proof.”
“A candle is better than no light at all on a dark night.”
“There is a legend that in the heart of the southern desert there are great ruins.”
His voice was soft, with a hint of longing, and Lahks did not break the silence that fell after he spoke. The ship hissed through the furious air, the low whine of its engine drowned in the total sound. Lahks, protected by her windsuit, had become so accustomed to the howling gale that was considered a quiet day in all flat areas that she was at first surprised at the noise. Stoat’s eyes flicked continuously from fuel gauge to altimeter to distance gauge. Then he took the flyer up very nearly to its limit in altitude and repeated the testing process.
When he turned to Lahks, Stoat’s face was devoid of expression, but Shom moved restlessly among the packs. Lahks would have liked to look at the idiot to determine the emotion Stoat was concealing, but it would have been too obvious.
“No one knows the extent of the southern desert, nor have I any certain idea of the place of the ruins—if there are ruins. If we could find them, there might not be fuel enough to return. There may not even be droms so far into the desert. Beyond that is the question of wind. If a windstorm catches the flyer in the air, we are dead. On the ground we might survive, but the flyer would be destroyed—and that might finish us, too.”
For a long moment Lahks studied the carefully neutral face, the feral light of the dark eyes banked to deliberate dullness. Her lips twitched and then her merry laugh mocked the howl of the wind.
“We cannot control the wind. That might come upon us anywhere. The droms do not matter—we can walk. As for the fuel, we need not consider it until it is half gone. Hunter, you could list a thousand dangers more sure than those that threaten. When you breathed the word of untouched ruins. . .” Her eyes alight, Lahks laughed again. “A stone to buy my brother back. A stone to pay your labor. A stone clumsily hidden for the Landlords to find. A stone more, and my father’s ship is free. What danger would I not dare for that?”