Postmarked The Stars Part 9

"No, except the beam is stronger."

The ranger leaned his head against the rock behind him. "We cannot make it on foot, even as far as Cartl's holding. And that is the southernmost outpost." He might have been thinking aloud as he imparted that gloomy information. "A crawler is slow and heavy, and it is not normally used far from a base camp, where it can be maintained."

"Those prospectors had a crawler," Dane broke in.

"They must also have had a camp," Meshler returned heavily. "And this one, under the ledge"-he came back to the present problem-"is a temporary one only. Therefore-"

"We head straight back into their hands?" flashed Dane. "Are you s.p.a.ce-whirly, man?"

"I am ranger trained." Meshler showed no annoyance at Dane's impatience. "Those men in hunters' clothing-I do not think they were hunters."

"We have no weapons," Tau reminded him. "Or did you pick some up at the flitter?"

"No. It is my belief they would have been put back on us when we were returned to the scene. These men will be after us, yes, but they will expect us to head north. If we go south and get that crawler-or other transport-we have a chance. Otherwise-" He did not finish that sentence. His eyes closed, and Dane suddenly realized that the trip through the night must have been a double strain on the ranger playing eyes for three men.

"I take first watch?" Tau looked to Dane.

He wanted to say no, but he could not pull that denial out of the weight of fatigue that deadened his body. "First watch," he agreed, and as he settled back against the stone, much in Meshler's position, he was already half asleep.

When Tau aroused him for sentry duty, the pale winter sun was high overhead, and there was actually a mild sensation of warmth. By chance or design, Meshler had chosen their pocket stronghold well. It faced northwest-the direction from which they might logically expect their pursuers to come. And the only way anyone could get at them was up a narrow strip of open climb, steep enough so that a couple of well-placed boulders could be rolled down it. Only, such boulders did not exist nearby as Dane discovered when he crawled stiffly out of the half cave and stretched his arms and legs, though keeping in the shadow of the rocks.

Some flying things cruised the air, soaring and dropping on spread wings that flapped only once in a while, but those were clearly native to this land. At ground level nothing moved. Dane longed for a pair of distance lenses-they should have been in the flitter, but now they might as well be in one of the pockets on Trewsworld's well-cratered moon for all the good they did him.

Meshler's proposal to go on into the heart of what might be enemy territory apparently made sense to the ranger, but Dane was dubious. Now as he squatted at the entrance to their shelter, the brach crawled out from between Meshler and Tau, where he had been cradled in their warmth, and came to Dane, sitting up next to the Terran.

"Are there any below?" Dane said to the hood mike.

The long head turned in a slow swing right to left and back again.

"No one comes. Hunter there-" The alien indicated one of the wheeling winged dots. "It hungers, it waits-but not for us."

Dane had confidence in the brach's senses, but not enough to lead him to forsake his vantage point and watch on the land below.

"There have been-" the brach continued.

"Been what?" Dane prodded.

"Been men here."

"Here!" Dane was startled.

"Not in this place, below-there-" Again the brach pointed, downslope to the left.

"How do you know?"

"Machine smell." It seemed to Dane that long nose raised in a gesture of distaste. "Not now-but once."

"Stay here-watch," Dane told the brach. He could see no tracks of any machine. But if the crawler had pa.s.sed this way, then it would have left some and a trail they could follow. Better than just striking off into the blue with Tau's detect as their only guide.

He took all precautions, working his way downslope, though, he thought with a wry grimace, doubtless to one of Meshler's training he probably made every mistake in the manual. When he reached the point to which the brach had directed him, he discovered the alien was right. There were deep indentations of a crawler's tread-and on a rock a smear of oil, which must have alerted the sensitive nose of the alien.

Allowing for the twists of a pa.s.sage made to take every advantage of any ease on the very rough ground here, the trail did run to the south, not quite in the same direction as Tau's detect, but enough so to suggest that end of trail and radiation had a common source. He traced it only a short distance, having no mind to be spotted by any jack traveler. Dane was not long back in position at the opening of the shelter before Meshler roused. He moved out to join the Terran. Dane reported his discovery, only to see the ranger slink down with caution, returning shortly thereafter.

"Not a regular road," he said as he reached for the pack to bring out another ration tube. "The thing only went through there once, and it was in difficulties."

"The oil smear?" Dane asked.

"That-and one of the treads had a frayed edge. It might well have been heading in for repairs, taking a shortcut." He again measured off four sections on the tube, being meticulously just.

Having eaten his own portion, he squeezed out one for the brach before handing the tube to Dane. And the Terran, finishing his share, put the tube near Tau's hand for his awakening.

"Nothing else?" the ranger asked.

"No. He agrees to that." Dane indicated the brach, licking his muzzle with his long tongue.

"We go on, in the dark." Meshler lifted his head much as did the brach when sniffing. "Clear tonight-a fuller moon-"

Not that that would make much difference, thought Dane. Meshler might declare a night to be clear, as it probably was for him, while it remained dark to the Terrans.

It was late afternoon, and Dane had dozed off again when he was roused by Tau. Once more they shared a ration tube, and then Meshler signaled a move. The sun was halfway down behind some sawtoothed mountains, and already shadows were reaching out in dusky advance.

Relying on the brach's warning, Dane carried the alien within his jacket, though having to leave it unsealed to do so meant that some of the warmth was lost. They started out along the track left by the crawler. Before the light had entirely gone, they came across one place where the chewed-up soil suggested the machine had stalled, to be dug loose. The scuffed marks left by boots were too badly blurred to let them guess how many pa.s.sengers the vehicle had carried.

The detect in Tau's hand continued to point in the same general direction. However, the medic reported that the amount of radiation was not mounting. It was the brach who about midnight or thereabouts gave them their warning.

"Things-" Its pipe sounded in Dane's hood mike. "Danger-"

"Men?" he asked quickly.

"No. Like dragons-"

Dane repeated that to his companions. Meshler was in the van. Again his head went up as Dane could see in the thin light of the half-moon; again he seemed to be sniffing. "That stink!" The word burst out of him.

Dane turned his head, coughed, and choked. Stink-stench was right! Far worse than the bad odor of the things hatched from the embryo containers, or even the smell of the antline-and so thick that they might be standing on the verge of an offal dump.

"There's a force field there." Tau held out the detect, and they saw that the needle quivered back and forth. So warned, Dane was able to make out the faint blue haze that formed a wall directly ahead. What faced them now was a dark, tangled ma.s.s of vegetation, but between them and it was the force field, and for that Dane was secretly glad. To plunge into that ma.s.s in the dark was more than he cared to do, whether Meshler could pilot them or not. And the stench plainly came from that direction.

"Crawler tracks turn left." Meshler followed them. Dane reluctantly did the same, Tau falling into step beside him. The Terran guessed that the medic was no more pleased with this than he was.

By now there was a road of sorts, or at least a way beaten flat by the treads of crawlers. Either one had made this trip many times, or else more than one had gone so. They paralleled the haze, which gave a wan and very ghostly light to the road they followed and the growth behind it. Light enough to- Dane did not utter that gasp. Meshler, for all his familiarity with the wild, had voiced it, stopping short, as if the force field had swung out a sudden arm to restrain him. But Dane was as frozen.

There had been movement behind the haze. Now they looked up at something that, in that very limited light, was enough to send any sane man flying. Only for a second did they see it, and then it was gone. Dane could not be sure now he had really seen it at all. There was no sound, no movement, now. Only it was something so alien that even a star voyager flinched from facing it.

"Was it-?" Was it really there, Dane wanted to ask.

But Meshler was moving on, taking long strides so that the Terrans had to hurry to catch up, slipping and stumbling in the rutted road. It was as if the ranger was denying what he had seen, or might have seen, by that dogged advance. Nor did any of them speak. Even the brach hung quiet, a growing weight.

The haze of the force wall curved to the right, but the road kept on. Then Meshler halted again and flung out his arm as a barrier against which Dane ran. They were standing on the top of a small rise. Below them the slope grew steeper, descending to where there came the sound of water running in the night. But across the stream was a bridge, and there were very discreetly shielded lights placed at either end to mark it, diffuse-set on lowest beam. As far as the three on the height could see, there was no sentry there, which did not in the least mean that there was none in existence. Dane spoke to the brach.

"Men there?"

"No men," the brach replied promptly.

"We'll have to chance it," Meshler commented as Dane pa.s.sed that along. "Chances are there is no other way of crossing the stream, or they wouldn't go to the trouble of bridging it. A crawler can usually pa.s.s through a fordable body of water."

Dane felt very naked and vulnerable as they hurried downslope, crossed the bridge, and dashed on into the welcome shadows ahead.

"We are very close to the radiation source," Tau said as they trotted along the crawler road. "But it is more to the left."

As if his words had been an order, the path also swung left. They could still see the haze, though there was a distance between them and it at this point, a fact for which Dane was grateful. The road was now a narrow alley between two dark, looming walls of brush. It had been roughly cleared. There were the remains of roots and sapling trunks crushed and broken-wretched footing. They had to go slow here and depend once more on Meshler's night sight and his ability to lead them around trip-traps.

Here they could not see the haze, but that did not prevent Dane's imagination picturing the idea of that behind the growth. His half glimpse of it, he thought, was really worse to remember than perhaps a full confrontation might have been.

The track curved again, and they saw ahead diffuse lights as if on guides. Once more the brach, appealed to, stated there was no guard. But Dane hesitated and found Tau joined him in that. To the Terran, to go blundering on with no better idea of what they might face was rank folly. He said as much firmly.

"Machines," piped the brach, "machines, yes-men no."

"There you are," Meshler retorted when Dane reluctantly relayed the alien's comment. "We get in, take a crawler, and get out-if he continues to warn us."

Tau was moving the detect slowly from side to side. "If they have a snooper rigged," he said, "the other radiation covers it."

"We can't be sure they haven't," Dane persisted. The feeling that they were on the verge of a nasty trap had grown so strong in him that he could not yield to Meshler. "I'll scout ahead," the ranger returned. "Stay where you are."

They could see him as a shadow between them and the lamp glow. Then he fell to his knees and seemed to be running his hands over the rutted ground. So feeling his way ahead, he crawled to the open s.p.a.ce by the lamps. He did not rise to his feet there but crawled back the same way.

"No ray alarm."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Fresh damar tracks. It went through that gate. If there is any alarm, it is set for something going on two feet, or at least larger than a damar."

Dane had no idea what a damar might be, probably an animal. But Meshler was sure of his facts. And he himself, with the brach reporting nothing ahead to be feared, could not hold back on a hunch alone.

So he found himself crawling on his hands and knees between the lamps, though he expected at any moment to hear some alarm, feel again the constriction of a tangle loop shooting out of the dark to bring him down. In fact, he was so sure that would happen that he could not believe they had made it, but crawled on until he nearly ran into Meshler, standing again.

"You're safe." Was there a shadow of contempt in the ranger's voice? If there was, it did not lash Dane's pride. Safety first on strange worlds was so much ingrained in any Free Trader that an accusation of cowardice would not set his hand seeking a stunner for reply.

With the brach still in his hold, he found it rather hard to struggle up-and was still on his knees when what he had so constantly feared happened. It was no alarm to shatter the night quiet, no physical a.s.sault from ambush.

There was a sudden flash on his left. And then, as Dane slewed around, ready to run back the way they had come, he saw the haze rise between him and the lamps, between them and the freedom that lay ahead.

They stood in a narrow corridor, walled by a force field on either side, a blind corridor, and that was beginning to close in, forcing them down the only open way-to the right, buckling in upon itself and closing, to become no corridor at all now but a wall, yet sweeping them before it as if they were in a net and that net was being drawn in by him who had cast it.

11. SECURITY OR-?.

They were being herded east, back toward the area where they had seen the monstrous thing. And to be caught in there-! Yet there was no possible way to defeat a force field.

Defeat a force field! The brachs had gotten through the weak field intended to restrain the dragons. But that was a weak field. This, judging by that haze, was a major lay-on of power. The only way would be to turn it off at its source. And since the source must be on the other side of the wall, they might as well give that idea up. Yet Dane kept remembering the brachs had broken that other field, seemingly only by wishing.

The three gave ground very reluctantly before the relentless, if slow, push of the haze. Now they halted, and they stood under one of the trees.

"No alarms, eh?" Dane could not resist saying that. "They didn't have to have alarms. We just triggered a trap. That may be set on automatics so they don't have to worry about unexpected and uninvited visitors. Just let them be bagged and collect them later."

"If they collect them at all," Tau added. And the suggestion behind that was chilling, especially as they suspected they now shared the roaming area of that thing.

The brach squirmed in Dane's hold as if he found the Terran's arm about him imprisoning. His head wriggled free and pointed in the direction of the haze glowing faintly in the dark. It would not do any harm, Dane decided, to find out if the brach possibly could get through that. He relayed to the other that thought.

"The dragon screen was weak," Tau answered. "But this is full strength."

"They got in and let the dragons out-" Meshler seized upon the optimistic side. "You think he might be able to do that for us? Come on then-!"

He caught at Dane's shoulder and gave him a push toward the force shield.

Dane spoke into the translator. "This thing, it is strong, but it is like that which was about the cage. Can you make a hole in it to let us through?"

The brach broke from Dane's hold and went to the haze, walking hesitatingly, his nose up and outstretched, as if he meant to tear through with his horn. But he halted with a good s.p.a.ce between that horn and the mist of the barrier. Then began a slow swing of his head back and forth. He might have been measuring off the s.p.a.ce through which to cut a door. But, as he squatted down on his haunches, the verdict piped out of Dane's mike.

"This is strong, very strong. Can maybe make small place for self-take much effort to do that. But you are too big, and cannot hold any s.p.a.ce for long."

Dane repeated that to the others.

"So," Meshler said "it-he-can get out, but not us."

"There is another way," Dane suggested. "If he can get out, shut off the field broadcast-"

"A very long chance." Meshler sounded as if he did not believe in the success of that.

"Not too-" Tau dropped to one knee, the faint radiance of the haze making of him a silhouette. "This is a general broadcast field. The energy may be stepped up, but it is not complicated. If the brach can get through-Dane"-he turned to the younger Terran-"is there any way to make him understand what to hunt for and what he must do if he finds it?"

"If I had a light, something to draw on-"

Tau looked to Meshler. "Anything in that bag of yours to help?"

"There's a belt beamer. For the rest-" The ranger shook his head.

Dane knelt beside Tau, running his hands across the ground until one of his fingers stubbed painfully on a small stick. He pulled it out of the soil, and it came easily, so he was aware that the ground here was not iron-hard with frost.

"There is a thing"-he spoke now to the brach-"which can be done for us all."

The alien swung around, crouching between Dane and Tau. Using his glove, Dane smoothed a bit of ground. Meshler had been rummaging in the pack. Now he produced a small belt beamer. Laying it by Dane's hand, he unsealed and stripped off his outer tunic, holding this as a shield behind which they could use the light. Dane sat trying to remember force field controls. As Tau had pointed out, those were alike and the off and on switches relatively simple.

"Somewhere-not too far-" Dane began, speaking slowly and with all the distinctness he could muster, "there is a box. It will look thus." With care he used the stick to outline a force field control. "On its top are three projections, so." He added those to the sketch. "One will be turned up-thus-" He drew a short line from one dot. "The other two down, in this manner. The one that is up"-he paused to blot out the first lines and redraw them-"must be made to come down, the other two to go up. This will open the wall for us. I do not know where this box is. Perhaps you can find it, and it may be guarded by men. But it is our only hope of freedom. Do you understand?"