“How many Xiks are there?” He was already occupied with the practical side of the matter.
Logan Quade shrugged, let out a little involuntary yelp of pain, and then added:
“They kept me busy, a little too busy to count noses. Five in the bunch that first downed me. But all of those weren’t alien—at least two were outlaws of our own breed. And there was an officer of sorts in command of the questionin’. Him I want to meet again!” The hands in their bandage mittens moved on Logan’s knees. “I saw maybe a dozen aliens—about half as many outlaws—they don’t mix too well—”
“They wouldn’t.” The Xiks had had human stooges on other worlds, but it was always an uneasy cooperation and seldom worked. “How many settlers in the Peak country?”
“There’re seven ranges staked out. Dumaroy’s the largest so far. He has his brother, nephew, and twelve riders. Lancin—Artur—he has a smaller holdin’—though his brother’s comin’ out to join him as soon as he’s mustered out of the Service. They have five Norbies ridin’ for them. And our range—six Norbies and two riders m’ father sent up from the Basin. Maybe ten-twelve men can be combed out of the small outfits. Not a very big army—at least you’ll figure that after being with the Confed forces—”
“I’ve seen successful move-ins accomplished by even fewer,” Storm returned mildly. “But your Peak people must be pretty well scattered—”
“Just let me get to the first of the line cabins and there’ll be a talker to call ’em in. We aren’t so primitive as you off-worlders seem to think!”
“And that line cabin—how far away?”
“I’d have to take a looksee from some height around here. This is new territory as far as I’m concerned. I’d guess—maybe two day’s easy ridin’—fifteen hours if you pushed with a good mount under you.”
“Rain’s about the only one of those we have. And there’ll be a pack of Xiks out to nose our trail.” Storm wasn’t arguing, he was simply stating the odds as he saw them. “Also, we haven’t yet found a way out of this valley that we can take a horse over. The road in was blocked by a landslide.”
“I don’t care how we do it,” Logan fired back. “But I’m tellin’ you, Storm, it has to be done! We can’t let Dumaroy and the Norbies mix it up just to please those Xiks! I was born on Arzor and I’m not throwin’ this world away if it’s at all possible to save it!”
“If it’s at all possible to save it—” echoed Storm, the old chill of loss eating into him.
“Yes, you, more than all of us, know what those Xiks can do when they play the game according to their rules.”
Storm turned now to Gorgol and his fingers outlined as much of Logan’s story as he could find the proper movements to explain. He ended with the question that meant the most now:
“There is a way out of valley for man—horse?”
“If there is—Gorgol find.” The Norbie stripped two of the small birds from his roasting spits, tucked them into a broad leaf and gathered them up. “I go look—” He scrambled over the barrier and was gone.
“You been long on Arzor?” Logan asked as Storm divided up the other birds and brought Quade’s portion to him.
“A little over a month—my time—”
“You’ve settled down quickly,” the other commented. “I’ve seen men born here who can’t make finger-talk that fast or accurately—”
“Perhaps it comes easier because my own people once had a sign language to use with strangers. Here—let me manage that.”
The bandaged hands were making clumsy work of eating and Storm sat down beside Logan, to feed him bite by bite from the point of his knife. Surra blinked at them in drowsy content and Hing draped herself affectionately over Logan’s outstretched legs.
“Where did you get the animals—they’re off-world? And that trained bird of yours—what is it?” the younger man asked as Storm paused to dismember another grass hen.
“I’m a Beast Master—and these are my team. Baku, African Black Eagle, Surra, dune cat, Hing, meerkat. They are all natives of Terra, too. We lost Hing’s mate in the flood—”
“Beast Master!” There was open admiration in the tone, even if the battered features could not mirror it. “Say—what is this Dineh you spoke of earlier—?”
“I thought you did not understand Navajo!” Storm countered.
Now those blue eyes were very bright. “Navajo,” Logan repeated thoughtfully, as if trying to remember where he might have heard the word before. He put up his mittened hand to the ketoh on Storm’s wrist, and then lightly touched the necklace that swung free as the other offered him more food. “Those are Navajo, aren’t they?”
Storm waited. He had an odd feeling that something important was coming out of this. “Yes.”
“My father has a bracelet like this one—”
That was the wrong thing, the words pushed Storm into remembering what he had avoided these past few weeks. Involuntarily he jerked away from Logan’s hand, got to his feet.
“Your father”—the Terran spoke gently, quietly, very remotely, though there was danger under the veneer of that tone—“is not Navajo!”
“And you hate him, don’t you?” Logan said without accusation. He might have been commenting upon the darkness of the night without. “Brad Quade has a lot of enemies—but not your sort of man usually. No, he’s not Navajo—he was born on Arzor—but of Terran stock—He is part Cheyenne—”
“Cheyenne!” Storm was startled. It was easier to think of Quade, the enemy, as coming from the old, arrogant, all-white stock who had lied, cheated, pushed his people back and back—though not into the nothingness the white man wanted for them. No—never into nothingness!
“Cheyenne—that’s Amerindian—” Logan was starting to explain when he was interrupted.
Surra was on her feet, her drowsy content gone as if she had never sprawled half-asleep a moment earlier. And Storm reached swiftly for the blaster he had taken from the pass guard. It was Xik issue but enough like a Confed weapon for him to use. He only wished he had more than one clip for it, but the invaders must be running low on ammunition themselves.
It was Gorgol who squeezed through and the news he brought was not good. Not only had he been unable to prospect for another exit from the valley, but there was a Nitra war party camped in the southern end of the flooded land, and lights showed to the north along the cliffs.
“The horses,” Storm decided first, “and water. Get the mounts in here and as much water as we can store. Perhaps we can sit out a search and the Xiks may tangle with those Nitra—”
They worked fast, dousing the fire and widening the opening so that Rain and the three horses from the other valley could be brought into the cave. On their return they found Logan on his feet, using Storm’s torch and exploring into the dark tunnel they had all avoided earlier.
“I wonder,” he speculated, “whether this hole couldn’t run on through the mountain. This might not have been one of the regular Sealed Caves but a passage from one valley to the next. You say you got into this valley through a tunnel—well, couldn’t this one be the way out?”
But Storm eyed the dark hole in which the beam of the torch was so quickly lost with no favor at all. The air was dead the farther one moved in from the entrance, and he had a feeling that to go into that unknown region would be merely to walk to one’s death. Unless he were driven to it he would have no part of such exploration.