Sometime in the dark hours the Terran ran into difficulty. The river made another turn and here drift had built a tongue of tangled flotsam out into the water. Before Storm was conscious of danger a snag pierced one skin and its sudden deflation into tatters plunged him under water, bringing him up with cruel force against the wall of drift.
Somehow he pulled himself up that barrier, fought his way over it at the price of scratches and gouges, until he was able to reach sand and finally meadow turf beyond. He sprawled there face down, too spent to struggle, and went to sleep.
“—bring him around now—”
“It’s that Terran, Storm! But what—?”
“Been in the river by the looks of him.”
There was light now, the warmth of fire combined with the clearer gleam of a camp atom-lite. There was an arm under his shoulders, holding his head up so that he could swallow from a cup pressed against his lips. There was a strange dreamlike haze over the scene, but one face swam out of that haze, took on reality, perhaps because those features had had a place in so many of his dreams. And this time Storm was able to talk to the man he had come to Arzor to—to kill. Yes, he had come across space to kill Brad Quade! Yet that desire seemed now as remote as a year-old battle in a jungle wilderness, three solar systems away!
“Trouble—” He got that out and the word was such a limited expression of what he must say. “Xik holdouts in the Peaks—Norbies—Dumaroy—Logan—”
He was being shaken, first gently, and then with rougher insistence.
“Where is Logan?”
And Storm, caught again in the mazes of his dream, answered with some of his own longing:
“Terra—garden of Terra.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When he made better sense later, Storm discovered that the party who had followed Brad Quade into the Peak Ranges did not ride with closed minds. Kelson, of the Planetary Peace Police, a big, slow-speaking man with eyes that Storm decided overlooked nothing, and with a computer bank for a mind, asked a few questions, every one directly to the point.
The Terran had been reluctant to voice his suspicions concerning Bister. Such a story might be accepted by veterans of his own corps who had good reason for knowing that agents could assume a wide variety of cover. But to ask these men who had never come up personally against the Xiks at all to accept the fact that one had been living among them undetected, and without any more proof than Storm was able to offer, was another matter.
To his vast surprise when Kelson drew from him that revelation—with the questions of a well-trained inquisitor as the Terran understood too late—none of his listeners displayed incredulity. Maybe these planet bound settlers were more open to such imaginative flights—as the existence of an aper among them—than were the service officers trained to meet the nonproven with wary disbelief.
“Bister—” Quade repeated thoughtfully. “Coll Bister. Anybody here know him?”
Dort Lancin answered first. “He rode down from the port as trail herder, ’long with me and Storm. Just like the kid here tells it. Seemed just like any other drifter to me. Only I heard about apers when I was with the outfit. Seems like they captured two of them close to the end, wearing Confed uniforms and runnin’ a side show to the big muddle. Might have fouled up that whole sector if one of the messes they cooked up hadn’t been called to the attention of a section commander in time. After that mix-up a lot of the boys looked close at each other, providin’ they weren’t born and raised together in the same river valley or such! Bister didn’t come in on our ship, and he was a new light and tie with Larkin, never rode for Put before. Don’t know where he came from—except Put picked him as a hire rider along with the rest of us.”
“Guilt,” Kelson observed, “is a queer thing. Bister hated Terrans, and he was probably, as you say, afraid of you, Storm, because you were trained for a duty not unlike his own. If he hadn’t been guilty—and afraid—he wouldn’t have tipped his hand by his treatment of you. Bister is one man we are going to rope tomorrow—or rather today—and tight! If Dumaroy’s moved out, we’ll trail him. But we don’t want to tangle with the Xiks. Since they are provided with the type of weapons you report, Storm, we’ll need a Patrol ship in here to really mop up. Quade, you’ll want to collect your kid anyway—you strike in that direction, angle up with a scout party to the east. I’ll ride on with the rest of you and try to head Dumaroy off. I think we can learn a lot more by splitting—”
So they did as Kelson suggested. Quade, with Storm as a guide, and two of the settler’s riders, took the side trail after they found Dumaroy’s river bank camp deserted and indications that the Peaks settler had proceeded with his plan to trace the Norbies and his missing herd into the mountains.
Storm rode in a dreamy haze. He located his landmarks, made his calculations as to where they must avoid possible ambush. But all of that was handled mechanically by a part of him operating as a robot set to a well-defined task and keeping to the pattern of a work tape. Whether the stun ray had more lasting effects than he had supposed, the Terran could not tell. But nothing about him appeared to have much meaning. He rode beside Quade for a space and answered questions concerning his meeting with Logan, their escape from the Xiks and through the cave of the gardens, and the final disastrous attack of the yoris. Yet to the Terran the conversation was all a part of a dream. Nor was he conscious when Quade began to study him covertly as they bored farther into the wild territory of the foothills.
However much that haziness clouded his mind, it did not prevent an instant reaction to trouble when attack did come. They were in the narrow opening of that gorge leading to the valley of Gorgol’s cave entrance, riding single file as the ground demanded. Storm had perhaps five seconds of time to sound the alert. He saw that yellow-red arm move, the blue streaks of painted horns against a domed skull.
“Ahuuuuuu!” The war cry of his people was a warning as bowstrings sang. Then the ground erupted with men about them. A numbing blow just below his shoulder almost sent Storm crashing from his saddle. His left arm hung heavy and limp as a blue-horned Norbie grabbed for his belt.
The Terran struck out with his other hand in a Commando blow but the weight of the falling native dragged him to the ground where they rolled into a pocket between two rocks. For a frenzied space of time Storm fought one-handed to keep a sword-knife from his throat. Only the fact that his first blow had practically disabled the Norbie saved his life. He brought his knee up and toppled the other off balance, rolling over again to send the Nitra senseless, sprawling out into the floor of the valley where the struggle was still in progress.
Storm struggled to his feet, only to collapse again as a stun ray clipped the side of his spinning head. He slid, bonelessly limp, behind the rocks and did not feel it when he landed full upon his wounded shoulder driving the cruelly barbed arrowhead deeper into his flesh, snapping off its painted shaft.
Perhaps that second dose of the ray neutralized in a measure the effects of the first, for when Storm opened his eyes, he remembered clearly all that had happened just before his raying.
The bright sunlight had left the gorge and the small passage was chill, chill and very quiet. Shivering, catching his breath at the twinge in his stiff shoulder, Storm somehow dragged himself upright to lean against the small wall of rocks that had protected him. He must have been overlooked, he decided. The Nitra had not mutilated his body after their custom.