“Hosteen Storm, Beast Master, AM 25, Terra.” Hosteen used the same old formula for reply.
“Beast Master,” the other repeated. “Oh, of the Psych-Anth boys?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing here for you, you know.” Dean shook his head slowly from side to side. “This is a tech matter, not one for the nature boys.”
Nature boys—the old scoffing term that underlined the split between the two branches of special Service. If Dean already had such hostility to build upon and was mentally unbalanced—Hosteen put away that small fear. At least the tech was talking, and that slowed any drastic action.
“We had no orders about you either,” he stated. If Dean thought this was a service affair, so much the better. And how did the tech hold him prisoner? Was the device controlling the stass field in that sphere the other nursed so close to his chest? If that were so, Hosteen had a better chance than if his invisible bonds were manipulated by some machine back in the mountain.
Dean shrugged. “Doesn’t concern me. You’ll have to blast off—this is a tech affair.”
His attitude was casual, far too casual. Hosteen smelled and tasted danger as he had a few times before in his life:
“Can’t very well blast off while you have me in stass, can I?”
The other smiled, the stretch of facial muscles pulling the pattern lines on his cheeks into grotesque squares and angles.
“Stass—the nature boys can’t fight stass!” His laugh was almost a giggle. Then he was entirely sober. “You thought you could trick me,” he said dispassionately. “I know the war’s over; I know you aren’t here under orders. No—you’re trying to orbit in on my landing pattern! I’ve life—life itself—right here.” He loosed his hold on the orb with one hand and flung palm out in a florid gesture. “Everything a tech could want! And it’s mine—to have forever.” He giggled again, and that sound following the coolness of his words was an erratic break to frighten a man who had witnessed many crack-ups at Rehab.
“Forever!” Dean repeated. “That’s it—why, you’re trying to planet in! You want it, too! Live forever with every power in your hand when you reach for it.” The fingers of his outheld hand curled up to form a cup. “Only a tech got here first, and the tech knows what to do and how to do it. You’re not the first to try to take over—but you’re easy. I know just how to deal with your kind.” He fingered the sphere, and Hosteen choked as the stass field squeezed in upon his throat.
“I could crush you flat, nature boy, just as flat as an insect under a boot sole. Only—that would be a stupid waste. My friends below—they like amusement. They’ll have you to play with.”
The stranger touched a circlet fitting in a tight band, about his throat. Then he called aloud, and his shout was the twittering whistle of a Norbie.
Hosteen watched the tunnel entrance behind Dean. “Now!” He thought that order.
A flash of yellow out of the dark and the full force of Surra’s weight struck true on Dean’s shoulders. His whistle ended in a shriek as he fell. The stass sphere rolled out of his hand, but before the now free Hosteen could seize it, it hit against a rock and bowled over the rim of the ledge to vanish below.
“Do not kill!” Hosteen gave his command as man and cat rolled back and forth across the stone. He moved in on the melee, his limbs stiff, numb, almost as numb as his hand had been after his experience with the alien door lock.
Surra spat, squalled, broke her hold, pawing at her eyes. Dean, yammering still in the Norbie voice, made another throwing motion, and the cat retreated. He looked up at Hosteen, and his face was a devil’s mask of open, insane rage. With a last cry he headed for the tunnel as Hosteen tackled him. The Amerindian’s cramped limbs brought him down too short; his fingers closed about a leg, but with a vicious kick Dean freed himself and vanished into the passage, the pound of his boots sounding back as he ran.
Surra was still pawing at her eyes. Hosteen grasped a handful of loose hair and skin on her shoulders and pulled her to him. The Norbies Dean had summoned could not be far away. There was only one retreat from this ledge—back into the mountain after Dean. He hoped that some taboo would keep the natives from nosing after.
A head crowned with black horns rose into sight. The Norbie attacked in a scuttling rush, knife in hand. Then Hosteen was fighting for his life just within the passage entrance. He forced heavy feet and hands into the tricks of unarmed combat that had been a part of his Commando training, rolling farther into the dark, his opponent following.
Pain scored a hot slash along Hosteen’s side as the heart thrust the other had aimed missed. He pulled loose and brought down his hand on the native’s neck just above the collar bone. As the Norbie fell back with a choking gasp, Hosteen pried the knift hilt out of his hand.
There was a whir in the air, and an arrow cut the frawn fabric of the torn shirt at the Terran’s shoulder. On his hands and knees, Hosteen scrambled back, hearing Surra’s whining complaint as she went ahead. There was more than one archer taking aim now into the tunnel. He could see the arcs of their bows against the daylight. But the odd dark that blanketed the Sealed Cave workings was his protection. Keeping low, he escaped the arrows flying overhead, and none of the natives ventured in—he had been right about the taboo.
When he judged that a turn in the passage cloaked him from feathered death, Hosteen paused, snapped on his torch, and called Surra to him. What Dean had done to the cat Hosteen did not know. Her eyes were watering and she was in distress, but Hosteen’s simple tests confirmed the fact that her sight was not affected and that she was already beginning to recover.
But Surra’s ire was fully aroused, and she was determined to trail Dean—which agreed with Hosteen’s desire. He wanted to catch up with the renegade tech. And with a knife now in his belt sheath and a better understanding of the man he hunted, the odds were no longer all in the other’s favor, though reason told the Terran that a length of metal, well wrought and deadly as it was, was no defense against the bag of tricks the tech might have ready.
The dune cat padded on with confidence. She knew where she was going. Only that did not last. In a stretch of tunnel where there was no break in the wall, Surra stopped short, then circled slowly about, sniffing at the flooring, before, completely baffled, she vented her disappointment in a squall such as she would give upon missing an easy kill.
Hosteen beamed the torch at the floor, more than half expecting to see one of the spiral and dot inlays there. But there was no such path here, no band of bulbs on the wall to open one of those weird other-dimension doors. This was simply another secret of the passages that Dean knew—to the bafflement of his enemies.
Could the tech come and go from any part of the caverns at his will? Or were there “stations” from which one could make such journeys? Hosteen wished now that he had investigated more closely the place into which he had dropped when he had used Dean’s door on the platform.
There was nothing to do now but wander through the passages in hope of finding such a door or return to the surface, where he did not doubt he would find the Norbies waiting. How had Surra come into the mountain—by another tunnel?
The Terran squatted down and called the cat to him. With his hand on her head, he strove to have her recall her entrance into the passages.
Those very attributes that made her so effectively a part of the team worked against him now. Surra had been thoroughly aroused by Dean’s counter to her attack. She had put out of mind everything but her desire to run him down. And now she was interested only in that and not in what seemed to her to be meaningless inquiries about the passages. The patience Hosteen had always used in dealing with the team held, in spite of his wish for action.