“Intrusion of treaty rights,” Quade reminded.
“Treaty rights! Nobody’s suggesting we curtail Norbie treaty rights—at least I’m not, though you’d have a different answer from some of those in the Peaks. No! I want—just as I have always wanted—a local force of Norbie-cum-settler to police the outback. That’s what we needed from the first—could have had it last year if you taxpayers had pushed for it. Such a corps would have routed out that Xik gang before they dug in—and they could have stopped this before it even started. You say now this Ukurti is against Dean’s war talk and he can carry his clan Chief with him. Well, we could get the good will of natives of that type and their backing. That’s not breaking any treaty rights I know of—but no, that’s too simple for those soft-sitting Galwadi pets. Now it may be too late. If we are forced to call in the Patrol to handle Dean—”
He did not have to continue. They all knew what that would mean—a loss of settler and Norbie independence, a setting up of off-world control for an indefinite period, the end to native growth, which was their hope for the future.
“How long do we have before the authorities will move?” Hosteen asked.
“How long will Dean hold off on his raids?” Kelson barked. “If our scouts report any parties of warriors leaving the Blue and we don’t have the power to stop them—”
“Power,” repeated Hosteen softly. “Dean’s control in there rests on the fact the natives believe it’s true medicine. I think there was a residue of some alien knowledge among the Norbies of the Blue—some of those machines must have been left running. There is certainly weather control in the village valley and the smaller one where Najar hid out. Perhaps the Norbies were able to make use of other devices—we saw the village Drummer pull a trick that certainly never originated on Arzor—without understanding them. Then Dean has activated more, so he’s a part of the medicine, which makes him taboo and a man of power—”
“And the answer is—remove Dean?” Kelson spectulated.
“Not remove him,” Quade cut in, and Hosteen nodded agreement. “That would merely add to the medicine—were he to disappear. And if he is removed bodily and that action discovered, it would be a declaration of war. He has to be removed by those who set him up.”
“No chance of that that I can see,” Kelson exploded.
“Ukurti’s attitude is in our favor,” Quade pointed out. “And Dean is unstable. We have to get at him on a ground he believes is safe—”
Hosteen stirred. “In the mountain!”
“That’s right—in the mountain.”
“It’s a tangle of passages. To find him in there, when he knows those interdimension transports and we don’t—” Hosteen could see the futility of such a chase, and yet that was their only chance. If they could actually capture Dean, hold him prisoner in the taboo mountain where his native allies would not venture, they would have time to work out a method of unmasking him.
“Najar.” Quade spoke to the castaway. “You can find that installation hall?”
“I can try. But as Storm says, that’s a mighty big mountain or mountains, and there’re a lot of passages. It’s easy to get lost—”
“We can take off as soon as it cools this evening,” Kelson began briskly.
“We take off—you stay here and contact the rest of the force,” Quade corrected. “No, don’t try to finger me down over this, Jon. You’re official, and you can swing weight with those rocket boys back in the lowlands. How much do you think they’d listen to me? I’m just another rider scrabbling up a frawn herd as far as they’re concerned. Najar,” he asked, “are you willing to give us a trail leading back in there?”
The castaway looked down at the ground. As well as if he had said it aloud, Hosteen could guess what the other wanted to reply, that he had finally won free of the nightmare in which he had been encased since the crash landing in the Blue. Najar had a good chance now of completing that interrupted voyage, of getting home. But he was Terran—for him, too, no home world was waiting. Was it that loss that tipped the scales in their favor?
“All right.” He wiped his hands across the tatters that served him as a shirt. “Only I make no promises about finding your man.”
“That’s understood. Anyway—we can fit you out.”
Kelson energetically tackled the packs stored at the back of the sunhide, rummaging through supplies meant to equip a scout post. There were arms to be had, stunners, belt knives, fresh clothing, supplies of energy tablets.
Hosteen slept away most of that day. Since his initial inquiry, Quade had not spoken of Logan, but the thought of him was there, and Logan himself walked through Hosteen’s troubled dreams. At nightfull he awoke sweating, from a vivid return to the transport wedge in the valley—from which, in that nightmare, he had seen Logan vanish, knowing that he had no way of following after, the reversal of what had actually happened. And now the Amerindian could not understand his earlier action. When he had had that compulsion to walk the spiral, why had he not called Logan, made the other do likewise? Why had he been so buried in concentrated effort that he had ignored his half-brother? He could find no excuse—none at all.
Baku was left with Kelson, with orders to keep liaison between the scout post and the mountainside. The eagle hated the tunnels, and her particular gifts were useless there. But Surra sped with the party, backtracking the route that had brought them there that morning.
Once again within the cave, Hosteen put his arm about the cat. In his hold he could feel the play of her powerful shoulder muscles. Just as she had known his frustrated anger back in the hide-up, so did she now react to the job ahead. They had a mission and one in which time itself was drawing the war arrow against them.
“Find—find!” He projected a mental picture of Dean, urged it upon Surra with all the clarity and force he could muster.
Hosteen felt as well as heard the deep growl that vibrated through her as might the purr of a more contented moment. He did not know whether her feline hunting sense would bring them any nearer their quarry. Luck—or “medicine”—could still play a part in this blind hunt. Over Surra’s body he looked to Najar in an appeal that was also part order.
“Can you guide us to any main passage from here?”
“Most of ’em are main passages as far as I know.” The other did not sound optimistic, but he took the lead, and they started on into the heart of the mountain.
Here Surra showed no desire to roam ahead; instead, she matched her pace to Hosteen’s as well as four feet could match two. He was alert to her always, relying more upon the cat than upon Najar’s ability to bring them into a section where they might hope to encounter Dean, so he knew instantly when the cat paused, even before she swung half across his path to half him.
Quade, knowing of old how Surra operated, stopped, and Najar looked around, puzzled, and then impatient.
“What’s the—?” He had out only half the question when Hosteen signaled him to silence.
Surra’s actions were the same as the time when Dean had vanished in that other tunnel. And the Amerindian was certain that this must be another of the mysterious transfer points.
The cat’s head was cocked slightly to one side, and her whole stance pictured the act of listening—listening to something their dull human ears could not pick up. Without moving more than his hands, Hosteen switched his torch on to full beam, played that bank of light in a careful sweep over the floor under them and the right wall. But there were no spiral markings such as he had more than half hoped to sight. The beam went to his left and again revealed unmarked surface.