For a moment Blade could not speak, then he reached up and clamped both hands hard on her shoulders. «What the devil are you doing here?»
«I'm planning to come with you,» she said calmly, as though she were stating her plan to go into the kitchen for a cold drink. «I'm a doctor-remember-and that means I know more about the biological sciences than either you or Pnarr. I'm surprised you didn't think of that yourself. If there are aliens, you'll be able to find out much more about them with me along. And that's the whole purpose of the mission, isn't it?»
Blade nodded.
«If I weren't going to be useful I wouldn't have thought of coming along. If I had just come along because I wanted to be with you, you would have been right to send me back. Although,» more quietly, «I do want to be with you. Very much.» For a moment there was a mistiness in her eyes, then she recovered. «I had thought of waiting in hiding until you had taken off. But I realized that might look dishonest, so I came out now.»
Blade realized that he would probably find it easier to fight the aliens, with all their advanced knowledge and possible super-weapons, than this woman, with nothing but her straightforward honesty and logic. He couldn't at the moment quite bring himself to say in so many words, «Yes, you may come along,» but he did say:
«Better get into one of the passenger seats. Did you bring any gear?»
«Yes.»
«Good. I'd better go and tell Pnarr we have another person on board. He may need to revise his fuel calculations.»
Pnarr did, but it was a minor matter, Leyndt's extra weight being almost negligible aboard the huge flier. Nonetheless, Pnarr grumbled and swore at women in general and Leyndt in particular for another two minutes, then unlocked the throttles and began preparations for take-off.
The sun that burned in through the cockpit windows as they raced across the calm lake was now well above the horizon, promising another flawlessly clear day. As the acceleration pushed him steadily back into his seat, Blade felt a great sensation of relief, of annoying complexities dropping away like dirty clothes at the end of a long day's work. The time was at hand to test his theory, and if it proved correct, to somehow grapple with beings from beyond this world. He had to admit to himself that he had no idea of how to meet them if they existed. But equally he had to admit also that he would be disappointed if they did not exist, if his theory vanished into the empty cold air over the glaciers. So great was his desire to come to grips with an enemy that he found it hard to regard even the Ice Master as a worthy opponent.
Chapter 12
«Somebody's tracking us!» said Pnarr sharply.
Blade came out of his half-doze in an instant and looked at the control panel. The indicator light on the device that picked up radar waves aimed at the flier was flashing on and off like a demented firefly. He looked out the window. As it had been for the past half-hour, the shimmering, scarred surface of the glaciers was marching past below. There was nothing to show that any living creature might be down there. Nor, except for occasional black spurs of rock, was there anything to show that the whole world and indeed the whole universe had not turned to ice.
«Try to get a fix on it,» he said to Pnarr.
«That will attract attention,» said the pilot. «They'll know why we're up here.»
«They'll know we're not on a joy-ride regardless of what we do,» said Blade shortly, then regretted his irritation. Even Pnarr's iron nerves might reasonably be getting stretched by the strain of this endless flight into a northern nowhere, with no idea of when they might flush their quarry-or themselves become the hunted.
But Pnarr ignored Blade's tone and obeyed his orders, swinging the flier around in a wide circle while recording the indicator's readings as he did so. At the end of the circle he turned to Blade and said, «About a thousand valh, bearing two sixty. Do you want to fly directly over it?»
Blade nodded. «I want to attract attention. We'll never find out who's up here if they stay in hiding.»
«Or what,» said Pnarr shortly, and turned back to the controls. The flier banked again as he turned it onto a course that would take it nearly over the source of the scanning. Then he throttled back the engines, while Blade and Leyndt took up positions at the windows, staring down through the sun glare of the ice for any trace of radar screens, buildings, or anything built by hands-or claws or tentacles, Blade reminded himself.
They made three passes over the area, while the scanning from the ground remained steady. Blade and Leyndt stared down until the glare made their eyes burn and run, without seeing anything. Blade was not sure whether he was disappointed or not. Pnarr sent the agreed-upon «first contact» message back to the refugee's station in the woods near the lake; Blade hoped somebody was also listening out there among the glaciers. The more seriously the Ice Master-or somebody-took this flight, the happier he would be. They flew on, with Blade hoping his sensation of having crossed somebody's trip wire was correct.
The hours rolled by, the glaciers rolled by; Pnarr put on the auto-pilot and came back into the cabin for a meal of assorted concentrates, each one more tasteless and less chewable than the preceding. Leyndt curled up on the floor in a pile of blankets and went to sleep. Watching her made Blade yawn and want to join her; instead he splashed water on his face and went through a series of exercises until the knots in his muscles untied themselves.
More time went by, and both Pnarr and the fuel gauges made it plain that they were finally approaching the northern limit of their range. Another half-hour, and they would have to turn back southward. Then it was another twenty minutes, another ten, another five… Pnarr went forward to disengage the auto-pilot and take over the controls for the turnabout; Blade went aft to wake up Leyndt and tell her the bad news. He was on edge with frustrated anticipation; his great blow had after all been delivered into the empty polar air. He would have to settle down to the fight against the Ice Dragons alone, without knowing whether they were only pawns expended by the real-
The emergency alarm screamed like a trapped animal. Pnarr sat bolt upright in his seat, staring at the detector screens. Blade dashed forward into the cockpit and stared over the pilot's shoulder. Swimming in the darkness of the screens like luminous fish in a dim aquarium were five blips. They were approaching from the left, at a speed three times that of the flier, a speed that should bring them within sight almost at once. Blade lunged toward the left-hand window, stared out-and seconds later felt a churning mixture of cold apprehension and exaltation.
The five needle-slim shapes pacing the flier, wingless, finless, exhaustless, more featureless than the glaciers themselves, were as far beyond the flier as it was beyond the boats and pony carts of the Treduki. Their formation was so perfect and so rigid that they might have been fastened together by invisible bars, then suddenly it split apart in a metallic shimmering of sunlight spraying off polished hulls, as the five machines scurried to take up positions around the flier-two dead ahead, one dead astern, one off either wing. They matched its course and speed with as little effort as two men walking side by side might have done. For a moment Blade toyed with the idea of asking Pnarr to test them further by trying to change course, then rejected it. He had no idea what orders these machines or their pilots-if they had pilots-might have, or what they might interpret as a hostile move. Nor at this point did he care about minor details. They had alerted the hounds, and now the pack had found them and was leading them to the hunter.