“Take our flitter and try to pick them up?” Tau suggested as he joined them.
“Couldn’t take them all at one time,” but Meshler was thinking about it.
“This com interference,” Dane asked, “how far do you suppose it reaches?”
Meshler shrugged. “Who knows? At least when Kaysee gets to the port, he can bring help.”
“There’s the LB,” Dane said. The LB with Rip and Ali—and that box planted near. What if those for whom it had been intended now knew where to look for it?
But Meshler misunderstood him. “You couldn’t fly that. And besides, we have no way of contacting those on board her. At any rate, they will have been taken back to port already.”
“There’s something else.” Tau stood looking intently at the ranger. “What did this Cartl say about criminals off a spaceship? That sounds as if our men may be in worse trouble than when we left. And this mess is of your making, not ours! The sooner the authorities realize that, the better.”
Meshler looked exasperated. “I know no more of what is going on at the port than you do. What matters most is right here and now. We’ve got to see about those people at Vanatar’s. Have you tried that detect lately?”
What might lie behind that question Dane did not know, but Tau unhooked the detect from his belt and pressed its button. And the assistant cargo master was close enough to see that the needle swung swiftly, not in a confined space between two of the markings, but halfway around the dial, speeding between north and south points in a whirl, as if it were drawn by two equal forces at once.
“What does that mean?” demanded the ranger.
Tau turned it off, examined the box closely, then started it again, holding it at a different angle. It was to no purpose, for the needle still spun in the same direction as before, still as if it were trying madly to record two different sources of radiation at opposite ends of the compass.
“Can mean only two strong readings,” Tau replied.
“Their box and perhaps the LB one!” Dane made a guess. Could the radiation broadcast from the south have stimulated that of the box they had buried to a higher output? If so, how would that affect the LB?
But Ali and Rip had had orders to take those left behind in the escape craft into the port. Did it mean they were still there, in the path of possible trouble?
“Could it pull”—Meshler still stood with his hand on the Vanatar section of the wall map—“those things to it?”
“Who knows? Both sources are strong,” was the medic’s answer.
“There is something.” Dane was trying to remember a conversation he had heard on the Queen. The com system had been Ya’s duty, and all Dane knew were the basic fundamentals of sending and receiving should the need he do so arise. But Ya had been yarning once with Van Ryke, and he had said something about being jammed by a jack ship and what they had done to get a signal through for help. It had been a pulsating counter-jam, which spelled out a crude message by ebb and flow. It was too technical for him to try, but this holding had a com, and someone had to be able not only to operate it but also to know enough to keep it in expert repair.
“What?” Meshler was impatient.
“Something I heard once. Who runs the com here?”
“Cartl mostly. He was a tech at the port when he first came. Got enough planet credit to take up this section. But the com’s no good—or—we can see—” He crossed the room swiftly to where a com board almost as complex as that of the Queen was built into one corner. The crackle of answer when he opened the beam was not so hard on the ears, but it was steady.
“Still jammed.”
Dane looked now to the medic. “How sick is he? Could he come around enough to try something with the com?”
“If this follows the vol fever pattern, he’ll be pulling out in about four or five hours. He’ll be weak and shaky then, but clear-headed enough. Trouble is I don’t know how many bouts he’s had, and that makes a difference.”
“He can’t do anything with the com anyway,” Meshler protested. “Don’t you think he must have tried earlier?”
“He tried only straight sending,” Dane answered. “There’s counterinterference by pulsation. And if they have someone with a keen ear on the receiving end at the port—”
“Ya’s story about the Erguard!” Tau caught him up. “You might have something at that. But we’ll have to wait until he comes around.”
Meshler looked from one trader to the other. “You may know what you are talking about. I don’t, but I don’t see that we have much choice. I am not even sure I can locate Vanatar’s holding site.”
15.RESCUE ATTEMPT
At last they had real food again. Dane sat at the table where a round of cold lathsmer breast was flanked by a hash of native grains and berries and found it very good indeed after days on one-quarter E-ration tube per meal. Outside, the night closed in, and Tau kept close watch on the semiconscious Cartl, who now and then muttered unintelligibly. There had been no return of those who had gone to Vanatar’s, nor of the men who had taken off after them. Nor any sound from the com they had left turned on low, save the clatter that cut them off from help.
“How far are we from the LB?” Dane drank the last of a heated brew and set down his mug to face Meshler squarely.
Twice the ranger had gone to the wall map and studied its lines, ever running his finger along some as if to assure himself they were recorded there. Now he approached the the table.
“Perhaps two hours’ flying time at normal speed,” he answered. “But why? Your men won’t be there. They were to be picked up soon after we left. And they would take the box, too.”
“Would they?” questioned Tau. “What about the detect report? I don’t think that would register if the box had been taken all the way to the port. What do you have in mind?” he asked of Dane.
“If we had the box and brought it south, I wonder—could it draw the monsters away?” He was fishing, grasping for any hope, no matter how small.
Tau was shaking his head. “Not when we don’t know enough about its action. Dane, get me some more of that drink!”
Cartl was moving in the thick wrappings of covers the medic kept piled about him, striving to rid himself of their weight. Dane went to the steaming pot, poured out what was left—half a mug of the aromatic stuff—and brought it to the medic.
“Take it easy now.” Tau spoke Basic and supported the settler with an arm about his shoulder. He set the cup to Cartl’s mouth, and the other drank off its contents thirstily. Then with Tau’s help he sat up, pushing aside the covers. He was no longer shaking, and there was intelligence and purpose back in his dark face.
“How long was I out?” was his demand.
“About three hours,” Tau answered. “You must have been in the last stages of this bout.”
“Angria—the children—the rest of them?”
He must have read the answer on Tau’s face. His hand went to the back-belted knife. “Then—” But he did not finish that foreboding.
“Listen.” Dane moved around in front of him. He did not know what Cartl pushed by fear for his family might do, but he felt that it was now or not at all that he must discover whether the settler had the experience to tackle the com problem. “The com’s still jammed. But there is a way we might just get a message through and ask for help.”
Cartl frowned. He did not look at Dane at all. Instead, he had drawn the honor knife and was running the blade lightly across the ball of his thumb, as if testing its keenness.