“Good God! No!” Yulin shouted, then got hold of himself. “Never—you don’t realize the depths to which that man’s capable of sinking. I do.”
“It will take about two months to get the hardware built and tested,” the Yaxa said. “During that time, others will not be idle. Ortega already has the hardware—he’s had it for years. And he may know more than any of us. Radio signals of a strange type, directed toward New Pompeii when it is visible, have been intercepted coming from some point near the Overdark Ocean. We have been unable to decipher them or get any idea as to what they contain. But it is certain that similar signals have come back from the satellite. Someone is talking with that computer!”
Yulin was aghast. And yet, it made sense, somehow. Obie did have broadcast capability, put in so that it could be remote-controlled from space when Trelig’s big projects started.
“But they still won’t be able to get him out of ‘defense’ mode,” he pointed out.
“If it’s Ortega, he wants the thing destroyed, not used,” Racer retorted. “It’s too great a risk! And the Yugash are a bunch of freebooting anarchists. If the Torshind can do it for us, some other Yugash might get ideas and contact that Ulik Ortega. Suddenly, after all this time, every second presses, works against us.” Yulin considered this. “But Ortega is by nature conservative,” he pointed out. “He won’t move until he’s absolutely ready if he’s sure he’s ahead of us. The solution is simple—kill the Chang girl before he picks her up and gets her to a Zone Gate.”
“Ahead of you,” assured the Yaxa.
Glathriel
It was a small rowboat, with three occupants, though the two straining at the large oars bore a marked resemblance to a cloudy sky and could only made out with difficulty. At the bow, looking into the gloom, was a tiny creature easier to see. A little owl-faced monkey, a Parmiter from the northwest, peered anxiously toward the dark shore.
“You sure we’re far enough up from that compound and those villages so that nobody will see us?” a deep voice behind the Parmiter asked.
“I’m sure, Grune,” the Parmiter replied in its squeaky tones. “The natives around here are pretty scared of the dark, and they light torches and fires to ward it off. As for the others, well, you saw the pictures. We’d almost have to beach on them for them to see us.”
That seemed to satisfy Grune. “Getting near the beach,” it said. “Hear the surf?”
“Let it carry us in now,” cautioned the Parmiter, “but keep at the ready. You too, Doc. It won’t do to crack up on the beach. We have to get back out to the ship with her, you know.”
Doc sighed. “I just don’t understand why we bother. I mean, it’d be simple enough to kill her—and these primitive places are great pickings. They grow tobacco here, you know. Know what that’s worth over near the Overdark?”
The Parmiter got upset. “Keep your mind on the job, Doc! For this job, they’re paying fifty times what we’ve made in the last two years, but it’s got to be a cinch! None of that petty-robbery business with my double-jointed hips! This is the big time!”
When they reached the beach, two large ill-defined shapes jumped into the water and grabbed the boat, pulling it onto the sand, to where the beach met the underbrush. For a very short time the big creatures were fully visible—long lizards with sharp, horny shields around their heads and tough, leathery skins. And then they started to fade again, automatically adjusting their skin coloration to the background. They pulled a camouflage-mottled tarp over the small boat and left it at the edge of the beach. In the dim light one would have to stumble over the thing to notice it, and they didn’t intend to be there by morning.
Carefully, the threesome walked down the beach, the little Parmiter hopping atop Doc’s head just in front of the horny guard plate.
The Parmiter reached into its marsupial pouch and brought out its gas gun, checking it for pressure and load.
“Everybody got their filters in?”
Joshi grabbed a meter-long match from a large compartment with his teeth and struck it with a quick motion of his head, making sure that his long ears were well out of the way. Carefully he touched the burning end to a small pot filled with a foul-smelling liquid, and it burst into flame, lighting up the interior of the compound. He then dipped the match into the sandy soil, extinguishing it, and pulled on a long rope, raising the burning pot until it was high enough to spread its light. Then, rope still in his teeth, he walked around the post supporting the pot a few times and looped the end around a little nail twice. It held.
Mavra never touched fire because her long hair was too vulnerable; but he, born in fire and scarred by it, had no such fears.
They began cleaning up the compound. Their supply ship, the Toorine Trader, was due in sometime the next day—the hour varied, but it always came on the right day, sometime between dawn and dusk.
Mouth-held brooms swept the wood floors and smoothed out the sand in the outer areas of the compound. Looking at Mavra and Joshi in isolation, one would have thought they were helpless, pitiful creatures; but at work they seemed normal, natural, and able to do almost anything.
True, they depended on others to make the matches, the pots, and many other necessities—but so did everyone depend on others to some degree. Once Mavra Chang had worn clothing and used sophisticated gadgetry, but she could never have made those clothes or built those gadgets. She was once a spaceship pilot, but she could never have built the spaceship nor fueled and provisioned it. She had sought those who could and paid for what she’d needed, just as she used the tobacco stores to pay for what was needed in Glathriel.
Suddenly her ears caught some odd sounds. “Listen!” she hissed to Joshi. “Do you hear anything?”
Joshi stopped and cocked a large ear. “Sounds like somebody coming up the beach,” he replied, puzzled and curious. “Somebody big, too. You don’t suppose the Trader got in early?”
She strained, shaking her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I know all of them well, their steps and sounds.”
“Not Ambreza, either,” he said. “I don’t think I heard anything like it. They’re sure trying to be quiet about it, too, aren’t they?”
She nodded. Old instincts, unused and unneeded these twenty-two years, began to return. There was something wrong here. Something unpleasant was up; she was sure of it.
“Want to fire a distress flare?” Joshi whispered, catching her mood.
She shook her head again. “Takes too long for the Ambreza to get here,” she responded in a tone so soft it was almost a wisp of breath.
“Whoever or whatever it is is just outside the door now,” he pointed out, moving so close to her that he merely had to mouth the words into her long ears.
“If they get in, escape through the stream gate,” she told him. “I don’t think anybody will anticipate that.”
He nodded. They edged as quietly as possible into the shadows.
“I wish we could risk putting that light out,” she hissed. “Wait—see if you can unwrap the rope and hold it,” she suggested. “Anybody coming in will have to pass right under the pot. Drop it and the place would be splashed with burning oil.”
He nodded and carefully undid the rope from the nail.
“Help me!” cried a wailing, plaintive voice just outside, a voice much too small for the creature or creatures they’d sensed. “Please! Somebody help me!”
Joshi couldn’t talk with his mouth full of rope, and he mumbled something.
Mavra caught the idea. “A trick to draw us out,” she whispered. “So its big friend or friends can grab us. Damn! I wish I knew who it was and why they were doing this.”