Выбрать главу

Wilcox spoke as the two younger men came in. “That’s it! Cut right across the rider beam. I got two fixes on it. But,” he shrugged, “with the atmospherics what they are and this soup covering everything, how accurate those are is a big question. It comes from the mountains—”

“Not just some form of static?” Captain Jellico appealed to Tang.

“Decidedly not! I don’t think it’s a signal—though it may be a rider beam. More like a big installation—”

“What kind of installation would produce a broadcast such as that?” Van Rycke wanted to know.

Tang put the earphones down on the snap desk at his elbow. “A good sized one—about as big as the HG computer on Terra!”

There was a moment of startled silence. An installation with the same force as HG on this deserted world! They had to have time to assimilate that. But, Dane noted, not one of them questioned Tang’s statement.

“What is it doing here?” Van Rycke’s voice held a note of real wonder. “What could it be used for—?”

“It might be well,” Tang warned, “to know who is running it. Remember, Kamil has been picked up. They probably know a lot about us while we’re still in the dark—”

“Poachers—” that was Jellico but he advanced the suggestion as if he didn’t really believe in it himself.

“With something as big as an HG com under their control? Maybe—” but Van Rycke was plainly dubious. “Anyway we can’t get out and look around until the fog clears—”

The ramp was drawn in, the ship put under regular routine once more. But Dane wondered how many of the crew were able to sleep. He hadn’t expected to, until the fatigue produced from the adventures of the past twenty-four hours of duty pushed him under and he spun from one dream to another, always pursuing Ali through crooked valleys and finally between the towering banks of the HG computer, unable to catch the speeding engineer-apprentice.

His watch registered nine the next morning when he approached the hatch open once more on Limbo. But it might have been the depths of night—save that the grey of the mist was three or four shades lighter than it had been when he had seen it last. To his eyes however it was as thick as in the hour when they had returned to the ship.

Rip stood halfway down the ramp, wiping his hand on his thigh as he lifted it from the dripping guide rope where the moisture condensed in large oily drops. He raised a worried face to Dane as the other edged along the slippery surface to join him.

“It doesn’t seem to be clearing any,” Dane stated the obvious.

“Tang thinks he got a fix—a fix on Ali’s unit!” Shannon burst out. He reached once more for the guide rope and faced west, staring out into those cottony swirls hungrily as if by will alone he could force the stuff away from his line of vision.

“From where—north?”

“No, west!”

From the west where the ruins lay—where Rich’s party were encamped! Then they were right, Rich had something to do with Limbo’s mystery.

“That interference was cut out sometimes early this morning,” Rip continued. “Conditions must have been better for about ten minutes. Tang won’t swear to it, but he’s sure himself that he caught the buzz of a live helmet com.”

“Pretty far—the ruins,” Dane made the one objection. But he was as certain as Rip that if the com-tech mentioned it at all, it was because he had been nine-tenths sure he was right. Tang was not given to wild guesses.

“What are we going to do about it?” the cargo-apprentice added.

Rip twisted his big hands about the rope. “What can we do?” he wanted to know helplessly. “We can’t just go off and hope to come up against the ruins. If they had a caster on it would be different—”

“What about that? Aren’t they supposed to keep in touch with the ship? Couldn’t a flitter get to them riding in on their caster beam?” Dane asked.

“It could—if there were a beam,” Rip returned. “They went off the air when the fog came in. Tang has been calling them at ten minute intervals all night—had the emergency frequency in use so they’d be sure and answer. Only they haven’t!”

And, without any caster beam to guide it, no flitter could pierce this murk and be sure of landing at the ruins. Yet a com-unit had registered there—perhaps Ali’s—and that only a short time ago.

“I’ve been out there,” Rip pointed to the ground they could not see from the ramp. “If I hadn’t had a line fastened I’d been lost before I got four feet away—”

Dane could believe that. But he knew the restlessness which must be needling Rip now. To be kept prisoner here just when they had their first clue as to where Kamil might be—! It was maddening in a way. He edged down the slippery ramp, found the cord Rip had left looped there, and took an end firmly in hand, venturing out into the grey cloud.

The mist condensed in droplets on his tunic, trickled down his face, left an odd metallic taint on his lips. He walked on, taking one cautious step at a time, using the rope to keep him oriented.

A dark object loomed out of the grey and he neared it warily, only to recognize it with an embarrassed laugh as one of the crawlers—the one which had made the journey back and forth to deliver Rich’s material to his chosen camp site.

Back and forth—!

Dane’s hand closed on the tread. What if—? They couldn’t be sure—they could only hope—

He used the cord to haul himself back to the ramp, the need for haste making him stumble. If what he hoped was true—then they had the answer to their problem. They could find the camp, make a surprise descent upon the archaeologist, a descent which the other might not be prepared to meet.

There was the ramp and Rip waiting. The astrogator-apprentice must have guessed from Dane’s expression that he had discovered something, but he asked no questions, only fell in behind as the other hurried into the ship.

“Where’s Van Rycke—Captain Jellico?”

“Captain’s asleep—Tau made him take a rest,” Rip answered. “Van Rycke is in his cabin, I think.”

So Dane made his way to his own superior officer. If only what he hoped was true ! It would be a stroke of luck—the best luck they had had since that auction had brought them this headache which was Limbo.

The cargo-master was stretched out on his bunk, his hands behind his head. Dane hesitated in the doorway but Van Rycke’s blue eyes were not closed and they did roll in his direction. He asked a question first:

“Have you used the crawler in the past two days, sir?”

“To my knowledge no one has—why?”

“Then it was only used for one purpose here,” Dane’s excitement grew, “and that was to carry Dr. Rich’s supplies to his camp—”

Van Rycke sat up. Not only sat up, but reached for his boots and pulled them on his feet.

“’And you think that the fix has been left on that camp. It might just be, son, it might just be.” He was tugging on his tunic now.

Rip caught on. “A guide all ready to go!” he exulted.

“We hope,” Van Rycke applied a cautious warning.

It was the cargo-master who led the way out of the Queen once more, back to the parked crawler. The low slung cargo shifter was standing just as Dane had left it in the shelter of the Queen’s fins, its blunt nose pointing forward, out of the enclosure of the fins, to make a quarter turn to the west! The auto-fix was still on the camp. Dane took a running jump for the slow moving vehicle and brought it to a stop. But it was on a line which would take it, fog or no fog, straight to the camp where it had carried supplies two days before. And it would provide an unerring guide for men roped to it. They had a chance now to locate Ali.