“Nothing we can fix here and now. Think I’ve cracked a rib—or maybe two. But, listen, they’ve the Queen—”
“We know. Picked up a prisoner,” Dane told him. “He was driving that crawler over there. Told us all about what’s going on here. Maybe, using him, we can make some sort of a deal. Can you walk—?”
“Yes, it might be well to withdraw,” Mura stepped down to where they were. “They had their coms on when we jumped them. It is uncertain how much of the succeeding events have been overheard by their fellows.”
Rip could walk, with support. And they got him around to their own crawler and Wilcox.
“Any sign of Kamil?” Kosti wanted to know.
“They have him all right,” Rip replied. “But I think that he’s with their main party. They have quite a few men. And they can keep the Queen here until she rusts away—if they want to.”
“So Snall here has already informed us,” Wilcox observed bleakly. “He also says that he does not know where this mysterious installation is. I’m inclined to doubt that—”
At that the bound and gagged prisoner wriggled and made muffled sounds, trying to indicate his sincerity.
“Down that valley is one way in, at least in to their major supply depot and barracks,” Rip informed them. “And the installation can’t be too far from that.”
Dane touched the wriggling Snall with the toe of his boot. “D’you suppose we could exchange this one for Ali? Or at least use him to get us into the place?”
Rip answered that. “I doubt it. They’re a pretty hard lot. Snall’s life or death wouldn’t matter much as far as they are concerned.”
And the look in those bloodshot eyes above the gag Kosti had planted, bore out that Snall agreed with that. He had little faith in assistance from his own companions unless his rescue was necessary to their preservation.
“Three of us on our feet and able to go, and two crooks,” Wilcox mused. “How many men have they in the mountains, Shannon, any idea of that?”
“Maybe a hundred. It seems to be a well organized outfit,” Rip replied dispiritedly.
“We can sit here until we starve,” Kosti broke the ensuing silence, “and that won’t get us anywhere, will it? I’d say take some chances and hope for luck. It can’t all be bad!”
“Snall could show us the way in—at least into the part he knows,” Dane said. “And we could scout around—size up the country and the odds.”
“If we could only contact the Queen!” Wilcox beat his knee with his fist.
“With the sun up—it is now—there is perhaps a way,” Mura began.
His way entailed going back to the wrecked crawler in the second valley and unscrewing a bright metal plate which backed the driver’s seat. With Dane’s help, the steward got this to the top of the cliff. And they wedged their prize at an angle until they caught the sun on its surface and flashed the light across the mile or so of rugged territory which lay between them and the ship.
Mura smiled. “This may do it. It should be as good as our torches in the night if it works. And unless those outlaws down there have eyes in the back of their skulls, it will not be seen except from control—”
But once their crude com was in place they had other preparations to make. Wilcox, Rip, Kosti and the prisoner moved from the hideout in one valley on into the other. The strange crawler was righted and found to be undamaged and ready to move. And while the other four waited Mura and Dane climbed once more to the heights where they sweated over the plate until they laboriously flashed twice over their message to the Queen.
Then there was nothing to do but stay to see if their code had been read. Only if the ship made the proper reply in action could they move.
And that answer came just as Dane had given up hope. Round ports blinked like eyes on the sides of the Queen! There was a bark of sound and smoke arose by a hidden pocket of the besiegers—the one which lay between the ship and the valley. Their message had been read, those on the ship would keep the enemy bracketed while the party in the valley made their dash for the outlaw headquarters on a desperate attempt at surprise.
They were all able to ride on this carrier, the prisoner sandwiched in between Dane and Mura, Kosti at the controls. It had what their own crawler had lacked, handholds, and they clung to these as the thing rattled along.
Dane watched the bushy slopes they passed. He had not forgotten the bogy attack. It might be true that the creatures were nocturnal. But on the other hand, once aroused, perhaps the globes might still be in hiding there, waiting to cut off any small party.
The valley curved and narrowed. Now under the jolting carrier the surface was mostly stream-bed and the water crept up to lap at the edge of the platform. There were signs here, as there had been in the valley near the ruins, that this way had been in use as a road—scratches on the rocks, tracks crushed in the gravel.
Then before them the stream became a small falls, splashing into a pool and the valley ended in a barrier cliff. Kosti jerked the gag from Snall’s mouth.
“All right,” he said in the tone of one who was not going to be put off, “what do we do to get through here, bright boy?”
Snall licked his puffed lips and glowered back. Bound and gagged as he had been, helpless as he was, he had regained a large measure of his confidence.
“Find out for yourself,” he retorted.
Kosti sighed. “I hate to waste time, fella. But if you must be softened up, you’re going to be—get me?”
Something else got them all first. A stone missed Kosti’s head by a scant inch as he bent over Snall. And a larger one struck the captive’s body, bringing a sharp cry of pain out of him.
“Bogies!” Dane fanned his sleep ray up a wall where he could see nothing move, but from which he was sure the stones had been thrown.
Another rock cracked viciously against the crawler as Wilcox hit the dirt on the other side, pulling Rip with him to shelter half under the machine. Mura was using his ray, too, standing unconcerned knee deep in the pool and beaming the cliff foot by foot as if he had all the time in the world and intended to make this a thorough job.
It was Snall who ended that strange blind battle. Kosti had dragged him to safety and must have cut his bonds so that he could move with greater speed. But now the outlaw flung himself out of shelter, straight for the controls of the carrier. He brought his fist down upon a button set in the panel and was rewarded by a high pitched tinkle—a tinkle which resounded in the Terran’s heads until Dane had to fight to keep his hands from his ears.
The answer to this assault upon their eardrums was as preposterous as anything Dane had ever witnessed in a Video performance. The supposedly solid rock wall fronting the end of the valley opened, one piece of the stone falling back to provide a dark gap. And, since their captive was prepared for that he was the first through the door, darting from under Kosti’s clutching hands.
With an inarticulate roar the jetman followed Snall. And Dane pounded after both of them into the maw of the cliff. From the sunlight of Limbo they were translated to a twilight grey, strung out like beads on a string, with Snall, proving himself a good distance runner, well at the head.
Dane was inside the straight corridor before his common sense took command once more. He shouted to Kosti and his voice echoed in a hollow boom. Though he slowed, the other two kept on into the dusky reaches ahead.
Dane turned back to the entrance, still undecided. To be cut off here—their party divided. What should he do, run after Kosti, or try to bring in the others? He was in time to see Mura come in at a walking pace. And then, to Dane’s horror, the outlet to the world closed! There was a clang of metal meeting metal and the sunlight was instantly cut to evening.
“The door!” Dane hurled himself at the masked opening with the same fervour with which he had followed Snall into the corridor. But before he reached that spot Mura’s steadying grip closed on his arm, restraining him with a strength he had forgotten the smaller man possessed.