Part 16 (1/2)

”Not of this world!” Dalgard burst out in his own speech.

”There!” The spy was triumphant. ”So did they talk to one another, not with the mind but by making mouth noises, different mouth noises from those that _they_ make. Yes, they are like--but unlike this one.”

”And these strangers flew the s.h.i.+p we have not seen before?”

”It is so. But they did not know the way and were guided by the globe.

And at least one among them was distrustful of _those_ and wished to be free to return to his own place. He walked by the rocks near my hiding place, and I read his thoughts. No, they were with _them_, but they are not _them_!”

”And now they have gone on to the city?” Sssuri probed.

”It was the way their s.h.i.+p flew.”

”Like me,” Dalgard repeated, and then the truth which might lie behind that exploded within his brain. ”Terrans!” he breathed the word. Men of Pax perhaps who had come to hunt down the outlaws who had successfully eluded their rule on earth? But how had the colonists been traced? And why? Or were they other fugitives like themselves? So much, so very much of what the colonists should know of their past had been erased during the time of the Great Sickness twenty years after their landing. Then three fourths of the original immigrants had died. Only the children of the second generation and a handful of weakened Elders had remained. Knowledge was lost and some distorted by failing memories, old skills were gone. But if the new Terrans were in that city.... He had to know--to know and be able to warn his people.

For the darkness of Pax was a memory they had _not_ lost!

”I must see them,” he said.

”That is true. And only you can tell us what manner of folk these strangers be,” the merman chief agreed. ”Therefore you shall go ash.o.r.e with my warriors and look upon them--to tell us the truth. Also we must learn what _they_ do here.”

It was decided that using waterways known to the merpeople, one which Dalgard could also take wearing the diving equipment, a scouting party would head sh.o.r.eward the next day, with the river itself providing the entrance into the heart of the forbidden territory.

12

ALIEN PATROL

Raf leaned back against the wall. Long since the actions of the aliens in the storage house had ceased to interest him, since they would not allow any of the Terrans to approach their plunder and he could not ask questions. Lablet continued to follow the officer about, vainly trying to understand his speech. And Hobart had taken his place by the upper entrance, his hand held stiffly across his body. The pilot knew that the captain was engaged in photographing all this activity with a wristband camera, hoping to make something of it later.

But Raf's own inclination was to slip out and do some exploring in those underground corridors beyond. Having remained where he was for a wearisome time, he noticed that his presence was now taken for granted by the hurrying aliens who brushed about him intent upon their a.s.signments. And slowly he began to edge along the wall toward the other doorway. Once he froze as the officer strode by, Lablet in attendance. But what the painted warrior was looking for was a crystal box on a shelf to Raf's left. When he had pointed that out to an underling he was off again, and Raf was free to continue his crab's progress.

Luck favored him, for, as he reached the moment when he must duck out the portal, there was a sudden flurry at the other end of the chamber where four of the aliens, under a volley of orders, strove to move an unwieldy piece of intricate machinery.

Raf dodged around the door and flattened back against the wall of the room beyond. The moving bars of sun said that it was midday. But the room was empty save for the despoiled carca.s.s, and there was no sign of the aliens who had been sent out to scout.

The Terran ran lightly down the narrow room to the second door, which gave on the lower pits beneath and the way to the arena. As he took that dark way, he drew his stun gun. Its bolt was intended to render the victim unconscious, not to kill. But what effect it might have on the giant reptiles was a question he hoped he would not be forced to answer, and he paused now and then to listen.

There were sounds, deceptive sounds. Noises as regular as footfalls, like a distant padded running. The aliens returning? Or the things they had gone to hunt? Raf crept on--out into the suns.h.i.+ne which filled the arena.

For the first time he studied the enclosure and recognized it for what it was--a place in which savage and b.l.o.o.d.y entertainments could be provided for the population of the city--and it merely confirmed his opinion of the aliens and all their ways.

The temptation to explore the city was strong. He eyed the grilles speculatively. They could be climbed--he was sure of that. Or he could try some other of the various openings about the sanded area. But as he hesitated over his choice, he heard something from behind. This was no unidentifiable noise, but a scream which held both terror and pain.

It jerked him around, sent him running back almost before he thought.

But the scream did not come again. However there were other sounds--snuffing whines--a scrabbling--

Raf found himself in the round room walled by the old prison cells.

Stabs of light shot through the gloom, thrusting into a roiling black ma.s.s which had erupted through one of the entrances and now held at bay one of the alien warriors. Three or four of the black creatures ringed the alien in, moving with speed that eluded the bolts of light he shot from his weapon, keeping him cornered and from escape, while their fellows worried another alien limp and defenseless on the floor.

It was impossible to align the sights of his stun gun with any of those flitting shadows, Raf discovered. They moved as quickly as a ripple across a pond. He snapped the b.u.t.ton on the hand grip to ”spray” and proceeded to use the full strength of the charge across the group on the floor.