Part 20 (1/2)

Karara cried out and Ross looked around.

The pillar which had supported the head was crumbling away, breaking into a rubble which cascaded across the stone ledge. Ross blinked--this must be an illusion, but he was too tired to be more than dully amazed as he became one of the procession returning to the s.h.i.+ps.

13

The Sea Gate of the Foanna

Ross raised a sh.e.l.l cup to his lips but hardly sipped the fiery brew it contained. This was a gesture of ceremony, but he wanted a steady head and a quick tongue for any coming argument. Torgul, Afrukta, Ongal--the three commanders of the Rover cruisers; Jazia, who represented the mysterious Power of Phutka; Vistur and some other subordinate officers; Karara; himself, with Loketh hovering behind: a council of war. But summoned against whom?

The Terran had come too far afield from his own purpose--to reach Ashe in the Foanna keep. And to further his own plans was a task he doubted his ability to perform. His attack on the Baldies had made him too important to the Rovers for them to allow him willingly to leave them on a quest of his own.

”These star men”--Ross set down the cup, tried to choose the most telling words in his limited Hawaikan vocabulary--”possess weapons and powers you can not dream of, that you have no defense against. Back at Kyn Add we were lucky. The salkars attacked their sub and halted the broadcast powering their flamers. Otherwise we could not have taken them, even though we were many against their few. Now you talk of hunting them in their own territory--on land and in the mountains where they have their base. That would be folly akin to swimming barehanded to front a salkar.”

”So--then we must sit and wait for them to eat us up?” flared Ongal. ”I say it is better to die fighting with one's blade wet!”

”Do you not also wish to take at least one of the enemy with you when you fight to that finish?” Ross countered. ”These could kill you before you came in blade range.”

”You had no trouble with that weapon of yours,” Afrukta spoke up.

”I have told you--this weapon was stolen from them. I have only one and I do not know how long it will continue to serve me, or whether they have a defense against it. Those we took were naked to any force, for their broadcast had failed them. But to smash blindly against their main base would be the act of madmen.”

”The salkars opened a way for us--” That was Torgul.

”But we can not move a pack of those inland to the mountains,” Vistur pointed out reasonably.

Ross studied the Captain. That Torgul was groping for a plan and that it had to be a shrewd one, the Terran guessed. His respect for the Rover commander had been growing steadily since their first meeting. The cruiser-raiders had always been captained by the most daring men of the Rover clans. But Ross was also certain that a successful cruiser commander must possess a level-headed leaven of intelligence and be a strategist of parts.

The Hawaikan force needed a key which would open the Baldy base as the salkars had opened the lagoon. And all they had to aid them was a handful of facts gained from their prisoners.

Oddly enough the picklock to the captives' minds had been produced by the dolphins. Just as Tino-rau and Taua had formed a bridge of communication between the Terran and Loketh, so did they read and translate the thoughts of the galactic invaders. For the Baldies, among their own kind, were telepathic, vocalizing only to give orders to inferiors.

Their capture by these primitive ”inferiors” had delivered the first shock, and the mind-probes of the dolphins had sent the ”supermen” close to the edge of sanity. To accept an animal form as an equal had been shattering.

But the star men's thoughts and memories had been winnowed at last and the result spread before this impromptu council. Rovers and Terrans were briefed on the invaders' master plan for taking over a world. Why they desired to do so even the dolphins had not been able to discover; perhaps they themselves had not been told by their superiors.

It was a plan almost contemptuous in its simplicity, as if the galactic force had no reason to fear effective opposition. Except in one direction--one single direction.

Ross's fingers tightened on the sh.e.l.l cup. Had Torgul reached that conclusion yet, the belief that the Foanna could be their key? If so, they might be able to achieve their separate purposes in one action.

”It would seem that they are wary of the Foanna,” he suggested, alert to any telltale response from Torgul. But it was Jazia who answered the Terran's half question.

”The Foanna have a powerful magic; they can order wind and wave, man and creature--if so be their will. Well might these killers fear the Foanna!”

”Yet now they move against them,” Ross pointed out, still eyeing Torgul.

The Captain's reply was a small, quiet smile.

”Not directly, as you have heard. It is all a part of their plan to set one of us against the other, letting us fight many small wars and so use up our men while they take no risks. They wait the day when we shall be exhausted and then they will reveal themselves to claim all they wish.

So today they stir up trouble between the Wreckers and the Foanna, knowing that the Foanna are few. Also they strive in turn to anger us by raids, allowing us to believe that either the Wreckers or Foanna have attacked. Thus--” he held up his left thumb, made a pincers of right thumb and forefinger to close upon it, ”they hope to catch the Foanna, between Wreckers and Rovers. Because the Foanna are those they reckon the most dangerous they move against them now, using us and weakening our forces into the bargain. A plan which is clever, but the plan of men who do not like to fight with their own blades.”

”They are worse than the coast sc.u.m, these cowards!” Ongal spat.