Part 13 (1/2)

The knife, which had been moving back and forth in Cartl's fingers when Dane had started, was still.

”Counter-interference in pulse pattern,” the settler said. ”And what kind of code?”

”Nothing elaborate. Just identification and a call for help.”

Cartl returned the honor knife to its sheath. ”Yes. And if Kaysee did not get through-” He rose, swaying for a moment but avoiding the hand Tau advanced to steady him. Then he went to the com.

A touch on the switch brought the crackle up to louder waves of sound. Cartl listened intently. His lips moved. He might have been counting.

Then he pulled out a seat and half fell into it, still with that intent, listening look. He reached under the table on which part of the equipment was based and brought out a box of tools. Uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a panel, he switched off the receiver and then went to work, slowly, almost fumblingly at first, and then with more speed and surety. At last he leaned back, his hands resting on the edge of the table, his shoulders drooping a little, as if his labor had exhausted what small strength he had regained.

”That's it. But will it work?” He seemed to be asking that of himself, not of the three behind him.

The brach had been stretched out before the fire, basking in the heat. But now he sat up on his haunches, his forepaws folded over his belly. His head was not turned toward the men in the corner, but there was about the alien an aura of listening that caught Dane's attention, and he watched the brach rather than Cartl, who had set two wires delicately together and was now tapping in a broken rhythm.

Dane crossed to sit on the cot Cartl had lately left.

”What is it?” He had picked up his thermo jacket and spoke into the hood mike.

”There is coming,” replied the brach.

”Of that which we must fear?” Dane asked quickly.

”There is fear-but it lies with those who come. And there is hurt also-”

”How near?”

The brach's head swung slowly back and forth, as if his long nose was pointer for a detect.

”Coming fast, but not yet here.” That seemed evasive. ”There is fear, much, much fear. And all have it.”

Dane arose and spoke to the others. ”The brach says some are coming. He says they are hurt and afraid.”

In spite of that loud mixture of sound from the com, Cartl must have heard. He swung around to face Dane.

”When?”

”The brach says they are coming fast.”

Cartl was already on his feet. He did not reach for the s.h.a.ggy coat he had worn cloakwise earlier, but he did pause to s.n.a.t.c.h up his weapon. And Meshler was at the door before him, blaster in hand.

They ran for the gate of the fort, Cartl in the lead. The others caught up with him only after he had leaped to a ledge along one of the gate side buildings from which they could see the outer world. The moon was bright, and under it the snow gave back sparks of glitter.

Now they could hear it. There was no wind high enough to hide the steady beat of a flitter engine. Cartl gave a cry of relief and leaned out to hit a b.u.t.ton, so that lights flared on, marking a landing s.p.a.ce. Meshler half raised an arm as if to turn them off but did not.

There were no running lights on the flier. It came in dark and somehow ominous under the moon. When it set down, they saw that it was larger than the one they had stolen from the basin camp, almost double the size of the one carried by the Queen. Round-bellied, it was obviously intended to carry cargo, but now both cabin and cargo hatches sprang open, and a group of figures spilled out so hurriedly onto the field that several stumbled and fell, others stooping to pull them up again, as if those inside were prisoners seeking freedom. Leaving the doors hanging open behind them, they made for the gate. One of the monsters might have been pounding at their heels.

Women-three, four, five, six-children to such a number that they must have been packed shoulder to shoulder inside. And behind them men, two with bandages, helping a third between them who made a stumbling, futile effort to walk.

Cartl threw open the gate and sprang to seize one of the women, one who had two children, one clinging to each hand. As he held her tight, the others crowded around them, crying out in some planet dialect the Terrans could not understand.

But Tau pushed past the women and reached the wounded, with Meshler and Dane only a step or two behind. With their aid he got the three back to the room they had just left.

It was sometime later they heard the full story. These were the women of Cartl's holding and with them three of Vanatar's group, plus the children of both. The wounded consisted of two of Cartl's men and one, who was the worst mauled, of Vanatar's.

They had had little warning. As Cartl had earlier believed, they had been spread out through the fields overseeing clearing robos, the women setting up fires to heat drinks and tending pots of food. Without warning then the nightmare had come. Their accounts of what they had seen and fled from were so varied that Dane deduced the larger part of the attacking force had been made up of more than one type of monster, all of them so alien to what the settlers knew that that very alienness added to the fright and horror.

Some of the work force had rallied quickly enough to trigger the robos in the fields to cover their retreat, and the settlers had broken into several groups. The ones reaching Cartl's had luckily been close enough to the flitter park to fight their way there. But even then, they were not to escape easily, for the monsters were only the first wave of that hideous army. Behind were men, and they had used blasters, though from several accounts, mainly one from the men, the strangers had been both driving on the monsters and defending themselves from them.

A flitter had come to hover over the vehicle park, and a line of monsters had trailed along behind it, almost as if led on a leash. There had been a fight, two of them. And two parked flitters had been smashed past getting into the air, so the settlers' first plan for evacuating this party to Cartl's and then reaching one of the other isolated groups had failed.

”Got them then-” one of the men wearing a bandage down his left arm, strapped to his body, said. ”Vanatar had a burner mounted on a crawler and was going to use it on thick brush. Yashty and I reached that. Got that sky-sc.u.m in the center. Then Cartl's s.h.i.+p came in so we could take off with the women. I wasn't much use with the arm, and Yashty got a knock on the head, but together we could make one pilot. Asmual had taken a nasty one and was laid out proper. So Thanmore said for us to get out while the air was still clear. They would hold the park with Cartl's men and maybe get that crawler with the burner started so it could make it to the upside. We could still hear them going at that, so we knew some of our people reached it. But even if they hold out a while, they can't do it forever. They have the robos for their main defense and a small burner, but not much else.”

”How many of you reached there?” the ranger wanted to know.

The man shook his head. ”No telling. We were the largest group, most all women and children. I saw three-three at least get it from those devil things. And two were burned down at the yard before we wiped out that air sc.u.m.”

”This upside-” Meshler interrupted. ”Where is it in relation to the park?”

For a moment the man shut his eyes, as if trying to mentally picture the refuge site. Then he answered, ”South a field and then east. It's a big outcrop of rough rock. Vanatar thought it could be made into an extra-secure roost, and he ordered us not to blast it out. It's the best defense they could find there.”

”No flitter landing near it?”

The man shook his head. ”Only in open ground, and there you'd have to fight off those things. If they haven't overrun the rocks-”

”Could your men get out if a flitter went on hover and we used air rescue belts?” persisted the ranger.

”I don't know.”

The technique the ranger suggested was a tricky one. Dane had seen it done at training stations, but the Queen's men had never had to put it into practice. And did the settlers have the proper tackle?

His question was put into words by the other more lightly wounded man.

”You have a rescue flitter here? You'd need the belts and shock lines. And you'll have to hover low. They're using blasters, and if you got down to the right level, one sweep would cut a belt rope.”

”We can set the hover on low.” Meshler sounded confident, but Dane thought this the wildest suggestion yet. He looked about the room. Tau was busy with the badly wounded man. His place would certainly be here. The three who had come in with the refugee flitter were in no state to go back, and Cartl might have a relapse if he made such an effort at present, which meant that the rescue mission would fall on two of them, Meshler and himself.

The ranger did not ask for volunteers. He put them all, save Tau, to work, improvising the equipment needed. They had finally a bulky belt, plus a double-woven steelion rope and a pulley hoist, which occupied so much of the interior of the flitter that Dane could not see how they could take off more than two, or at the most three, of the refugees at a time. In addition, they had to use the slower flying cargo flitter in order to rig such an installation at all. And even Cartl warned them that any overload of weight on hover might break that down.

But at dawn they took off, Meshler again as pilot, Dane and the brach, who at the last minute added himself to their company, housed in the stripped rear beside the hoist.

”This is bad.” Dane tried to urge the alien to stay behind. ”We go into much danger.”

”Go with you, come with you, always, with you go our own place,” the brach stated firmly, as if in Dane alone he had any hope of returning to his mate and family. And knowing how the alien's talents had helped them in the past, Dane could not have him put out bodily.

With the directions of the refugees for a guide, Meshler pushed the flitter at the top speed that the lumbering craft could maintain. Behind them the people of Cartl's holding were preparing for a state of siege, while Cartl himself had gone back to the com, though he seemed to have little faith in the experiment he tried.

There was no storm, but the day was gray, and the sun was a very pallid spot of light, well veiled by clouds. Save for their two blasters, they carried no arms. And Dane tried not to imagine what would happen if the enemy had captured one of the burners and turned it aloft to singe out any attempt at rescue.

When they came in over the fields where Vanatar and his people had been clearing, the ragged scars of the interrupted work were beacon enough. The tangle of the flitter the refugees had brought down lay in a burned-out mess, eclipsing in part two crawlers it had crashed upon.