On impulse he turned and left the cage room, walked straight to his bunk and stretched out on it. If he could not find the kinkajou one way, there was a chance—just a very faint chance—another and more devious path might serve.
Eight
Troy’s eyes were shut. He willed nerves and muscles to relax, trying to hit by chance, since he had no better guide, on the pattern that had aided him that other night to tune in upon the exchange that was not conversation. Through the corns all the usual noises from the bird and animal rooms reached him, and he tried not to listen.
“—here. Out—“
Not really words, rather impressions—a signal, a plea. Troy’s eyes opened; he sat up—and that whisper of contact was gone. Angry at his own lack of control, he settled himself once more on the bunk, tried again to tap that band of communication.
“Out—out—danger—“
He lay, hardly breathing, trying to hold that line.
“Out—“
Yes, it was a plea; he was certain of that. But there was no way of discovering from whom or from where it came. He might have stumbled upon a small loop of rope in the middle of a large room, to be told to find the coil from which it had been cut.
“Where?” He tried to frame that word in his own mind, force the inquiry into the band he could not locate.
Then he received an impression of surprise—so strong it was like an exclamation his ears could pick up.
“Who? Who?” The query was eager, demanding.
“Troy—“ He thought his own name but was answered by a sense of bafflement, disappointment. Maybe names meant nothing in this eerie exchange. Troy tried to build up a mental picture of his own face as he had seen it in mirrors. He thought intensely of that face, of each detail of his own features.
The sensation of bafflement faded, though he was sure he had not lost contact.
“Who?” he asked silently in return, certain that he was communicating with the kinkajou.
But instead an oddly shaped and distorted picture of a triangular mask, sharp-pointed nose, glittering eyes, pricked ears—the fox!
Troy slipped out of his bunk. He did not foresee any trouble. If Kyger or Zul turned up, he could always say he was investigating some unusual sound. Yet he took the stunner from its wall niche before he left the small room and went as noiselessly as he could down the corridor to the animal room.
There was a cover over the front of the fox cage. Troy raised that flap. Both animals sat there, watching him. He glanced about the room. Even in the dim night light he could see nothing amiss. This could not be a case of an intruder as it had been when the kinkajou’s warning had saved his life.
“What is wrong?” At the moment there was nothing strange in his standing there thinking that question at a pair of Terran foxes. “The big one—he threatens.”
It was as if someone with a strictly curtailed number of words was trying to convey a complex thought. The big one—Kyger? “Yes!” The assent was quick, eager. “What is wrong?”
“He fears—thinks better dead—“
“Who is better dead?” Troy’s grip on the stunner tightened. He felt a cold stab between his shoulders giving birth to a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
“Those who know—all those who know—“
“Me?” Troy countered quickly. Though of what Kyger might suspect him or why he had no idea.
There was no answer. Either he had presented them with a new puzzle, or, unable to give a definite reply, they gave none at all. “You?”
“Yes—“ But there was an element of doubt in that yes. “Others like you?” Troy pushed.
“Yes!” Now there was no mistaking the vehemence of that.
He thought of the kinkajou. One of the foxes reared, put front paws against the screening of the cage. “It was here. Now it is there.”
“Where?” Troy tried to follow.
His mind pictured for him a cage, hooded and stored—but not in any room of the shop he had seen.
“In the yard pens?” he asked.
There was a long moment before the answer came and then it was evasive.
“Cool air, many smells—maybe outside.”
Was the fox only relaying for the kinkajou? Troy thought that might be true.
“Cage covered—not to see—“
That fitted. The animal might well be in one of the outside pens still in a carrying cage. But to find it tonight would be a risky project, and what could he do if he did locate it?
“Hide!”
They had picked that out of his thoughts, replied to it. The standing fox was panting a little, its red tongue lolling from its jaws.
Troy considered the problem. For some reason Kyger had hidden the kinkajou, intending to get rid of it. To meddle in this at all was simply asking for trouble. Not only would the merchant break contract, but he was entitled to black-list Troy with the C.L.C. so that he could never hope for another day’s labor on Korwar. That had happened to Dipplemen in the past, and for less cause. He had only to fasten down the cover of the foxes’ cage, leave the room, forget everything, and he was safe.
How safe? He stared down at the fox. The kinkajou, the foxes, even the cats, all knew that he was able to communicate with them. Suppose they passed the information on to Kyger? That interrupted conversation the other night—if Kyger knew he had “heard” that— Yes, a refusal to help might cut two ways now.
He jerked the flap of the cage cover into place, making no further attempt to talk to the foxes. Then, thrusting the stunner into the top of his rider’s belt, he padded to the rear door and let himself out cautiously, ducking into a convenient pool of shadow.
Just as he patrolled the shop during the night, the senior yardman made the rounds out here. And Troy’s presence near some of the larger animal pens could arouse their inhabitants to noisy protest, betraying him at once. Nor did Horan have the least idea in which of these enclosures the kinkajou was now housed, if it was here at all.
He slipped along the wall, his left shoulder against it, making a quick dart across an open space to the shelter of a doorway. From that came the scent of hay, seeds, dried vegetation. And those mingled odors took him back to his twenty-four hours in the Wild. Perhaps it was then that the first flick of an idea was born—not concrete enough yet to be called a plan, just a hazy half-dream suggesting a way of escape if Kyger did dismiss him again to the Dipple.
Troy felt the door yield to his gentle push and he went in. Under his hand the panel swung almost closed once more, but through the crack he was able to reconnoiter the rest of the courtyard. In which of the pens and cages about its circumference could what he sought be effectively hidden? And would Kyger have undertaken that mission himself or left it to one of the yardmen—or Zul?
Kyger—or Zul, the most likely. Zul had not wanted Troy to be left in the shop tonight; he was certain of that. He wished he knew where that small man was right now.
There was a stir by the door that gave on the passage leading to Kyger’s private apartment. A figure moved into the open and Troy saw Zul, by his present actions a Zul who did .not want to be observed, for, as Troy had done, the other took advantage of every shadow to cover his journey along the row of pens.
Perhaps the creatures penned there were used to his scent and such nighttime journeys, for none of them roused. Then Zul disappeared, seemingly into a patch of wall. Where his flitting had been soundless, the tap of footsteps now sounded briskly down the opposite side of the yard, and Troy held his breath as they approached the supply room. He gently eased the panel fully shut and waited tensely to see if the pa- trolling guard would try it.
When the footfalls passed without pausing, Horan again opened the door a crack. He could not see the retreating yardman from this position, but he heard the door at the other end of the court close. Then he saw Zul detach himself from the wall and move on. So—Zul was keeping this a secret from the regular guard? That was most interesting.
Two, three more pens the other passed. Then he stopped before the last in that row, a larger enclosure where two small trasi from Longus were kept. They were very tame and most affectionate creatures of a subspecies of deer.
The pen door opened and Zul disappeared within, the darkness there hiding him entirely.