Flight— But where? Memory painted for him a picture of that plateau high in the clean wind. Not perhaps there—but the Wild that stretched over half of this continent. To shake one man and five small animals out of that would be a long and arduous task, and before it was done perhaps he could find a solution to their problem in another way.
“You’ll have to let me call them—and kill them quickly!” Zul was losing control, his voice rasping louder as he watched Troy with narrowed eyes.
“Be quiet!” Troy enforced that order by planting his hand over the other’s mouth. Holding Zul so in spite of his renewed writhings, Horan tried to contact the animals.
“Go together—away from here.” He thought those words with all the emphasis he could, not trying to analyze why he must champion the five, only knowing that it was very important to do so—not only for them but for him.
If Zul understood what he was doing, he gave no sign of it. As he fought to be free of Troy’s hold, his eyes were now wild above the temporary gag of the other’s palm.
There was again a flicker of movement, which Troy caught only from the corners of his eyes. The black cat materialized as if from the flooring, came stealthily, with its belly fur brushing the carpet, skirting Kyger’s outflung arm. And Zul, sighting it over Troy’s hand, was still. Troy waited as the cat reached them, to front Zul with a silent, menacing snarl, hatred ex- pressed in every fluid line of its body.
“They do not need to be called, Zul,” Troy said softly, “for they are here. And from here they shall go safely.”
So they came—the other cat in a swift spring, the foxes side by side, and last of all the kinkajou in a rush that brought it to Troy, to climb up his body as if it were a tree.
“We shall all go together for a little, Zul.” Troy swung the smaller man about, held him before him with one hand as he transferred Zul’s knife to his own belt. He dropped the tube to the floor, and the black cat went into instant action, setting it rolling with small paw taps until the cylinder disappeared under one of the cabinets. Now all the animals, save the kinkajou which rode on Troy’s shoulder, its tail loosely coiled about the man’s neck, slipped out the door.
Zul might have been shocked speechless by the appearance of that furred company and their cooperation with Troy. He obeyed the other’s push like a controlled robot, and all his struggles ceased as they went down the stairs, heading toward the courtyard.
One part of Troy’s mind considered the matter of supplies—and the flitter. So much depended now on chance and luck, and he would have to hope for help from both.
Still holding Zul, he paused just within the passage door and looked out into the courtyard. The flitter was just where he had seen it last. From the pens and cages came the usual night sounds. And there was no sign of the yardman who should have been on duty.
Troy caught a stir at the side of the flitter, knew that the animals had picked that much of his intention from his mind. At this hour the air lanes would be crowded with villa dwellers returning home from night spots in Tikil. He would have that traffic for cover from the patrollers.
Now that he had made his decision, Troy had to throttle down the excitement bubbling in him. For the first time in years he was going to sample freedom. He had had a very small taste of that on the expedition with Rerne, but this time the choice was his alone.
Zul remained the immediate problem. Troy continued to propel the other before him until they reached the storeroom. Since they had left the room in which Kyger lay, the other had not struggled. It might have been that he had no more desire than Troy to draw attention to their activities.
Inside, Troy shoved his captive into a comer and worked fast. He knew that Kyger had made a point of supplying the Terran animals with special imported food, and he tossed into a sack such containers of that as he could find. Zul’s knife was in his belt and in addition the flitter would have a stunner in its arms locker. He drew the cord of the sack tight, with Zul watching him. The latter spoke and Troy knew he meant every word he said.
“We shall hunt and we shall kill. And the patrollers will hunt also. There is no place you can hide that one or the other of us will not find. And for you also there will be death now.”
“Because I know too much?” Troy suggested. “Because of that—and because of this. We cannot allow knowledge of this thing.”
“And you will set the patrollers on me—“ Zul grinned. “There will be no need to tell them of the animals. They will come and find a dead man where one of his hirelings has fled. That is a story that needs no telling, even to the most stupid.”
“Suppose they find that two have fled?” Troy asked. He had no wish to take Zul along; that would be like fitting a triggered egg bomb into the flitter. But the disappearance of two ofKyger’s employees at the same time, and one of them an old associate of the ex-spacer, might muddy the trail as far as the law was concerned.
Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he closed on Zul again, herding him out of the storeroom in the direction of the flitter. But that plan was to go awry. There was a sudden shout from the passage leading to Kyger’s quarters. Zul relaxed, made himself a dead weight that Troy could not hope to manhandle into the flyer without a loss of precious time. He leaped over the prone man and scrambled into the flitter, hoping the animals were already on board.
“Here!” Out of nowhere came that reassurance as Troy took the lift control and raised the machine out of the well of the courtyard. Lights showed in the forepart of Kyger’s rooms. Perhaps one of the yardmen had discovered the body. Troy must make the best use of the small head start that he had.
The main stream of the late traffic went north, not east, and he would have to weave into that, not making the necessary turn until he was well over the villa section. Also the flitter must keep within the lawful speed of the passenger lanes.
Troy triggered the corn on the control panel and listened intently for any hint that the alarm had been raised behind him. Zul’s words had not been an idle threat. However, once in the Wild, he did not fear the patrollers too much. •
What did concern him was the Clan rangers, organized to track down just such unauthorized invasions as his own. They knew the wilderness intimately. This realization made future prospects suddenly far more bleak for Troy, and they grew grimmer the farther he flew. Yet he had made his choice and there was no turning back.
Reme! If cornered, dare he appeal to the Hunter? Once more he experienced the odd duality he had known that morning on the plateau. Part of him was untrusting, wary, disillusioned, and another segment pulled toward confidence in the ranger, a longing for the freedom in which he and his kind walked under an open sky.
A patroller cruised above his flitter, and Troy sat stiff and tense, waiting for the order to land. Then the official flyer darted away, and he drew a really deep breath once more. The traffic about him was thinning. Soon he would have to make his dash out of the regular lanes into what he hoped would be the concealment of the night. He saw the twinkle of villa lights, two of them among the rising heights. Snapping off his lawful lights, he banked to the right, coming around to head eastward in a burst of speed that should tear him well away from the city lanes before he was noticed.
But it was several very long moments before he could be sure of that escape. So far there had been no warning broadcast on the corn. Certainly if the men in the shop had been aroused, they would have called in the patrollers and there would be a blanket alarm out for the stolen flitter. Zul—was Zul still determined to hold off the law as long as he could to serve his own purposes?
And in the last warning the little man had said “we”—not “I”. Who were “we”? If Kyger was not the master of the animals—and Zul was certainly a subordinate—then who was? Someone in Tikil with power enough to delay the official hunt so that a private and deadly one could be put into motion? Zul had warned Troy that he would be the quarry of two chases. And in the Wild perhaps tailed by the Clans as well.