But there was something else, a yoris hide bag, its glittering scaled exterior adorned by a feather embroidery pattern that repeated over and over the conventionalized figure of a Zamle, the flying totem of Gorgol’s clan. That was the Norbie’s traveling equipment-which by every right should have been stowed in a bunk locker at the Center House fifty miles downriver.
Hosteen stretched out his arm to afford Baku a bridge to the perch hammered in the wall. Then he went to the heating unit, measured out a portion of powdered “swankee,” the coffee of the Arzor ranges, and dialed the pot to three-minute service. He heard the faintest whisper behind and knew that Gorgol had deliberately trodden so as to attract his attention. But he was determined to make the other give an explanation without asking any questions himself, and he knew that it was unwise to push.
While the heating unit was at work, Hosteen sailed his hat to the nearest bunk, loosened the throat lacings of his undyed frawn fabric shirt, and pulled it off before he sought the fresher and allowed water vapor to curl pleasantly and coolly about his bare chest and shoulders.
As the Terran came out of the alcove, Gorgol snapped the first swankee container out of the unit, hesitated, and drew a second, which he turned around and around in his hands, staring blank-eyed down at the liquid as if he had never seen its like before.
Hosteen seated himself on the edge of a bunk, cradled the swankee cup in his hand, and waited another long moment. Then Gorgol smacked his container down on the table top with a violence close to anger, and his fingers flew, but not with such speed that Hosteen was unable to read the signs.
“I go-there is a call for all Shosonna-Krotag summons-“
Hosteen sipped the slightly bitter but refreshing brew, his mind working faster than his deliberate movements might indicate. Why would the chief of Gorgol’s clan be summoning those engaged in profitable riders’ jobs? The Big Dry was neither the season for hunting nor for war-both of which pursuits, dear to the tradition and customs of the Norbies, were conducted only in the fringe months of the Wet Time. In the Big Dry, it was rigid custom for the tribes and clans to split into much smaller family groups, each to resort to one of the jealously guarded water holes to wait out the heat as best they could.
All tribes with any settler contacts strove to hire out as many of their men as riders as they could, thus removing hungry and thirsty mouths from clan supply points. To summon in men in the Big Dry was a policy so threatened with disaster as to appear insane. It meant trouble somewhere-bad trouble-and something that had developed in the week of Storm’s own absence.
Hosteen had ridden out of the Quade Peak Holding eight days ago-to set up his square stakes and make his claim map before recording it at Galwadi. As a veteran of the forces and a Terran, he was able to file on twenty squares, and he had set out his stakes around a good piece of territory to the northeast, having river frontage and extending into the mountain foothills. There had been no whisper of trouble then, nor had he seen any signs of movement of tribes in the outback. Though, come to think of it, he had not crossed a Norbie trail or met any hunters either. That he had laid to the Big Dry. Now he wondered if more than the rigors of Arzoran seasons had wrung the natives out of the country.
“Krotag summons-in the Big Dry!” Even in finger movements one could insert a measure of incredulity.
Gorgol shifted from one yoris-hide booted foot to the other. His discomfort was plain to one who had ridden with him for months. “There is medicine talk-“ His fingers shaped that and then were stiffly straight.
Hosteen sipped, his mind working fast and hard, fitting one small hint to another. “Medicine talk”-was that answer to shut off more questions or could it be the truth? In any event, it stopped him now. You did not -ever-inquire into “medicine,” and his own Amerindian background made him accept that prohibition as a thing necessary and right.
“How long?”
But Gorgol’s straight fingers did not immediately reply. “Not to know-“ came reluctantly at last.
Hosteen was still searching for a question that was proper and yet would give him a small scrap of information when there was a clear note from the other end of the cave room, the alerting call of the com, which tied each line camp to the headquarters of the holding. The Terran went to the board, thumbing down the receive button. What came was no new message but a recall broadcast to be repeated mechanically at intervals, set to bring in all riders. There was something going on!
“You ride then for the hills?” he signed to Gorgol.
The Norbie was at the doorway, shouldering his travel bag. Now he paused, and not only the change of his expression showed his troubled mind. It was evident in every movement of his body. Hosteen believed the native was obeying an imperative order, greatly against his own will.
“I ride. All Norbies ride now.”
All Norbies, not just Gorgol. Hosteen digested that and, in spite of himself, vented his surprise in a startled hiss. Quade depended heavily on native riders, not only here at the Peak Holding, but also down at his wider spread in the Basin. And Quade was not the only range man who had a predominance of Norbie employees. If they all took to the hills-! Yes, such an exodus could cripple some of the holdings.
“All Norbies-this, too, is medicine?”
But why? Medicine was clan business as far as Hosteen had been able to learn. He had never heard of a whole tribe or nation combining their medicine meetings and ceremonies-certainly not in the season of the Big Dry. Why, the river lands could not support such a gathering at this time of the year-let alone the arid mountain country.
But Gorgol was answering. “Yes-all Norbies.”
“Also the wild ones?”
“The wild ones-yes.”
Impossible! There were tribal feuds nursed for the honor of fighting men. To send in the peace pole for a clan, or perhaps-stretching it far-several clans at a time, was one thing. But for the Shosonna and the Nitra to sit under such a pole with their war arrows still in the quivers-that was unheard of!
“I go-“ Gorgol slapped his travel bag. “The horses, they are in the big corral-you will find them safe.”
“You go-but you will return to ride again?” Hosteen was bothered by the suggestion of finality in the other’s signs.
“That lies with the lightning-“
The Norbie was gone. Hosteen walked back across the room to lie down on a bunk. So Gorgol was not even sure he would be back. What did he mean about that lying with the lightning? The Norbies recognized divine power in shadow beings who drummed thunder and used the lightning to slay. The reputed home of these God Ones was the high mountains of the northeast. And those same mountains also hid the caverns and passages of that mysterious unknown race who had either explored or settled here on Arzor centuries before the Terran exploration ships had reached this part of the galaxy.
Hosteen, Logan, and Gorgol, together with Surra, the dune cat, and Hing, the meercat of the Beast Team, had discovered the Cavern of the Hundred Gardens, a fabulous botanical preserve of the Sealed Caves. That, and the ruined city of fortification in the valley beyond, was still under scientific study. It was easy to believe that there were other Sealed Caves in the hills-and also easy to understand that the Norbies had made gods of the long-vanished and still-unknown space travelers who had hollowed out the Peaks to hold their mysteries.
Hosteen could spend hours speculating about that and not turn up one real fact. Now it was better to sleep through the day heat and ride out at night to answer the return order from the holding. For all Hosteen knew, that summons might have been sounding for days, which could account for Logan’s absence. He turned on his side and willed himself to sleep.
That mental alarm clock that had been conditioned into him during his service days brought him awake hours later. To come out of the cave into the dusk of evening was walking into a wall of heavy heat, but it was not as bad as sunlight. He allowed Rain to splash in the shallows of the river before he swung up to the riding pad. Baku’s world was not that of the night, but she accepted it at his urging, climbing into the star-encrusted sky.
The Center House was three nights’ ride from the line camp. And two of the days in between Hosteen had to spend in improvised shelters, lying flat on the earth to get what coolness the parched soil might provide. Shortly before midnight on the third night, he rode up to the blazing light of his goal. The unusual glare of atom lamps was another warning of emergency.