“Who’s there?” The suspicion-sharp hail out of the gate shadows made the Terran draw rein. Then from his right a furry body materialized beside the snorting stallion, reared on its haunches, and drew a paw with sheathed claws along Hosteen’s boot.
“Storm,” he answered the challenger and dismounted to caress Surra. The rasp of the dune cat’s tongue on his hand was an unusually fervid greeting, which awoke answering warmth within him.
“I’ll take your horse.” The man who came from the gate carried an unholstered stunner. “Quade’s been waiting’, hopin’ you’d make it soon-“
Hosteen muttered a brief thanks, more intersted in the fact that there were other men in the courtyard. But there were no Norbies, not a single one of the native riders he was used to seeing there. Gorgol had been right; the Norbies had all pulled out.
With Surra rubbing against his thigh, now and then butting him playfully with her head, he went to the door of the big house. Tension was alive in the cat, too. She had sometimes been like this on the eve of one of their wartime forays. Trouble excited but did not worry Surra.
“-continent-wide as far as reports have come in-“
Maybe Surra was exhilarated by the present happenings, but the tone of that voice told Hosteen that Brad Quade was frankly worried.
CHAPTER TWO
Within the house, Hosteen found himself fronting a distinguished gathering that included most of the settlers in the Peak country-even Rig Dumaroy, whose usual association with Brad Quade was one of uneasy neutrality. But, of course, in any Norbie trouble Dumaroy would be present. He was the one large holder in the frontier country who was prejudiced against the Arzoran natives and refused to hire any of them.
“It’s Storm-“ Dort Lancin, who had ridden in with the Terran on the military transport almost a year ago, waved two fingers in greeting, a sign that was also a hunter signal for watchfulness.
The tall man standing by the com board glanced over his shoulder, and Hosteen read a shadow of relief on his stepfather’s face.
Dort Lancin, his older and more taciturn brother Artur, Dumaroy, Jotter Hyke, Val Palasco, Connar Jaffe, Sim Starle-but no Logan Quade. Hosteen stood inside the doorway, his hand resting on Surra’s head as the big cat nuzzled against bis legs.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Dumaroy, a wide and rather vindictive grin on his face, answered first.
“All your pet goats have lit out for the hills. Always said they’d cross you up, always said it-now you see. And I say”-his grin faded, and he brought his big hand down on his knee in a resounding slap-“there’s trouble brewing up there. The sooner we fort up and send for the Patrol to come in and settle this once and for all-“
Artur Lancin’s level voice, threaded with weariness, cut across the other’s bellow with the neatness of a belt knife slicing through frawn fat. “Yes, you’ve been broadcastin’ on that beam all night, Dumaroy. We received you loud and clear the first time. Storm,” he addressed the younger man, “you see anything different out in the hills?”
Storm flipped his hat up on the daryork horn rack and unfastened the belt that supported his stunner and bush knife as he replied.
“I think now what I did not see is important.”
“That being?” Brad Quade was pulling a fresh swankee container from the unit. He brought it over and then, with a fingertip touch on Hosteen’s shoulder, guided him to. a foam chair.
“No hunters-no trails-nothing.” Hosteen sipped the restoring liquid between words. He had not realized how bone-aching tired he was until he sat down. “I might have been riding in an empty world-“
The two Lancins watched him narrowly, and Dort nodded. He had hunted with the Norbies, was welcome in their villages, and well understood the strangeness of an empty country.
“How far did you go?” Quade asked.
“I made the rounds to set up markers,” Hosteen brought his claim map from the inner pocket of his shirt. Quade took the sheet from him and compared its lines with the country survey chart that was a mural for one wall of the room.
“Clean up to the gorge, eh?” Jaffe commented. “And no hunter sign?”
“No. I thought it was because of the Big Dry retreat-“
“That wouldn’t come quite this early,” Quade replied. “Gorgol brought in your cavvy of mounts four days ago, took his bag, and rode off.”
“I met him at the line camp.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That there was a clan summons out-some sort of inter-tribal gathering-“
“Durin’ the Big Dry?” demanded Hyke incredulously.
“I told you!” Dumaroy pounded with his fist this time, and Hosteen heard a snarling rumble from Surra. He sent a mental command to silence the cat. “I told you! We’re sittin’ right here on the only free runnin’ water that keeps on runnin’ through the worst of the Dry. And those goats are gonna come down and try to butt us out of it! If we’ve the sense of water rats, we’ll go up and clean ‘em out before they can get organized-“
“Once before you moved up to clean out Norbies,” Quade said coldly. “And what did we find out-that the Norbies weren’t responsible for anything that had happened-that there was an Xik holdout group behind all our stock losses!”
“Yeah-and is this another Xik trick? Callin’ in all the tribes now?” Dumaroy’s hostility was like a fog spreading from him toward the other man.
“Maybe not Xik this time,” Quade conceded. “But I refuse to make any move until I know more about the situation. All we are sure of at present is that our Norbie riders have quit and are heading for the mountains at a time when they are usually eager to work, and that this has not happened before.”
Artur Lancin stood up. “That’s sense, Dumaroy. We aren’t goin’ to stick our heads into some yoris’ mouth just on your say-so. I say we do a little scoutin’. Meanwhile, we rustle up riders from the Basin or even pick up some drifters from the Port to tide us over. With the Dry on, the herds aren’t goin’ to move too far from the river, and we’ll need only a yoris patrol and some count work. My granddad got through, ridin’ on his own, with just his two boys to back him in the First Ship days. None of you here look too soft for the saddle now.”
“That’s right,” Sim Starle agreed. “We’ll keep our coms on a circle hookup and with the alert on. Anybody learns anything, he sends the word out on the beam. I’m for sittin’ quiet until we’re sure about what’s happenin’ and why. Maybe these Norbies are havin’ them a medicine powwow-and that’s none of our danged business!”
Hosteen, sinking deeper into his fog of weariness, watched the settlers leave for their ‘copters, to fly back to the scattered holdings of the Peak country. He was still too torpid to move when Brad Quade re-entered, having seen off the company. But he roused himself to ask the one question bothering him most.
“Where’s Logan?”
“Gone-“
The tone of the other’s voice pulled Hosteen out of his lethargy of fatigue. “Gone! Where?”
“To Krotag’s camp-at least that’s what I think-“
Hosteen was on his feet now. “The young fool! This is medicine business, Gorgol said so-“
Brad Quale turned. His face might seem impassive to an outsider, but it did not hide his feelings from Hosteen. “I know. But he has drunk blood with Kavok, Krotag’s first son. That makes him a clansman-“
Hosteen bit back his protest. “Medicine” was tricky. A man could be an adopted clansman, living in blood brotherhood with a Norbie, but that might not cover prying into the inner beliefs of the natives. There was no use putting his thoughts and fears into words. Brad Quade knew all that and more.
“I can make it back up to the washes. How much of a start has he?”
“No. This was his choice; he took it with his eyes open. You won’t ride after him. Tomorrow, if you will, I want you on the way to Galwadi in the ‘copter.”
“Galwadi!”
Brad Quade picked up the claim map. “You have this to record, remember? Then-have a talk with Kelson. He knows Logan.” Quade ran one hand through his thick black cap of wiry hair. “I wish Kelson had got that bill through the Council—Logan was so keen on that Ranger business they talked about. If that had gone through, maybe he’d have had a job he’d really settle down to. But you can’t make the Council hump just the way you want them to-even when you prod. Anyway-you see Kelson and try to get a line on what’s happening. There may have been an official clamp on Norbie news-I suspect that. And I’d better stay here for now. Dumaroy’s just hotheaded enough to try one of those dangerous schemes of his if there’s no one to talk him down-and just one incident might set off big trouble.”