“You didn’t think of trying to contact Dean again?”
Najar’s gaze dropped to his hands. “No-I didn’t. You may think that’s queer, Storm. But Dean, he’d been changing all the time since we landed here. And when I saw him so wild in that hall-well, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him again. He was raving about being picked to rule a world-it was enough to make you think you were crazy, too. I didn’t want any part of him.”
Hosteen agreed. The man he had fronted at the tunnel mouth had been removed from human kind, unreachable unless a trained psycho-tech could find a channel to connect Dean again with the world.
“I’m pretty good at trailing”-Najar’s ordinary flat tone now held a spark of pride-“being a Recon scout, and I got around so that the natives didn’t suspect me. Of course, not many of them ever came far up the mountain, and when they did, they kept to paths. Then I saw a ‘copter come over, and it was one of ours! That made Dean’s story about an Xik world nonsense, and I thought maybe our boys had moved in and cleaned up.
“So I went down to signal it. There was a flash just after the ‘copter set down, and that fire cut around the whole landing area. I couldn’t get to it until afterwards-there was a dead man there, and all the rest burned up. And I’d been counting a lot on getting out-“ Again he stared at his hands. “I was sick, straight through to my insides, sick enough to get at Dean. So I took to the mountain passages, hoping to meet him. Got to the machine hall twice, only he was never there. You don’t have any idea, Storm, about how big this digging really is-passages running through the mountains and under them, all sorts of caverns and rooms. I’ve seen things-strictly unhealthy.” Again shudders ran through him. “Sometimes I wondered if I weren’t as crazy as Dean-else I wouldn’t be seeing some of those things.
“But I never caught up with Dean-not until the night there was another fire along the mountain. And I saw this native here beating it ahead of the fire with a big cat and bird swooping along over them. Dean was watching them come upslope, and he was aiming a tube at them. I cut in and signaled the native into a gap, and the cat and bird came along. The gap led in here, then-“
“Then?” Hosteen asked.
“Then,” Najar reiterated grimly, his features set, “one of those tame lightning bolts smashed down just as we were almost through it-sealed us in with a landslide and knocked us around some so we weren’t much use for days afterwards. Lucky there’s water in here and some fruit- The bird tried to get out, but the way it acted made you think there was some kind of lid up there over this whole place. Then one day the cat was gone, and we guessed she’d found a way out. We’ve been hunting for that ever since. Now you know it all-“
“Yes,” Hosteen replied somewhat absently. One piece of Najar’s story was enlightening-all of the survivors’ party had left the spiral path in the valley at the same time, but apparently not all had landed at the same terminal in the big hall when that beyond-time-and-space journey was completed. Logan-had Logan come out at some other point in the mountain maze? Hosteen turned upon Najar now with a sharpness born of renewed hope.
“There’s a way out-do you think you could find your way back to the hall once you were in the tunnels again?”
“I don’t know-I honestly don’t know.”
Hosteen signed to Gorgol across the castaway’s hunched shoulders.
“There is no way across the heights?”
“We can look but we cannot go. Come and see for yourself,” the Norbie responded.
They went on a rough scramble up the slope in which was the rock crevice of Surra’s door. Then they walked a ledge, which ended in a vast pile of debris.
“The mountain fell-“ Gorgol indicated the slip. “And from here one can look-“
Another tricky bit of climbing and they could indeed look-a prospect that was enough to leave one giddy. Down-down-a drop no length of rope on Arzor, Hosteen thought, could dangle to touch bottom. And beyond that crack in the earth, well within sight but as far removed from them as if it existed on another world, uplands sere and baked under that sun, which on their side was so abnormally gentle. A window on the outer world but no door.
Swiftly Hosteen signed the facts he had learned in his explorations and what Najar had told him. Gorgol watched the Terran’s fingers with a growing expression of resolution.
“If Ukurti says that this is an ill thing,” Gorgol’s own hands replied, “then will Krotag and those who ride with Krotag listen, for Ukurti is one having wisdom, and always we have hearkened to bis drum. To say that one with a twisted mind is using things left by Those-who-have-Gone to make him great-that, too, one can believe. And this is true-if he is known to be one who steals from the past to give himself power, then will the tribes turn from him and listen no more to his drumming.”
“But how may it be proved that he is such a one? And do we have the time?” Hosteen countered. “Already he drums raids for the plains. And once there is even one such foray, there will be war-war without truce between your people and mine. Always there have been those among my kind who have mistrusted yours.”
“That is true.” Gorgol’s fingers made an emphatic sign of agreement. “And once the war arrow is sped, who can recall it to the quiver? But there is also this-outside this place lies the hand of the Dry. Water secrets we have, but not enough to sustain any large parties through the Peaks. And those who so venture cannot so do in straight lines but must go from one bidden spring to another, using much time. Were men to march today, it would be”-he spread out bis fingers, curled them back into bis palms, and opened them out again three times-“these many suns before they would reach the plains.”
“Would Krotag listen to you?” Hosteen demanded.
“I am a warrior with scars. In the voice of the clan, I have my speech right. He would listen.”
“Then if we can get out of here, get on the other side of the mountain where you can meet with Krotag and Ukurti-?”
Gorgol stared past Hosteen into the brilliance of the parched land beyond. “Krotag would listen-and beyond Krotag stands Kustig of the Yoris totem, and beyond Kustig, Dankgu of the Xoto standard.”
“And if all those listened, the Shosonna would break their peace poles and have no part of this?”
“It might be so. And if the Shosonna marched, then would follow the Warpt of the north and perhaps the Gousakla of the coasts-“
“Splitting Dean’s army right down the middle!” Hosteen took fire, but Gorgol’s expression was still a sober frown.
“With truce poles broken, there might be another kind of war, for these wild men of the Blue are tied to the medicine here and will fight to uphold it.”
“Unless Dean can be proved a false Drummer-“
“Yes. And here are two trails.” Gorgol turned away from the “window.” “I must find the place of the Zamle totem and you this one who is of your people but a doer of evil.”
“And to do those things, we must have a way back through the mountain,” Hosteen added.
They held a council of war in the green heart of the valley, Najar, Hosteen and Gorgol sitting together, Baku and Surra nearby. Storm translated between Gorgol and the off-world veteran as they pooled what knowledge they had of the inner ways. And Najar thought he might be able to guide them to the village side of the heights if he could reach a mid-point within that he had located during his own wanderings. They ate of the fruit from bush and tree, and Hosteen slept, his head pillowed against Surra’s furry side, the soft purring of the cat lulling him into a deeper and more restful slumber than any he had known since he left the plains to begin this wild adventure.
It was dark when Gorgol awakened him, and they went to the hole beneath the rock, which was Surra’s private exit from the valley. Baku objected with a scream of anger when Hosteen called her to push through with them, and he had to wheedle her into furling wings and taking a footway. Only his firm statement that he and Surra were leaving not to return and that she would remain alone finally brought the eagle to obey, though fierce clicks of her beak made very plain her opinion of the whole maneuver as they crept back through the crack.