“What do you think is happening?”
Brad Quade hooked his thumbs in his wide rider’s belt and stared at the floor as if he had never seen such a pattern of river stones before. “I have no idea. This is ‘medicine’ right enough-but it’s unique at this time of the year. The Quades were First Ship people. I’ve found nothing in our family records like this-“
“Gorgol told me the peace poles were up for the wild tribes.”
His stepfather nodded. “I know; he told me, too. But just to sit and wait-“
Hosteen made one of his rare gestures of feeling toward this man he had once sworn to kill, resting a brown hand on the other’s wide shoulder.
“To wait is always the hardest. Tomorrow night I will go to Galwadi. Logan-he is Norbie under the skin, and he has drunk blood with the Zamle Shosonna. That is a sacred thing-big medicine-“
Brad Quade’s hand came up to cover Hosteen’s for a moment of shared warmth. “Big enough-we can hope that. Now, you look like a two-day marcher in the flats. Get to bed and rest!”
To wait-Hosteen felt the first pinch of his own private kind of waiting as he sat in the ‘copter boring through the night sky on the way to Galwadi Behind him he left everything that counted on Arzor-a soft-furred, keen-eyed cat with a coat of yellow and a brain that perhaps matched his own in intelligence, though that intelligence might be of a different order, a horse he had trained, Hing, the meercat, a small, tumbling clownish animal that had waddled four half-grown kits out for his inspection earlier that very evening, Baku, perched on the top corral bar, bidding him farewell with a falcon scream. And a man, a man whom he had once respected even while he hated him and whom he would now follow anywhere, anytime, and for any purpose. He left all those in what might be the heart of enemy territory if their forebodings crystallized into the worst of futures.
To all outward seeming, there was no tension in Galwadi. Hosteen, coming from the land registration office, eyed the traffic on the street speculatively. The hour was far from dusk, and the small city, which had been dead in the day’s heat, was alive now, the streets and shops busy. But whether he could hire any riders here was another question. To get new light-and-tie men at this season was a problem. There were several gather-ins in the lower town, and those would be a starting place for his quest. But first-dinner.
He chose a small, quiet eating place and was surprised at the wide array of dish dials he was offered. Food on the holdings was usually plentiful but plain, with little variety. The few off-world luxury items were carefully saved for holidays. But here he was fronted with a choice such as was more usual in a Port city catering to off-world visitors. Then he noted a Zacathan in the next booth and realized that a restaurant in the capital needs must satisfy the alien government representatives as well as the settlers.
Deciding to plunge, Hosteen dialed three dishes he had not tasted since his last service leave. He was sipping at a tube planted in a dalee bulb when someone paused by his table, and he glanced up to see Kelson, the Peace Officer of the Peak section.
“Heard you were looking for me, Storm.”
“Tried your office com,” Hosteen assented. He was a little at a loss as to how to word his question. Should he just bluntly ask what was up-if there was any news being withheld from the holdings? But Kelson continued.
“Coincidence. I was trying to reach you. Called the Peaks-Quade said you were here registering your squares. You’ve decided to settle in the Peak country then?”
“Yes-horse breeding with Put Larkin. He’s off-world now. Heard of a new crossbreed on Astra-Terran blood interbred with the local species of duicorn. Can stand up to desert heat there-or so the breeder claims!”
“So they might do for the Big Dry here, eh? It’s a thought. But your range isn’t open yet-“
What did that matter, Hosteen wondered. No one would start on holding work until the rains came. But Kelson was beckoning to someone across the room.
“There’s a problem-maybe you can help us,” the Peace Officer continued. “Mind if we join you? Time’s essential in this one-“
The man who came up was an off-worlder of a type usually not seen on a frontier world. His sleek form-fitting tunic, picked out with a silver-thread pattern, and the long hose-breeches of flat black were those of a business executive on one of the densely populated merchant worlds, and fashionable though they might have been on his home planet, they were as incongruous here as they were ill-becoming to his pudgy figure. Ridiculous as he might look in this Arzoran restaurant, one did not think him a figure of fun when one observed his craggy face, saw the square set of a determined and forceful chin and the bleak eyes that were those of a man used to giving orders. Hosteen recognized the breed and stiffened-it was one with which he had little sympathy.
“Gentle Homo Lass Widders, Beast Master Storm.” Kelson made the introductions, using the title of respect from the inner planets for the stranger, who seated himself without invitation across the table from Hosteen and proceeded to survey the Terran with an appraisal the other found insolent.
“I am not of the forces now.” Hosteen corrected Kelson perversely. “So it is not Beast Master-today I light and tie for Quade.”
“You’re a holding head rather since an hour ago, aren’t you? You’ve located your stakes. Have you set up a brand?” Kelson asked.
“Arrowhead S,” Storm replied absently. “And what do you wish of a mustered-out Beast Master, Gentle Homo?”
“About a month, maybe more, of your time and services,” Widders rapped out in the clicking Galactic basic of the business worlds. “I want to have you-and your team-guide me into the Blue section-“
Hosteen blinked and looked to Kelson for confirmation that he had really heard that idiotic statement. To his surprise, the expression on the Peace Officer’s face read that this stranger from one of the hothouse worlds meant exactly what he said.
“It is a matter of time, Beast Master. I understand we must get into that country within the next two weeks if we go at all before next season.”
Hosteen did not blink this time. He merely replied with the truth.
“Impossible.”
“Nothing,” returned Widders with his irritating confidence, “is impossible, given the right man and credits enough. Kelson believes you are the man, and I can provide the credits.”
There was no use giving this madman a blanket denial; he would not accept that. Listen to his story, get the reason behind this insane plan, then prove to him its utter folly-that was the only way to proceed.
“Why the Blue?” Hosteen asked as he spooned up some lorg sauce and spread it neatly over a horva fritter.
“Because my son’s there-“
Again Hosteen glanced at Kelson. The Blue was unknown. Those mountains, which were its western ramparts, were known, and appeared on the maps of the Peak country. But what lay behind that barrier existed only as a series of hazy aerial photos. The treacherous air currents of those heights had kept out ‘copter surveys, and the territory was the hunting ground of the feared wild Norbie cannibals, hated, shunned, and fought by their own kind for generations. No one-government man, settler, yoris hunter-had ever gone into the Blue and returned. It was posted off limits by government order. Yet here was Kelson listening to a proposal to invade the forbidden section as if Widders was doing no more than suggesting a stroll down a Galwadi street. Again Hosteen waited for enlightenment.
“You’re a veteran of Confed forces, Storm. Well, my son is, too. He served with a Breakaway Task Force-“
Hosteen was a little jarred. To find an inner planet man among the Breakaways-those tough, very tough, first-in fighters-was unusual.
“He was wounded, badly, just before the Xik collapse. Since then he has been on Allpeace-“
Allpeace, one of the rehabilitations worlds where men were rebuilt from human wreckage to live passably normal lives again. But if young Widders had been on Allpeace, how had he gotten into the Blue on Arzor?
“Eight months ago a transport left Allpeace with a hundred discharged veterans on board, Iton among them. On the fringe of this system, that ship hit a derelict hyper bomb.” Widders might have been discussing the weather if you did not watch his eyes and note that small twitch of lip he could not control.
“Just a month ago a lifeboat from that ship was discovered on Mayho, this planet’s sister world. There were two survivors. They reported that at least one more LB left the transport, and they cruised with her into this system. Their boat was damaged, and they had to set down on Mayho. Their companion headed on here to Arzor, promising to send back help-“