Nik supported the boy with one arm and held the canteen to his lips while Vandy drank in gulps. Then he pushed the container away.
“I hurt,” he said, “right here.” His hand moved across his mid-section. “Guess I was pretty sick.”
“Yes,” Nik agreed. “You try to get some sleep now, Vandy.”
But the boy had struggled up a little. “There’s someone else here.” His head swung around toward Leeds, and his eyes were wide and staring. “There is, isn’t there!” That was more demand than question.
“Yes,” Nik told him. “Captain Leeds’ flitter crashed out there. He just got here.”
“Captain Leeds,” Vandy repeated. “He’s one of them, one of the men back in that tunnel place.”
“Not one of those who were there, Vandy. He’s the one we’ve been waiting for.”
Vandy pawed at Nik’s arm and strove to raise himself higher.
“He’s one of them!” That was accusation rather than recognition.
“No.” Nik thought fast. If Vandy looked upon the captain as his enemy, he would not be willing to remain here while Nik backtracked in the morning. “No.” He repeated that denial with all the firmness he could summon. “Captain Leeds was trying to find us, to get us out of here. He is a friend, Vandy.”
“But he’s one of them back there.”
“He only pretended to be, Vandy.” Nik sought wildly for a plausible explanation. “He was coming here to help us; that’s why we were hiding out here. Remember? We were waiting for Captain Leeds. And he was driven out by them, too. He’s been hurt and can’t walk far.”
“Hacon.” Vandy turned in Nik’s hold, his eyes now striving to the other’s face above him. “You swear that – by the Three Words?”
All that past Vandy had created for his chosen companion tightened around Nik. Vandy’s faith was not that of Nik Kolherne nor of the Dipple, but it was a firm bastion for him, and he had made it a part of the world he had imagined for Hacon. Now Nik found his indoctrination in that fantasy had brought a measure of belief to him. He dared not hesitate, but as he answered, he knew the bitterness of his lie.
“I swear it – by the Three Words!” His left hand at his face pressed tight enough against the rebuilt flesh to bring pain. Hacon’s face – and to Vandy he was Hacon.
“Believe him now, Vandy?” Leeds asked, his voice holding the same light, cheerful note that Nik had heard in it at their earlier meetings. “It’s true. I came here to help the two of you. But I ran into more trouble than I expected, so now I’m tied to this perch of yours for a while. We’ll have to hold this garrison together for Hacon.”
“Hacon!” Vandy’s fingers were a tight grasp on him. “Where are you going?”
“As soon as day comes, I’m scouting.” Nik had no idea whether or not Vandy was aware of his conditioning. At least, the boy had not mentioned it when Nik had urged the fish on him. And if he did not know, there was no good reason to frighten him when off-world supplies were still out of reach.
“But why?” Vandy was protesting, his tight clutch on Nik continuing.
“Because Captain Leeds may have been trailed. We need to know just how much trouble to expect.” That was thin but the best Nik could concoct at that moment.
“Yes, just to scout and to pick up some supplies I cached when my leg gave out,” Leeds added with his usual facility for invention.
“Oh.” A little of that desperate grip lessened, and Vandy’s head fell back on Nik’s arm. “In the morning – not now?”
“In the morning,” Nik agreed, “not now.”
Chapter XI
NIK FOUGHT a desire to turn and look back at the island hillock. The humid air was thick about him, though the storm streams had drained away, leaving only the cuts of their passage in the old sea bed. There was no sunrise visible on this cloud-shrouded planet, but the steam mists of the day before were not so thick, most of them confined to the yet lower level where the rain lake lay. He could see ahead and around enough to mark any lizard such as Leeds had fled from or the furred things out of the ruins.
As he went, Nik tried to imagine what Dis had been like before the sun flare had steamed up the seas and rivers and wracked the very bones of the planet with quakes and eruptions. It had always, of course, been a dim world by the standards of his own species. But to its natives, the infrared sun must have been as clear as the yellow-white stars were normal to Nik’s kind. And it had been a civilized world, judging by the ruins. The high quality of art shown in the statues of the watchers and their humanoid companion testified to the height of that civilization.
Disians had tried to escape the wrath of their heavens by retreat to the refuge. Had any survivors lingered on in those prepared depths to waver forth again into a ruined outer world? Did any still exist anywhere on Dis? Nik had tried to pry out of Leeds during the early hours of the night some information concerning this planet, knowing that any scrap might mean, by force of circumstances, life or death for him. But the captain had said, “I don’t know,” to most of his questions.
Dis’s first discovery had one of those by-chance things. A Free Trader before the war, threatened by a power leakage, had streaked for the nearest planet recorded on their instruments and set down here. And because it was a Free Trader and not a Survey ship that had made the discovery, there had been no official report, the Traders seeing a profit in their knowledge. Traders formerly dealt with the Guild on occasion when that organization had a quasi-legal standing or when there was no chance of being drawn into trouble by such contact. Thus Dis had become an article of trade.
Leeds’ own exploration had brought him knowledge of the refuge and had given the Guild an excellent base hideout – a hideout, Nik gathered, although Leeds was evasive on that point, within cruising distance of several systems in which the Guild had extensive dealings. But once the refuge had been stocked and was in use, the rest of Dis’s outer shell was of little or no interest to the outlaws. In fact, they had a kind of horror of it built up by several accidents and encounters with its native fauna, which led them to use it to discipline any rebels. Being set loose on the surface without cin-goggles or weapons was an ultimate punishment.
So – only a small portion of Dis was known to those who used it. Were it not “that Vandy was conditioned, they could have taken to the outlands and been safe. Safe from whom, another part of Nik questioned. The Patrol was here to get Vandy, to return him to his people. No, Vandy did not need to hide out in the wilds. That was Nik’s portion and Leeds’. Yet the captain was so sure they could strike a bargain for their own benefit.
Nik had been seeing it for several moments before he realized that a bush to his left and ahead was not quite right. Right? Why did he think that? He paused and surveyed the growth closely for a moment or two until he understood what made the difference. It was the color! All the fungoid vegetation he had seen was, to some degree, phosphorescent, with a wan gleam of green or red. This bush had a warmer, yellow tinge.
And –
The color moved!
The yellow had been close to the ground on the left side at first, but it was now halfway up and in the middle, while the first portion had faded to wan glow. Now, the yellow was on the right!
It was not a question of a change in color – Nik was certain of that. But something behind the bush or within its fleshy branches had moved from one position of concealment to another, always keeping well under cover.
Nik tried an experiment. He circled back a little to the left, heading in a direction to take him to the back of the bush. Would the lurker move to face him? Yes! The glow turned with him almost at ground level, keeping pace with him.
Why the presence of that color should be so disturbing, Nik could not have explained. Was it because the source never came into view? Was that thing in ambush aware Nik was able to see it? Perhaps it did now guess because of his own movements.
He looked from the bush in question to others of its kind ahead and saw what he feared and expected. Three of those growths had the betraying glow. To avoid them, he would have to advance to the very edge of the drop to the next level. He could not bring himself to approach any closer to what might be a trap.