“Where are you going?”
“Settling in ranger quarters,” the sergeant returned briefly.
“That one is still watching us,” Zinga whispered as they mounted. “He is none too stout of heart. A good loud shout of wrath aimed at him would sent him scuttling—”
“But don’t try it,” Kartr returned. “There is enough trouble before us now without stirring up any more.”
“Ho! So you learned that, did you? Well, a short life and a merry one, as my egg brother often said while we were still shipmates. I wonder where Ziff is now—rolling in silk and eating brofids three times a day if I know that black-hearted despoiler! Not that it wouldn’t be good to see his ugly face awaiting us above when we have finished this climb. His infighting is excellent, a very handy man with a force blade. Zippp—and there’s an enemy down with half his insides gone—”
They could do, thought Kartr bitterly, with about fifty good infighters right now—or even with only ten.
“Welcome home, travelers!” That was Rolth, his goggled eyes lending his face an insect-like outline as he looked down at them. “For once the old pepper bird has found us a real perch. Come in and relax, my brave boys!”
“Flame bats and octopods!” Even Zinga seemed truly amazed as he stared about the room they entered.
The walls were a murky translucent green. And behind them came and went shapes of vivid color, water creatures swimming! Then Kartr saw that it was an illusion born of light and some sort of automatic picture projection. Zinga sat down on the packs, bearing them under his weight to the floor.
“Luscious! Luscious! Enough to tempt the most fastidious palate. The being who planned this room was a gourmand. I would be proud to shake his hand, fin or tentacle. Magnificent! That red one—does it not resemble almost to the last scale the succulent brofid? What a wonderful, wonderful room!”
“What about rations?” Kartr inquired of Rolth over Zinga’s head.
The Faltharian’s eyebrows raised until they could be seen over the rim of his goggles. “Are you contemplating our sitting out a siege? We have a few basic supply tins still unopened—about five days of full meals—twice that if we have to draw in our belts.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” Zinga broke out, “that you have brought me into this place of culinary promise and now propose to feed me extract of nourishing—bah—what a word, nourishing! As if nourishment and food are ever the same—to feed me extract of fungus and the rest of that unexciting goo we have to absorb when we are climbing over bare rock with no chance of hunting! This is a torture which cannot be refined upon. I insist upon my rights as a freeborn citizen—”
“A freeborn citizen?” queried Fylh. “Second class—third class twice removed, would be much more apt. And you have no rights at all—”
But Rolth had been watching Kartr’s expression and now he broke in.
“Is that the way of it—honestly?”
“Just about, I’m afraid.” Kartr sat down on the room’s single piece of furniture—an opaline bench. “I went to Jaksan. He said Cummi had orders for me—”
“Orders?” Again the Faltharian’s eyebrows betrayed his surprise. “A civilian giving orders to the Patrol? We may be rangers, but we are also still Patrol!”
“Are we?” Fylh wondered. “A Patrolman has ships, force to back him up. We’re just survivors now, and we can’t ring in the fleet if we get in a tight place—”
“Jaksan agrees with that. I gathered that he has more or less abdicated in Cummi’s favor. The idea is that the Vice-Sector Lord has a running concern here—”
“And that we are more or less lucky to be included in?” demanded Rolth. “Yes, I can see that argument being advanced. But Jaksan—he’s veteran Patrol to the core. Somehow his standing aside this way—it doesn’t fit!”
Fylh made a gesture of brushing aside nonessentials. “Jaksan’s psychological response need not concern us as much as something else. Do I gather that here Bemmys are second class citizens?”
“Yes.” That answer was bald but Kartr saw no need to temper it.
“I take it that you were urged to—er—withdraw from contagion,” Zinga drawled, leaning back and hooking his taloned fingers over his knees.
“That was part of it.”
“How stupid can they get?” Rolth wanted to know. “If they want us to do their hunting, they must need food. And a bunch of these soft inner system men are not going to get much game by running out and beating the bushes. Instead of antagonizing us they ought to be making concessions.”
“When did you ever know prejudice to act logically? And Jaksan seems to have agreed to this down-with-the-Bemmys plan, hasn’t he?” Fylh’s red eyes had gleams in them not very pleasant to see.
“I don’t know what’s happened to Jaksan,” Kartr exploded. “And I don’t care! It’s what is going to happen to us which is more important right now—”
“You and Rolth,” Fylh pointed out, “need not worry—”
Kartr jumped to his feet and took two strides across the room so that his green eyes were on a level and boring into those round red ones.
“That is the last time I ever want to hear anything like that! I told Jaksan and I shall tell Cummi—if it becomes necessary—that the rangers stand together.”
Fylh’s thin lips shut. Then the hard points of fire in his eyes softened. He made a small soothing gesture with his claws and when he spoke his voice was even again.
“What was Jaksan’s reaction to your speech?”
“Just a lot of words. But it gave me an excellent chance of putting through our coming here together.”
Zinga had arisen and was prowling around the room. “Done any more exploring, you two?” he asked Rolth. “What’s the layout?”
“One more room beyond that archway on this floor. It has two windows both of which overhang Fylh’s outside stairway. There is one large room immediately above this one and a third over that with a bathroom off. Believe it or not—the water is running in that!”
Kartr disregarded Zinga’s exclamation of approval. “Only the one way in—unless someone climbs up the wall? Sure of that?”
“Yes. Of course they might descend upon us from the sky. But I hardly think we need fear that. And this door can be locked—watch—”
Rolth trod on a dull red block set in the floor. A door moved silently out of the right wall and sealed the entrance. On it was a metal plate and the Faltharian set his hand on it for an instant.
“Now try to get that open,” he urged the sergeant.
But, even when Zinga and Fylh added their strength to his, Kartr was unable to force the door. Then Rolth stepped again on the stone and it opened easily.
“Fylh locked me out when we were exploring and we had a time finding out how to open it again. Tricky, the fellows who built that. It would take a full size disruptor to breach that.”
“Which leads me to wonder if they do have one of those.” Zinga put Kartr’s thought into words.
But then that worry was blocked out for he sensed someone coming up the stairs. At the sergeant’s signal the rangers melted away. Zinga was now flat against the wall beside the door where he could be at the back of anyone who entered before the stranger would know of his presence. Fylh lay belly down behind the pile of packs, and Rolth had drawn his blaster, standing a little behind the sergeant who waited, his good hand empty.
“Kartr!”
They knew the voice but they did not relax.
“Come in.”
Smitt obeyed. He gave a start as Zinga materialized behind him. But there was a worried frown on his face and Kartr knew that he was no danger to them. For the second time the com-techneer had come to them because he was in trouble and not because he was an enemy.
“What is it?” asked the sergeant with very little welcome. After all Smitt was to be normally reckoned with Jaksan’s forces.
“They’re talking—a lot. They’ve said you rangers are too alien to be trusted.”
“Well”—Kartr’s lips curled back in what was not even a shadow of a smile—“I’ve heard that a good many times before and I can’t see that we’re any the worse for it.”
“Maybe you weren’t—before. But this Ageratan—he’s—the man must be mad!” Smitt exploded. “I tell you”—his voice slid up the scale a little—“he must be raving mad!”
“Suppose,” hissed Zinga, “you just sit down—over there where we can keep an eye on you—and tell us all about it.”
8 — PALACE REVOLUTION
“That’s it— I’ve practically nothing concrete to tell. It’s just a kind of feeling—the way he persists in keeping us away from all but his own men. He has a guard—that Can-hound, a couple of jetmen from the X451, one of the officers, two intal planters, and three professional mercenaries. They’re all armed—Control issue blasters and force blades. But I haven’t heard of or seen any of the other officers from the X451. And Cummi’s taken over—gives commands to us! Dalgre and Snyn were sent to join his techneers and help run the city. Ordered to do so, mind you—and they Patrolmen! And Jaksan didn’t make any objection.”