“Don’t worry. We’ll probably be outside again sooner than we bargain for. Let’s go down and agree to go hunting like good little rangers and then go—and never come back!”
Kartr looked up. He could understand that plea of Zinga’s, and part of him wanted to do just what the Zacathan suggested. And he could participate in Fylh’s feeling that this was a dead place returned to an unnatural life. But—there were women and children below in the city and there was a cold season approaching—unless Cummi had lied about that also. Maybe the intal planters, and some of the other passengers had hunted, but could their efforts supply all the needs of the community? And that woman today, she had appealed to Rolth, believed in their help just because they wore the Comets.
“It is like this,” the sergeant began slowly, trying to put all these tangled feelings into the right words, to spread out before the others both sides of the question. “Do we have any right to walk out when we may be needed? On the other hand, if Cummi’s anti-Bemmy talk puts you two in danger, you must go—”
“Why—?”
Zinga interrupted Fylh. “We don’t go yet. But I see your point. Only, let me warn you, Kartr, there are times when a man—or a Bemmy—has to harden his heart. We needn’t make any decisions tonight. A good rest—”
“Locked door or not, I’m suggesting a watch,” Fylh stated.
“They won’t try to reach us—that way.” Kartr shook his head.
“You mean—mind touch!” Rolth whistled. “Then Fylh and I won’t be much help.”
“True. So Zinga and I will divide the night.”
There followed uneasy hours. Three rolled in bedrolls, one on guard, slipping on unbooted feet from room to room, up and down, listening with both ears and mind. They did it in two-hour watches and Kartr had taken to his bed for the second time when Zinga hailed him with a low hiss. The sergeant pulled out with a sigh to join the Zacathan at an open window.
“Smitt is coming—across that other roof—”
The Zacathan was right; the mind pattern of the com-techneer identified him. And only a trained ranger could have sighted him. His dodging from shadow to shadow, his use of every bit of cover was Patrol work at its best.
“I’ll go down to meet him.” Before Zinga could protest Kartr was through the window and on that ladder of block design. Fortunately it was a cloudy night and he thought that unless someone were watching him through vision lenses he could not be seen, his uniform being almost the same shade as the stone.
As the sergeant came within a foot or two of the roof over which Smitt was advancing he gave a soft whistle of Patrol recognition. There was a moment of silence and then he was answered and the com-techneer came running to join him.
“Kartr here—”
“Thank the Spirit of Space! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!”
“What’s up?”
“The men—those against Cummi. They’ve taken our appearance here as a signal to fight him. The idiotic fools! He has a disruptor mounted in every main corridor, they can’t get anywhere near him. And that Can-hound has knocked out two of the leaders—put them to sleep the same way you did Snyn back in the ship. It’ll be nothing but raw murder if they try to storm Cummi’s quarters! He had Jaksan locked up with the medico—and the techneers are under guard. He’ll wipe out all opposition—”
“He’s planted a force bomb at the foot of your tower stairs. If you try to come down—finish! And he and the Can-hound are cooking up something special to smoke you out—”
Something special! If the Ageratan believed that he was only dealing with a sensitive of equal powers there were many things he could try. But against a six point six and Zinga such attacks might backfire.
“I’ve got to get back.” Smitt nursed his blaster in one hand. “I’ve got to keep those fools from attacking head on. Is there anything you can do?”
“I don’t know. But we’ll try. Hold off your men as long as you can. Maybe we can turn the tables—”
Smitt melted away into the night. If he kept his mental guard he was going to be a formidable addition to the rebel forces. Neither the Ageratan nor the Can-hound could get to him that way. Kartr climbed back up to the tower window to discover all the rangers waiting for him.
“That was Smitt.” As usual darkness had not confused Rolth. “What did he want?”
“There’s a rebellion against Cummi. The other side took our arrival for the signal to break loose.”
“And Cummi, of course, has not been slumbering peacefully meanwhile. What have his merry men prepared for us?”
“Yes”—Rolth added his question to Fylh’s—“what is ready and waiting for us?”
“Smitt said a force bomb at the foot of the stairs, ready to go off as we go down—”
“Play rough, don’t they? Do you know, I think that somebody should put the old healthy fear of the Patrol into these gentlemen—”
“Where’s Zinga?” Kartr interrupted the Faltharian.
“Gone below to do what he calls ‘listening.’ ” Fylh laid a torch on the floor, pulled the edge of his bedroll partially over it and by the shielded light began to count out the extra clips for their blasters. It did not, unfortunately, take him very long to finish the task.
“That all we have?” Kartr asked grimly.
“You have the charges now in your weapons and the extras in your belt loops—if you’ve followed regulations. These are the rest.”
“All right. It comes to three apiece and the one over for Rolth. If this is to be a night fight we might as well give the advantage to the one who can make the best us of it.”
The Faltharian was busy at a task of his own, securing their packs. If they did not have to make a run for it, they might be able to bring off their equipment too.
“They’ve moved our sled into the hallway down there and it is probably under guard now. If we win through—”
“If we win,” Fylh broke in, “we can march right in and take it. We might just do that anyway. What’s keeping the old lizard?”
Kartr had wondered about that, too, enough to send a questing thought which was answered instantly with a strong impression of danger. The sergeant scooped up his share of the blaster clips and tucked them into his belt before he crossed the room and went down to the green fish chamber. Zinga stood pressed against the door as if he wished to melt into its surface. Kartr joined him to “listen.”
There were movements—not too far away—maybe just beyond the foot of the staircase. Two living things withdrew, a third remained—that was the Can-hound. But why did they leave that one on guard unless—
Unless, Zinga’s thought answered him in a second’s flash, they suspect that you—or I—are not what we seem. But they cannot know the full truth or they would not leave the Can-hound. Not after the way you handled him before. They must have discovered that—
Or is he—bait? Kartr thought back to Zinga, reveling in the freedom of this exchange which he had always longed to experience but had never found before.
That we shall see. This time the task is mine—brother!
Kartr withdrew mind touch and concentrated only on trying to sense the approach of any other who might break Zinga’s control. He felt the Zacathan’s body grow tense and guessed the agony Zinga was feeling.
It was as if they had stepped out of time—planet time. Kartr never knew how long they fought their soundless battle before he had to give a warning.
“One comes.” He said that aloud, not daring to break in by thought.
Zinga hissed a long sigh. “He was bait of a sort,” he answered in words, as if his thought power was almost exhausted. “But not as we had feared. He has been under observation all the time—if he withdrew against orders then they could assume that we were powerful enough to control him. So they suspect—but they do not know.”
“You say—they—we face more than Cummi and the Can-hound?”
“Cummi has learned to tap the mind energy of some others—how many I do not know. If a five point nine can do that—”
“What will he be able to raise himself to?” A great deal of Kartr’s confidence was wiped out by the thought of that. Even with Zinga could he face down a Cummi so reinforced?
“I suggest,” Zinga said a little dryly as if he were shaken also, “that we continue to stick to blasters as offensive weapons for a while. That way the odds are easier to assess.”
“And we’ll have to get out of here to be able to use those. If we leave, that thing below will know it at once.”