“That’s ten—maybe fifteen miles north—”
The sergeant started to hear the words come from Zinga’s thin lips—picked out of his own thoughts.
“And—Kartr—you do not go alone, not on that trail!”
He stiffened. But Zinga must know his protest without his putting it into words.
“That job is mine,” the sergeant returned, his teeth set hard.
“Granted. But still I say you do not take such a trail alone. We have the lifeboat—it will cover ground with time-saving speed. And with it we can better prospect for any traces of Cummi’s passing.”
That was good common sense, but it was no sweeter to swallow because it was logical. Kartr would rather have left camp alone and on his two feet. It burned inside him that Cummi was his alone, and that he would not feel whole and well again until he had fronted the Ageratan and won.
“Take one more day of rest,” Zinga advised, “and then, I promise, we shall go. This matter of Cummi—it is one of importance.”
“Others might not think so. He is alone in a wilderness he can know very little about. The wilds may already have done our job for us.”
“But he is Cummi, and so will continue to linger as a threat until we are sure of him. Did Zicti tell you that he believes him a mutant? Remember Pertavar and what that one was able to do. And Cummi is not going to win next time you face him!”
Kartr smiled at the Zacathan, a smile which was hardly more than ten percent humor. “D’you know, my friend, there I think you are right! And this time I do not believe that I am being too confident—the mistake I made before. He has no Can-hound—and surely no other brains to tap!”
“Very well.” Zinga arose. “Now let me go and pick Dalgre’s store of mechanical knowledge. It might be wise to know just how much ranging power the lifeboat unit has left.”
They took off the next morning and no one asked questions although Kartr was sure they all knew his mission. The lifeboat did not have the springy lift of the sled and its pace was slower. Zinga, at the controls, held it steady over the winding reaches of the river until they found the stream which had served to guide Kartr’s wanderings.
From time to time the Zacathan glanced anxiously at the heavy clouds bulging over the horizon. Storm was indicated and they had best take shelter when the wind which was driving those clouds struck. To be tossed about the sky in a light-weight lifeboat was no experience to be desired.
“Anything below look familiar?
“Yes. I’m sure I crossed this open field. I remember pushing through the tall grass. And those trees ahead are promising. Think we’d better land in their shelter?”
Zinga measured the cloud spread again. “I’d like more to reach that ledge where you came to. Flame bats! It’s getting dark. Wish I had Rolth’s night eyes.”
It was darkening fast and the rising wind swept under the boat so that it lurched as it might on pounding sea waves. Kartr clung to the edge of his seat, his nails biting into its cover.
“Wait!” He got the word out at the risk of a bitten tongue as the lifeboat bucked. Through the dusk he had caught a glimpse of a recent rock slide down the side of a hill beside the stream. “This looks like where I fell!”
They were already past the point but Zinga circled back, as Kartr squinted through the storm dusk and tried to imagine how that same section would look to a man lying flat on the ledge near the top of the rise.
The aircraft snapped out of the circle and veered suddenly to the right, across the crest of the hill. Kartr’s protest was forgotten as he sighted what had drawn Zinga’s attention. The top of a tree had been shorn off, the newly splintered wood of the trunk gleaming whitely. With the pressure of expert fingers on the controls the Zacathan set the lifeboat down on the slope of the rise, a piece of maneuvering which might have at another time brought honest praise from the sergeant. But now Kartr was too intent upon what might lie just beyond the broken tree.
He found a mass of crushed branches and the remains of the sled. No one, not even a master mech-techneer, could ever reassemble what lay there now. The wreckage was jammed almost bow down in tight wrappings of withered leaves and broken wood and it was empty.
Zinga sniffed deeply as his torch revealed the bareness of that crumpled seat.
“No blood even. The question is—were either or both of you aboard when she hit?”
Kartr shook his head, a little awed by the completeness of the crack-up.
“I don’t think either of us could have been. Maybe he threw me out and—”
“Yes—and if you fought back that could have made him lose control so this would happen. But then where is Cummi—or his remains. No mess at all—something would remain if he had been collected by a wandering meat eater—”
“He could have jumped just before she hit,” suggested the sergeant. “If he had an anti-grav on his belt he could have made it on such a short fall without smashing himself.”
“So we look for a few tracks now?” Zinga’s long jaw jutted out as he glanced up at the sky. “Rain is going to spoil that—”
For the clouds were emptying their weight of water at last. Together the rangers stumbled through a beating downpour to the lee of a rock outcrop which gave a faint hint of shelter. The trees might have kept off more of that smothering blast but, Kartr decided as he saw branches whiplash under the wind, that might be more dangerous an asylum than the corner where they huddled gasping, the rain stinging their skin and finding its way through every crevice of their tunics and breeches.
“It can’t keep on like this forever—there isn’t that much water,” Kartr said and then realized that the drum of rain drowned out any but a parade ground pitch of voice.
He sneezed and shivered and thought bitterly that Zinga was going to be proved right. This deluge would mask any trail Cummi might have left hereabouts.
Then, in an instant, he snapped erect and felt Zinga’s answering jerk. The Zacathan was as startled as he had been.
They had caught a faint, very faint plea for help. From Cummi? Somehow he believed not. But it had come from a human—or rather from an intelligent mind. Someone or something which was alive, and reasoning, was in trouble. The sergeant turned slowly, trying to center the source. The pain and terror in that plea must be answered!
13 — CUMMI’S KINGDOM
“Due north—” Zinga’s gutturals reached him, and the Zacathan’s keener perception was right.
“Can the lifeboat ride this?” Kartr’s own experience with small air craft had been limited to those of the Patrol and the stability of their exploring sleds was proved—they had been designed for rough going under strange weather conditions. But the machine they had to use now did not arouse any confidence in him.
Zinga shrugged. “Well, it isn’t the sled. But the force of the wind is lessening and we certainly can’t start out on foot—”
They sprinted through the wall of falling water. And a moment later gained the cramped cabin of the lifeboat. It was a relief to be out of the pounding rain. But, even as they settled into their seats, the light craft rocked under them. Get this up into the full force of the wind—they would be riding a leaf whirled around in a vortex—!
But, with that thought in both their minds, neither hesitated. Zinga started the propeller beams and Kartr sent out a mind probe, trying to touch the one who had asked for their help.
They were lucky in some things, the dusk of the storm clouds was clearing. And Zinga had been correct, the wind was dying. The light craft bucked, swerved, dipped and soared as the Zacathan fought at the controls to hold her on course. But they were airborne and high enough above the tree tops to escape the fate of the wrecked sled.
“Should we circle—?” Zinga thought instead of spoke.
“Enough fuel?” Kartr asked in answer to that as he leaned forward to read the gage on the instrument board.
“You’re right—can’t afford that,” Zinga agreed. “A quarter of a tal of bucking these winds and we’ll be walking anyway—”
Kartr did not try to translate “tal” into his own terms of measurement. He had a suggestion to make.
“Pick out some good landmarks ahead and set us down—”
“Then we take to our feet? It might work. It will—if this deluge slackens. And there is your landmark—agreed? Put us in the middle of that—”