Lost! Dumbly Storm turned to face the east, toward the mountain ranges. He threw his hat down on the blanket roll, baring his head to the tug of the wind from those high hills, and walked forward through the night, doubly lighted by the two small moons, coming out over a little rise that could not even be named “hill”. He sat down, cross-legged. There had always been a strong tie between the Dineh and their land. In the past they had chosen to starve in bad times rather than be separated from the mountains, the deserts, the world they knew.
He would not remember I He dared not! Storm’s hands balled into fists and he beat them upon his knees, feeling that pain far less than the awaking pain inside him. He was cut off – exiled – And he was also accursed, unless he carried out the purpose that had brought him here. Yet still there was this other hesitation in him. Without realizing it, he reverted to age-old beliefs. He must have broken his warrior’s magic. And so he could not meet Quade until he was whole again, once more armed against the enemy – the time was not yet ripe.
How long he sat there he did not know. But now there were streaks of orange-red in the mauve sky. It was not the same promise given by the sun to Terra, but with it came the feeling that his decision had been rightly made.
Storm faced the band of growing colour, raising his arms and holding up into that light first his bared knife and then his stun rod – the arms of a warrior – to be blessed by the sun. He pointed them first at the life-giving heat in the sky and then at the earth, the substance from which the Faraway Gods had fashioned the People in the long ago. He had not the right, as had a Singer, to call upon those forces he believed existed, and possibly, this far from the land of the Dineh, the Faraway Gods could not, would not listen. Yet something within Storm held the belief that they could and did.
Beauty is around me – This one walks in beauty – Good is around me – This one walks in beauty –
Perhaps the words he recalled were not the right ones, perhaps he did wrong to pre-empt the powers of a Singer. But he thought that the Old Ones would understand.
6
The wind that had drawn Storm to this little height died away. With a soft, coaxing whine Surra pressed against his leg and bumped her head against the hand that had dropped from his knife hilt. He heard the chittering of the meerkats in the grass. Above, a perfectly shaped black silhouette on the dawn sky, Baku mounted to greet the new day in the freedom of the upper air. Storm breathed deeply. His feeling of loss and loneliness dimmed as he returned to the trail camp to make his farewells.
A short appraisal of Sorenson’s preparations told the Terran that the Survey man was as competent as Larkin about the details of packing. The party was a small one: Sorenson himself, the settler pack master, Mac Foyle, and three Norbies, among whom Storm was not too surprised to find Gorgol. He raised his hand in greeting to the young native hunter, as he led his pack mare along to be lined with the others.
Foyle eyed this addition to the train with some astonishment, for the meerkats clung to the top of the mare’s pack and in addition she bore an improvised perch rigged for Baku. Surra trotted on her own four paws, well able to match the ambling pace of the pack animals.
Those are a couple of tricky riders you got there,” Foyle hailed the Terran. “What are they, young fella? Monkeys? I heard tell of monkeys but I’ve never seen ‘em.”
“Meerkats,” supplied Storm.
“From Terra, eh?” Foyle tested a lashing, looked over the mare’s rig with approval, and then brought up his own riding horse. “Smart lookin’ little tykes – what are they good for?”
Storm laughed. “Digging mostly. See their big claws? Those can make the dirt fly when it’s necessary. They also bring back what they take a fancy to. You might call them thieves sometimes –” He snapped his fingers at Ho and King and they blinked back at him, uncaring.
“Heard about you and your animals back in town. Your name’s Storm, isn’t it? Heard tell, too, how you knocked out one of Gorlund’s riders just pattin’ him on the head – or so the boys were sayin’.”
Storm smiled. “Commando tricks, Foyle. That rider was loaded and wanted to stretch himself a little, only he did it a bit too wide and in the wrong direction –”
Foyle examined him with a frank stare that climbed from boot soles to the top of his hat. “Bet the boys weren’t far wrong either about your bein’ thunder and lightnin’ all rolled up into one. You aren’t so big a fella, but it’s the small ones, light on their feet, who can really cause trouble. I’d like to have seen that dust-up, I surely would!” Foyle jerked the lead rope of the first pack horse and that animal obediently fell into line behind.
They went down slope to the river where Surra balked on the bank, spitting her displeasure at the thought of water and wet fur. Storm soothed her and tossed a rope end, to be caught in her teeth after a last cat-curse. Then, with the dune cat swimming along with the horses, they crossed the Irrawady to the field above which the eastern mountains reached into the faint lavender of the sky.
Sorenson not only knew how to organize an expedition, he could also lead it. And Storm soon learned that this was the third and not the first time the Survey Service man had attempted to find the Sealed Caves.
“Water’s the problem,” he explained. “You can travel this country in the spring, or for about four short weeks in the fall, and live off it. The rest of the time you have to pack water and food for your horses. And that just can’t be done, except at ruinous expense, which rny department won’t authorize on mere rumour alone. We had one successful season before the war, opened a small dig on the Krabyaolo, that’s the edge of the Peak country. And a piece of carving was unearthed there that caused an explosion in rarefied circles. So the authorities will grant us a pittance now and then for these short trips. Let me discover something really worthwhile and they might set up a permanent work camp. I’ve been told that the water supply is better in the direction we’re heading this trip –”
”This thing you found – what made it so important?”
“Did you ever see any Lo Sak Ki work?” Sorenson counter-questioned.
“Not that I know of –”
That’s a unique type of carving found in the Lo Sal provinces on Altair Three – very intricate patterning, shows evidence of a long development of civilized art, undoubtedly the result of a lengthy period of experiment and refinement. And it’s native to Altair Three. Only this piece we found repeated at least two of Lo Sak Ki basic designs.”
“I don’t suppose there are too many different designs possible,” ventured Storm. “And with about two thousand planets producing art work – twenty-five other nonhuman races of high intelligence into the bargain, as well as all the dead civilizations we have uncovered in space – designs could be repeated without being related.”
“Logical enough. But see here –” The Survey man used his quirt as a pointer to indicate the ketoh on the Terran’s wrist. “I take it that is Terran, also that it may represent some lesser known tribal work there, perhaps it has ceremonial significance –”
“It was developed from a bow guard once worn by my people when they were roaming desert raiders –”
“And were those people a dominant nation on your world in the days when separate nations did exist there?”
Storm laughed. “I believe they considered themselves to be so – in error. They did rule a small section of one continent for a few years. But no, they were not a dominant race. In fact their country was overrun by a white-skinned race, representing a mechanized, technical civilization, who considered them barbarians.”
“It follows then you would not have found such a bracelet to be an object universally known and worn on Terra?”
“No.”
“So what would have been your reaction if say on – Where did you serve during the war, Storm?”
“Lev – Angol –”
“Lev? Good. Suppose while you were on Lev you investigated a mound of rubble and found buried in it the twin to your bracelet – knowing, of course, that no other galactic trooper had been there recently, that no Terran of the present era could have dropped it. What then would have been your conclusions?”