“By duplicating the solar effect locally?” Nile hesitated, nodded. “It should be possible. Is there reason to believe it’s being done?”
“Some of us think so,” Doncar said dryly. “We’ve lost men.”
“Lost them?”
“They disappear. . . . Work parties harvesting a floatwood island—small surface craft and submersibles in the immediate vicinity of floatwood. Later no traces are found. Whenever this occurred, communication in the area was completely disrupted.”
“To keep the men from reporting attackers?”
“That’s what’s suspected,” Doncar said. “It’s happened too regularly to make coincidences seem probable. You understand, Dr. Etland, that this isn’t a problem which affects only the Sotira sleds. There have been similar disappearances near floatwood islands in many sea areas of late.”
Nile asked for details, her mind beginning to race. She and Parrol were known as accomplished trouble shooters. They considered it part of their job; it was in Giard’s interest to keep operations moving as smoothly as possible on Nandy-Cline. The sledmen had benefited by that in the past, as had the mainland. And trouble—man-made trouble—was always likely to arise. The planet’s natural riches were tempting . . . particularly when some new discovery was made and kept concealed.
This then might be such trouble on a large scale. The pattern of disappearances had begun north of the equator, spread down through the Sotira range. It had started three months ago. And the purpose, she thought, presumably was to accomplish precisely what it had accomplished—to keep the sleds away from the islands. For a period long enough to let whoever was behind the maneuver clear out whatever treasure of rare elements or drugs they’d come across and be gone again.
No local organization was big enough to pull off such a stunt. But a local organization backed by a Hub syndicate could be doing it—
Gromgorru? Nile shrugged mentally. The deeps of Nandy-Cline were only sketchily explored; great sections of the ocean floor remained unmapped. But she had very little faith in unknown malignant powers. In all her experience, whenever there was real mischief afoot, human operators had been found behind it.
The others here were less sure. There was something like superstitious dread unspoken but heavy in the air of this cabin, with the deck shuddering underfoot and the typhoon howling and thudding beyond the thick walls. She thought Doncar and Jath weren’t free of it. Jath had acquired a degree of sophistication very uncommon among the sledmen. But she still was a woman of the sea sleds, whose folk had drunk strangeness from the mysteries of ocean and space for centuries. Space life and sea life didn’t breed timid people. But it bred people who would not go out of their way to pit themselves against forces they could not understand.
Nile said to Pelad, “You spoke of those who hear voices of hate when the communicators are blanked out.”
The Venn’s eyes flickered for an instant. He nodded.
“Do the other-seeing”—Nile used the sledmen term for psi sensitives—”connect these voices with the disappearances in the floatwood drifts?”
Pelad hesitated, said, “No. Not definitely.”
“They haven’t said this is a matter men can’t handle?”
“They haven’t said it,” Pelad agreed slowly. “They don’t know. They only know what they’ve told us.”
So the witch doctors had suggested just enough to stall action. Nile said, “Then there may very well be two things here. One, what the other-seeing sense. The second, a human agency which is responsible for the present trouble in the floatwood. What if the sleds learn that is the case?”
Doncar said, “There’re six spaceguns mounted on this sled, Dr. Etland, and men trained in their use.”
“I myself,” said Pelad, “am one of those men.”
Fiam added, “There are two other Sotira sleds not far from here. Each armed with four spaceguns—very old guns but in excellent working order.” He gave Nile a brief smile. “The mainland may recall them.”
“The mainland does,” Nile agreed. “You’ll fight if you know you’re not fighting gromgorru?”
“We’ll fight men,” Pelad said. “We have always fought men when necessary. But it would be unwise to challenge blindly an evil which may not be affected by guns and which might be able to wipe the sleds from the sea.” His face darkened again. “Some believe there is such an evil at no great distance from us.”
She must be careful at this point. Still, so far, so good. In their minds the Venn were committed now to fight, if shown an enemy with whom weapons could deal. Too early to ask them to cooperate with mainland authorities in this. Their distrust was too deep.
Five minutes later she knew what she must do. Her immediate concern was to get Ticos out of harm’s way. The big floatwood drift for which she had been looking was eighty miles south of this point. A Sotira seiner had been missing for several days, and the last reports from it indicated it might have moved too near the drift in the storm and become another victim of whatever menace haunted floatwood waters. Doncar’s sled had been hunting for the seiner in the vicinity of the drift but found no clue to what had happened. The search had now been abandoned.
There were no other sizable floatwood islands within two hundred miles. Therefore the one on which Ticos had set up his project should be part of the drift. It was almost a certainty. If she took her aircar there at once, she could identify the island while daylight remained. The risk shouldn’t be too great. Aircars hadn’t come under attack, and the one she had was a fast sports model. If there was a suggestion of hostile action, she could clear out very quickly. If there wasn’t, she’d try to wake Ticos up on the close contact channel and establish what the situation down there was. She might have him out inside an hour.
If that didn’t work, she wasn’t equipped to do much more by herself; and she needed reinforcements in any case before trying to determine who might have been turning the floatwood islands into death traps.
She asked, “Can you get a message through to the mainland for me?”
They nodded, the Venn warily. Jath said, “It may take a number of hours. But so far the fleets have always been able to relay messages through disturbance areas.”
Fiam inquired, “What’s the message, Dr. Etland? And to whom will it go?”
“It goes to Danrich Parrol,” Nile told him. “The Giard Station will be able to locate him.” She couldn’t become too specific about gromgorru matters or the message would be blocked before it reached the mainland. “Give Parrol the location of the floatwood drift south of us. I’ll wait for him there. Tell him I may have a problem getting Dr. Cay off his island, and that I’d like him to come out with full troubleshooting equipment—”
“And Spiff!” a thin voice interrupted emphatically from the corner of the room.
The sledmen looked around, startled. Sweeting blinked at them, began nosing her chest fur disinterestedly. People who didn’t know Sweeting well frequently were surprised by the extent to which she followed the details of human discussions.
“And Spiff, of course,” Nile agreed. “If we find out what’s been happening around the floatwood, we’ll try to get word to you at once.”
Fiam nodded quickly. “Six hours from now we’ll have a racing sled in the drift. Any close-contact messages should be picked up. Code Sotira-Doncar, on the sledmen frequencies. . . . ”
* * *
“The Great Palach Koll,” said the demon on the platform, “has persuaded the Everliving to permit him to test the Tuvela Theory.”
Ticos Cay didn’t reply immediately. His visitor was the Palach Moga, one of the Everliving, though of lower grade than the Great Palachs and somewhere between them and the Oganoon in physical structure, about Ticos’ size and weight. Moga didn’t squat but stood upright, long hopping legs stretched out, and walked upright when he walked, with short careful awkward steps. His torso was enclosed in an intricate close-worked harness of silver straps. In what was happening here he and Ticos Cay had become cautious allies. Ticos was aware that the alliance might be of very temporary nature.
“I was under the impression,” he told Moga, “that the Voice of Caution was able to keep the reckless demands of the Great Palach from being given a hearing.”
Moga’s speaking slit twisted in agitation.
“We have done it until now,” he said. “But the Great Palach has assumed control of the Voice of Action. He accused his predecessor of a Violation of Rules, and the Everliving found the accusation valid. The predecessor was granted the death of a Palach. You must understand that in his new position Koll’s demands can no longer be silenced.”
“Yes, I see . . . ” Advancement usually came the hard way among the demons. Two favored methods were a ritualized form of assassination and having one’s superior convicted of a Violation of Rules. They had the same practical result. Ticos swallowed. Bad—very bad. . . . He leaned back against the worktable to avoid revealing that his legs were trembling. “How does the Great Palach propose to test the Tuvela Theory?”