The Hub: Dangerous Territory by James H. Schmitz

The island was moving slowly to the south, foam-streaked swells running past it on either side. This might be the southern fringe of the typhoon belt. The sky immediately overhead was clear, a clean deep blue. But violent gusts still shook the car, and roiling cloud banks rode past on all sides.

Ticos Cay’s hidden arboreal laboratory should be in the second largest section of the floatwood structure, about a third of the way in on the seaward side. He wasn’t responding to close-contact communicator signals; but he might be there in spite of his silence. In any case it was the place to start looking. There’d been no sign of intruders—which didn’t mean they weren’t there. The multiple canopies of the forests could have concealed an army. But intruders could be avoided.

Nile thought she might be able to handle this without waiting for Parrol. It was late afternoon now, and even if there were no serious delays in getting her message to him, it would be at best the middle of the night before he could make it out here. To drop down openly to the floatwood would be asking for trouble, of course, though there had been no reports of attacks on aircars as yet. But she could circle south, go down to sea level, submerge the car and maneuver it back underwater to the island through the weed beds which rode the Meral. If she’d had her jet diving rig with her, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She could have left the car a couple of miles out, gone in at speed and brought Ticos out with her if he was in his hideaway, with almost no risk of being noticed by whoever else might be about. But she didn’t have the rig along. That meant working the car in almost to the island, a more finicky operation.

But it could be done. The submerged weed jungles provided the best possible cover against detection instruments.

Nile checked course and altitude, returned her attention to the magnification scanners. Everything down there looked normal. There was considerable animal activity about the lagoon, including clouds of the flying kesters which filled the role of sea and shore birds in Nandy-Cline’s ecological pattern. In the ocean beyond the floatwood at the left, two darkly gleaming torpedo-shaped bodies appeared intermittently at the surface. They were kesters too, but wingless giants: sea-havals, engaged in filling their crops with swarms of skilts. Their presence was another good indication that this was Ticos’ island. There’d been a sea-haval rookery concealed in the forest section next to the one he’d selected—

An engine control shrieked warning, and a sullen roaring erupted about them. Nile saw a red line in the fuel release gauge surge up toward explosion as her hand flicked out and cut the main engine switch.

* * *

The shrieking whistle and the roar of energies gone wild subsided together. Losing momentum, the car began to drop.

“Nile?”

“We’re in trouble, Sweeting.” The otter was on her feet, neck fur erect, eyes shifting about. But Sweeting knew enough to stay quiet in emergencies that were in Nile’s department.

Energy block . . . it could be malfunction. But that type of malfunction occurred so rarely it had been years since she’d heard of a case.

Someone hidden in the floatwood had touched the car with a type of weapon unknown to her, was bringing her down. The car’s built-in antigrav patterns would slow their descent. But—

Nile became very busy.

When she next looked at the altimeter, it told her she had approximately three minutes left in the air. Wind pressure meanwhile had buffeted the car directly above the island, a third of the way out across the lagoon. That would have been the purpose of killing her engines at the exact moment it was done. When the car splashed into the lagoon’s vegetation, she’d find a reception committee waiting.

She was in swim briefs by now for maximum freedom of action in water or in the floatwood. Fins and a handkerchief-sized breather mask lay on the seat. Most of the rest of what she was taking along had been part of the floatwood kit she’d flung into the back of the car on leaving the Giard Station. Various items were attached to a climb-belt about her waist—knife, lightweight UW gun, grip sandals, a pouch containing other floatwood gear she didn’t have time to sort over. The otter caller she used to summon Sweeting and Spiff from a distance was fastened to her wrist above her watch. Her discarded clothing was in a waterproof bag.

“Remember what you’re to do?”

“Yesss!” Sweeting acknowledged with a cheery hiss, whiskers twitching.

Sweeting would remember. They were going to meet some bad guys. Not at all a novel experience. Sweeting would keep out of sight and trouble until Nile had more specific instructions for her.

The bad guys hadn’t showed yet. But they must be in the lagoon, headed for the area where the car seemed about to come down. It was rocking and lurching in the gusts toward a point some three hundred yards from the nearest floatwood. Not at all where Nile wanted it to go. But she might be able to improve her position considerably.

She sat quiet throughout the last moments, estimating the force of the wind, eyes shifting between the altimeter and a landing area she’d selected on the far side of the water. Then, at hundred yards from the surface, she pushed down a stud which slid out broad glide-vanes to either side of the car.

The fringes of a typhoon were no place for unpowered gliding. Like the blow of a furious fist, wind slammed the vehicle instantly over on its side. Seconds of wild tumbling followed. But she had the momentum now to return some control of the car’s motion to her. To hostile watchers in the lagoon and the floatwood it must have looked like a futile and nearly suicidal attempt to escape—as it was intended to look. She didn’t want them to start shooting. Twice she seemed within inches of being slammed head-on into the water, picked up altitude at the last instant. Most of the width of the lagoon lay behind her at that point, and a section of forest loomed ahead again. A tall stand of sea reeds, perhaps three hundred yards across, half enclosed by gnarled walls of floatwood, whirled by below.

Wind force swept the car down once more, too fast, too far to the right. Nile shifted the vane controls. The car rose steeply, heeled over, swung sideways, its momentum checked—and that was almost exactly where she wanted to be. She slapped another stud. The vanes folded back into the vehicle. It began to drop, antigrav effect taking over. Nile reached for the fins, snapped them on her feet. Green tops of the reeds whipped suddenly about the car. She drew the transparent breather mask over her face, pressed its audio plugs into her ears. Car door open, set on lock . . . dense vegetation swaying jerkily with wet crashing sounds on all sides as the car descended through it—

Thump and splash!

Sweeting slithered past Nile’s feet, flowed down over the doorsill, vanished into the lagoon without a sound. Nile pitched the clothing bag through the door, swung about on the seat, slid out into cool water. Turning, she caught a handgrip on the side of the car, reached up, slammed the door shut on its lock.

She saw the bag floating beside her, caught its strap and went down. . . .

Chapter 4

The sea reeds, rising from layers of muck packed into the matted root system of the island thirty feet below, grew thick and strong. Almost in moments after leaving the car, Nile knew she was relatively safe from immediate pursuit. On her way across the lagoon she’d had a flashing glimpse of an enclosed boat coming about in a tight circle among the pads to follow her. It wouldn’t be long before it reached the reeds, and it might have divers aboard. In open water a jet diver advancing behind a friction-cutting field would have overhauled her in seconds. But jet rigs gave little real advantage when it came to slipping in and out of slime-slick dense growth; and if one had been in operation within a hundred yards, her audio plugs would have distinguished its thin hissing through the medley of sea sounds. She moved on quickly toward the forest. Small life scuttled and flicked away from her gliding shape. A school of eight-inch skilts exploded suddenly about her in a spray of silver glitters. . . . Sweeting, out of sight but somewhere nearby, might have turned aside for a fast snack. Something large and dark stirred ahead; a dorashen, some five hundred pounds of sluggish ugliness, black armor half concealed by a rusty fur of parasites, was backing off from her advance, pulling itself up along the reed stems, multiple jaws working in menacing snaps.

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