“You didn’t see a flyer leave it?” questioned Ashe.
“No. I went to the port—and there it was.”
One of the seed things had dropped out of the packet, rolled across the table. Travis put a fingertip to it and the globe promptly burst as an over-ripe grape does when pressed. Without thinking, he raised his sticky finger to his mouth. The taste was tart, yet sweet, with the fresh cleanness of mint or some similar herb.
“Now you’ve done it,” observed Ross. “Well, we can watch while you break out in purple spots, or turn all green and shrivel up.” His words were delivered in his usual amused tone, but there was a heat beneath that Travis did not understand. Unless once more Ross believed the Apache had taken too much on himself in that unthinking experiment.
“Good flavor,” he returned with stolid defiance. And deliberately he chose another, transferring it to his mouth and breaking the skin with his teeth. The berry, or seed, or whatever it was, did not satisfy his desire for fresh meat, but it was not a concentrate or something out of one of the aliens’ cans and the taste was good.
“That is enough!” Ashe swept up the leaf bag and its contents. “We’ll have no more unnecessary chances taken.”
But when Travis experienced no ill effects from his sampling, they shared out the rest of the gift at the evening meal, relishing the flavor after their weeks of the ship’s supplies.
“Maybe we can trade for some more of these,” Ross had begun almost idly. Then he gave a start and sat straighter in the uncomfortable mess seat.
Ashe laughed. “I wondered just when that possibility was going to dawn on you.”
Ross grinned. “You may well ask. You’d think nothing stuck long between my ears, wouldn’t you? All right—so we set up as traders again. I never did get a good chance to try out my techniques when we were on the Beaker run—too many interruptions.”
Travis waited patiently for them to explain. This was another of those times when their shared experiences from the past shut him out, to remind him that only chance had brought him into this adventure, after all.
“There ought to be some things among all that stuff we routed out to study which should attract attention.” Ross wriggled around Ashe to leave the mess cabin. “I’ll see.”
“Trade, eh?” Renfry nodded. “Heard how you boys on the time runs play that angle.”
“It’s a good cover, one of the best there is. A trader moves around without question in a primitive world. Any little strangeness in his speech, his customs, his dress, can be legitimately accounted for by his profession. He is supposed to come from a distance, his contacts don’t expect him to be like their fellow tribesmen. And a trader picks up news quickly. Yes, trade was a cover the project used from the first.”
“You were a trader, back in time?” Travis asked.
Ashe appeared willing enough to talk of his previous ventures. “D’you ever hear of the Beaker Folk? There were traders for you—had their stations from Greece to Scotland during the early Bronze Age. That was my cover, in early Britain, and again in the Baltic. You can really be fascinated by such a business. My first partner might have retired a millionaire—or that period’s equivalent to one.” Ashe paused, his face closing up again, but Travis asked another question.
“Why didn’t he?”
“The Russians located our station in that era. Blew it up. And themselves into the bargain because they gave us our fix on their own post when they did that.” He might have been discussing some dry fact in a report—until you saw his eyes.
Travis knew that Ross was dangerous. He thought now that Ashe probably could surpass his young subordinate in ruthless action, was there any need to do so. Ross came back, his hands full. He set out his selections for their appraisal.
There was a length of material—perhaps intended for a scarf—which they had found in one of the crew lockers. A small thread of a vivid purple barred the green length, both colors bright enough to rivet attention. Then there were four pieces of carved wood, a coral-shaded wood with flecks of gold. They were stylized representations of fern fronds or feathers, as far as the humans could tell, and Ashe believed they might be part of some game, though playing board and other pieces had not been located. Lastly was the plaque which could so mysteriously reproduce a picture of home for the one holding it. That Ashe pushed aside with a shake of his head.
“That’s too important. We needn’t be too generous the first time, anyway. After all, we’ve only a small offering to top. Try the scarf and two of these.”
“Put them in the port?” Ross asked.
“I’d say no. No use encouraging visitors. Use your judgment in picking out some place below.”
Ashe might have told Ross to take the initiative in that venture, but he followed him out. Travis, his leg having given him a sudden severe twinge, retired to his bunk, to try out the healing properties that resting pad had to offer in the circumstances. He stripped off his suit, stretched out with a grimace or two, and relaxed.
He must have gone to sleep under the narcotic influence of the healing jelly which seeped out and over him, triggered by his need. When he roused, it was to find Ross pulling at him.
“What’s the matter?”
Ross allowed him no time for protest. “Ashe’s gone!” His face might be schooled and impassive, but twin cold devils looked out of his eyes.
“Gone?” The drowsiness induced by the healing of the bunk did not make quick thinking easy. “Gone where?”
“That’s what we have to find out. Get moving!”
Travis, his bruises and aches gone, dressed and buckled the arms belt Ross pushed into his hands. “Let’s have the story.”
Ross was already in the corridor, every line of his taut body expressing his impatience.
“We were out there—fixed up a trading stone. There were a couple of flyers watching us and we waited to see if they would come down. When they didn’t, Ashe said we had better take cover, as if we were going on to the buildings. Ashe detoured around a fallen tree—I saw him go. I tell you—I saw him! Then he wasn’t there—or anywhere!” Ross was clearly shaken well out of his cultivated imperviousness.
“A ground trap?” Travis gave the first answer probable as he followed Ross to the air lock. Renfry was there making fast two lengths of silky cord barely coarser than knitting yarn but which, as they had discovered earlier, was surprisingly strong. Thus hitched to the ship, they could prowl the vicinity and yet leave a guide to their whereabouts.
“I crawled over that ground inch by inch,” Ross said between set teeth. “Not so much as a worm or ant hole showing. He was there one minute—the next he wasn’t!”
Making fast their lines and leaving Renfry as lookout, they descended into the trampled and blasted area about the globe where the green was now withering under a late afternoon sun. Darkness would complicate their search. They had better move swiftly, find some clue before they were hampered further.
Ross took the lead, balancing along a fallen tree trunk to its crown of dropping fern fronds, now crushed and broken. “He was right here.”
Travis swung down into the crushed foliage. The sharp smell of sticky sap, as well as the heavy scents of flowers and leaves, was cloying. But Ross was right. The vegetation on the ground had been pulled away in a wide sweep, and there was no sign that the dank earth beneath had been disturbed. He sighted a round-toed track, but it was twin to the ones he was leaving in the mold and could have been pressed there by either Ashe or Ross. But, because it was the only possible trace, he turned in the direction it pointed.
A moment or two later, at the very edge of the clearing Ross had made during his search, Travis saw something else. There was another tree trunk lying there, the remains of a true forest giant. And it had not been brought down by the landing of the ship, but had lain there long enough for soil and fallen leaves to build up around it, to grow a skin of red-capped moss or fungi.
Across that moss there were now two dark marks, ragged scars, suggesting that someone or something had clawed for a desperate hold against irresistible force. Ashe? But how had he been captured without Ross’s seeing or hearing his struggles?
Travis vaulted the tree trunk. There was his confirmation—another footprint deep in the mold. But beyond it—nothing—absolutely nothing! And no living creature could have continued along that stretch of soft earth without leaving a trace. From this point it did appear that Ashe had vanished into thin air.