The laborers broke and ran, or rather crawled on their bellies until they were well away, before they got to their feet and pelted back down the strand. However, the guards were of sterner stuff. They were withdrawing all right, but slowly backing away, their swords held up before them as men might retreat before insurmountable odds.
When they were well gone the robed one took up the wand. Holding it out beyond, the cloaked leader of the second party approached the two piles of salvage the workers had heaped into rough order. There was a detailed inspection of both until the robed one came upon the body.
At a trilled order two of the warriors came up and laid out the corpse. When the robed one nodded they stood well back. The rod moved, the tip rather than the knobbed head being pointed at the body.
Ross’s head snapped back. That bolt of light, energy, fire—whatever it was—issuing from the rod had dazzled him into momentary blindness. And a vibration of force through the air was like a blow.
When he was able to see once more there was nothing at all on the sand where the corpse had lain, nothing except a glassy trough from which some spirals of vapor arose. Ross clung to his rock support badly shaken.
Men with swords . . . and now this—some form of controlled energy which argued of technical development and science. Just as the cliff castle had bombarded with rocks ships sailing with a speed which argued engine power of an unknown type. A mixture of barbaric and advanced knowledge. To assess this, he needed more experience, more knowledge than he possessed. Now Ashe could . . .
Ashe!
Ross was jerked back to his own quest. The rod was quiet, no more sparks were flung from its knob. And under Ross’s touch his sonic was quiet also. He snapped off the broadcast. If that device had picked up the flickering of the rod, the reverse could well be true.
The cloaked one chose from the pile of goods, and its escort gathered up the designated boxes, a small cask or two. So laden, the party returned south the way they had come. Ross allowed his breath to expel in a sigh of relief.
He worked his way farther north along the coast, watching other parties of the furred workers and their guards. Lines of the former climbed the cliff, hauling their spoil, their destination the castle. But Ross saw no sign of Ashe, received no answer to the sonic code he had reset once the strangers were out of distance. And he began to realize that his present search might well be fruitless, though he fought against accepting it.
When he turned back to the slit cave Ross’s fear was ready to be expressed in anger, the anger of frustration over his own helplessness. With no chance of trying to penetrate the castle, he could not learn whether or not Ashe had been taken prisoner. And until the workers left the beach he could not prowl there hunting the grimmer evidence his mind flinched from considering.
Karara waited for him on the inner ledge. There was no sign of the dolphins and as Ross pulled out of the water, pushing aside his mask, her face in the thin light of the cave was deeply troubled.
“You did not find him,” she made that a statement rather than a question.
“No.”
“And I did not find it—”
Ross used a length of weed from the nest as a towel. But now he stood very still.
“The gate . . . no sign of it?”
“Just this—” She reached behind her and brought up a sealed container. Ross recognized one of the supply cans they had had in the cache by the gate. “There are others . . . scattered. Taua and Tino-rau seek them now. It is as if all that was on the other side was sucked through with us.”
“You are sure you found the right place?”
“Is—is this not part of it?” Again the girl sought for something on the ledge. What she held out to him was a length of metal rod, twisted and broken at one end as if a giant hand had wrenched it loose from the installation.
Ross nodded dully. “Yes,” his voice was harsh as if the words were pulled out of him against his will and against all hope—”that’s part of a side bar. It—it must have been totally wrecked.”
Yet, even though he held that broken length in his hands, Ross could not really believe the gate was gone. He swam out once more, heading for the reef where the dolphins joined him as guides. There was a second piece of broken tube, the scattered containers of supplies, that was all. They were wrecked in time as surely as those ships had been wrecked on the sea reef the night before!
Ross headed once again for the cave. Their immediate needs were of major importance now. The containers must be all gathered and taken into their hiding place, because upon their contents three human lives could depend.
He paused just at the entrance to adjust the net of containers he transported. And it was that slight chance which brought him knowledge of the intruder.
On the ledge Karara was heaping up the kelp of the nest. But to one side and on a level with the girl’s head . . .
Ross dared not flash his torch, thus betraying his presence. Leaving the net hitched to the rock by its sling, he swam under water along the side of the cave by a route which should bring him out within striking distance of that hunched figure perching above to watch Karara’s every move.
6: Loketh the Useless
The wash of waves covered Ross’s advance until he came up against the wall not too far from the spy’s perch. Whoever crouched there still leaned forward to watch Karara. And Ross’s eyes, having adjusted to the gloom of the cavern, made out the outlines of head and shoulders. The next two or three minutes were critical ones for the human. He must emerge on the ledge in the open before he could attack.
Karara might almost have read his mind and given conscious help. For now she went out on the point of the ledge to whistle the dolphins’ summons. Tino-rau’s sleek head bobbed above water as he answered the girl with a bubbling squeak. Karara knelt and the dolphin came to butt against her outheld hand.
Ross heard a gasp from the watcher, a faint sound of movement. Karara began to sing softly, her voice rippling in one of the liquid chants of her own people, the dolphin interjecting a note or two. Ross had heard them at that before, and it made perfect cover for his move. He sprang.
His grasp tightened on flesh, fingers closed about thin wrists. There was a yell of astonishment and fear from the stranger as the man jerked him from his perch to the ledge. Ross had his opponent flattened under him before he realized that the other had offered no struggle, but lay still.
“What is it?” Karara’s torch beam caught them both. Ross looked down into a thin brown face not too different from his own. The wide-set eyes were closed, and the mouth gaped open. Though he believed the Hawaikan unconscious, Ross still kept hold on those wrists as he moved from the sprawled body. With the girl’s aid he used a length of kelp to secure the captive.
The stranger wore a garment of glistening skintight material which covered body, legs, and feet, but left his lanky arms bare. A belt about his waist had loops for a number of objects, among them a hook-pointed knife which Ross prudently removed.
“Why, he is only a boy,” Karara said. “Where did he come from?”
Ross pointed to the wall crevice. “He was up there, watching you.”
Her eyes were wide and round. “Why?”
Ross dragged his prisoner back against the wall of the cave. After witnessing the fate of those who had swum ashore from the wreck, he did not like to think what motive might have brought the Hawaikan here. Again Karara’s thoughts must have matched his, for she added:
“But he did not even draw his knife. What are you going to do with him?”
That problem already occupied Ross. The wisest move undoubtedly was to kill the native out of hand. But such ruthlessness was more than he could stomach. And if he could learn anything from the stranger—gain some knowledge of this new world and its ways—he would be twice winner. Why, this encounter might even lead to Ashe!
“Ross . . . his leg. See?” The girl pointed.
The tight fit of the alien’s clothing made the defect clear; the right leg of the stranger was shrunken and twisted. He was a cripple.