“We have to have water.” Tau’s voice was a harsh croak, issuing out of a mask of green mud festooned with trailing weeds.
“This ground is rising.” Asaki smacked the stock of his needler against the surface on which he crouched. “I think perhaps there may be clean land soon to come.”
Jellico hitched his way up a sapling, now bending under his weight. Through the vision lenses he studied the route ahead.
“You’re right about that,” he called to the Chief Ranger. “There’s a showing of the right sort of green to the left, about half a mile on. And,” he glanced about at the westering sun, “we have about an hour yet of good light in which to make it. I wouldn’t try such a run after dark.”
That promise of green bolstered their weary spirits for a last exhausting effort. Once again they were faced with a series of islet leaps, and now they carried with them brush culled from the bigger tussocks to aid in times of need.
When Dane scrambled up the last pull, staggered, and went down to his knees again, he knew he was done. He did not even move at an excited cry from Nymani, echoed a moment later by Asaki. It was not until the latter leaned over him, a canteen open in his hand, that Dane aroused a little.
“Drink!” the Khatkan urged. “We have found a water tree. This is fresh.”
The liquid might have been fresh, but it also had a peculiar taste, which Dane did not note until he had gulped down a generous swallow. At that moment he was past caring about anything but the fact that he did have a portion of drinkable stuff in hand.
Here the stunted, unnatural growth of the swamplands had given away to the more normal vegetation of the jungle-clad lowlands. Had they come clear across the swamp, Dane wondered dully, or was this only a large island in the midst of the stinking boglands?
He drank again and regained strength enough to crawl to where his shipmates lay. It was some time before he was interested in much besides the fact that he could drink when he wished. Then he watched Jellico waver to his feet, his head turned eastward. Tau, too, sat up as if alerted by the Queen’s alarm buzzer.
The Khatkans were gone, perhaps back to the water tree. But all three of the spacemen heard that sound, a far off throbbing rhythm which was a vibration as well. Jellico looked to Tau.
“Drums?”
“Could be.” The medic screwed the cap back on his canteen. “I’d say we have company-only I’d like to know what kind!”
They might have been mistaken about the drums, but none of them could have been mistaken about the bolt which came out of nowhere to slice through a tree trunk as a knife might slash wet clay. Blaster-and a particular type of blaster!
“Patrol issue!” Tau lay flat, squeezing himself against the earth as if he wished he could ooze into it.
Jellico wriggled toward the bush in answer to a low call from Asaki, and the others made a worm’s progress in his wake. Under cover they found the Chief Ranger reading his needler.
“Poacher camp here,” he explained bleakly. “And they know about us.”
“A perfect end to a stinking day,” remarked Tau dispassionately. “We might have guessed something of this sort was waiting.” He tried to rub away some of the dried clay coating his chin. “But do poachers use drums?”
The Chief Ranger scowled. “That is what Nymani has gone to find out.”
VII
DARKNESS CLOSED in while they waited for Nymani’s return. There had been no further attack from the blaster wielder; perhaps he was only trying to pin them down where they were. Out over the swamp, weird patches of phosphorescence moved in small ghostly clouds, and bright dots of insects with their own built-in lighting systems flashed spark-fashion or sailed serenely on regular flight plans. At night the wonder of the place was far removed from the squalid reality of the day. They chewed on their rations, drank sparingly of the water, and tried to keep alert to any sight or sound.
That monotonous undertone, which might or might not be drums, continued as a basic hum to the noises of the night, drowned out at intervals by a splash, a mutter or cry from some swamp creature. Beside Dane Jellico stiffened, moved his blaster, as someone wriggled through the brush, trilling softly.
“Off-worlders,” Nymani reported in gasps to Asaki, “and outlaws, too. They make a hunting sing-tomorrow they march for a killing.”
Asaki rested his chin on his broad forearm. “Outlaws?”
“They show no lord’s badge. But each I saw wears a bracelet of three, five, or ten tails. They are Trackers indeed, and Hunters of the best!”
“They have huts?”
“Not so. There are no dwellers in the inners courts here.” Out of habit Nymani used the polite term for the women of his race. “I would say they tarry only for the space of a hunt. And on the boots of one I saw salt crust.”
“Salt crust!” Asaki snapped and half arose. “So that is the type of lure they use. There must be a saline mire near here to pull game-”
“How many off-worlders?” Jellico broke in.
“Three who are Hunters, one who is different.”
“How different?” questioned Asaki.
“He wears upon his body garments which are strange; on his head a round covering such as we see upon the off-worlders of the ships-”
“A spaceman!”
Asaki laughed harshly. “Why not? They must have some method of transporting their hides.”
“You can’t tell me,” Jellico returned, “that anyone is able to set a ship down in this muck. It would simply be buried for all time.”
“But Captain, what type of a spaceport does a Free Trader need? Do you not planet your own ship on worlds where there are no waiting cradles, no fitter shops, none of the conveniences such as mark the field Combine maintains on Xecho?”
“Of course I do. But one does need a reasonably smooth stretch of territory, open enough so the tail flames won’t start a forest fire. You don’t ever ride a tail push down in a swamp!”
“Which testifies to a trail out of here, fairly well-traveled, and some kind of a usable landing space not too far away,” Asaki replied. “And that could very well serve us.”
“But they know we are here,” Tau pointed out.
It was Nymani’s turn to laugh. “Man from the stars, there is no trail so well-hidden that a Ranger of the preserves cannot nose it out, nor any Hunter-be he a two or five bracelet veteran-who can keep pinned down a determined man of the forest service!”
Dane lost interest in the argument at that moment. He was at the edge of their line, the nearest to the swamp, and he had been watching patches of ghostly light flitting above the rank water-weeds. For the past few moments those wisps of faded radiance had been gathering into a growing anthropomorphic blot hanging over the morass several yards away. And the misty outlines were now assuming more concrete shape. He watched, unable to believe in what he was seeing. At first the general outline, non-defined as it was, made him think of a rock ape. But there were no pointed ears above the round skull, no snout on the visage turned in profile toward him.
More and more patches of swamp luminescence were drawn to that glowing figure. What balanced there now, as if walking the treacherous surface of the swampland, was no animal. It was a man, or the semblance of one, a small, thin man-a man he had seen once before, on the terrace of Asaki’s mountain fortress.
The thing stood almost complete, its head cocked in what was an attitude of listening.
“Lumbrilo!” Dane identified it, still knowing that the witch doctor could not be standing there listening for them. But, to shake him still farther, the head turned at his cry. Only there were no eyes, no features on the white expanse which should have been a face. And somehow that made the monster more menacing, convincing Dane against sane logic that the thing was spying on them.
“Demon!” That was Nymani; and over his sudden quaver, robbed of all the confidence which had been there only moments earlier, came Asaki’s demand:
“What stands there, Medic? Tell us that!”
“A whip to drive us out of hiding, sir. As you know as well as I. If Nymani spied upon them, then they have spied upon us in turn. And this, I think, also answers another question. If there is a canker of trouble on Khatka, then Lumbrilo is close to its root.”
“Nymani!” The Chief Ranger’s voice was the crack of a lash. “Will you forget again that you are a man, and run crying for shelter against a shaft of light? As this off-world Medic says, Lumbrilo fashions such as that to drive us into our enemies’ hands!”