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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Defiant Agents, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Defiant Agents
+
+Author: Andre Alice Norton
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2008 [EBook #25550]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEFIANT AGENTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Walker, Greg Weeks, Jason Isbell and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+Obvious printer errors have been corrected (including switched lines).
+Ellipses have been standardised. Otherwise the text is as printed.
+
+
+
+
+_THE
+DEFIANT
+AGENTS_
+
+
+_By Andre Norton_
+
+  RIDE PROUD, REBEL!
+  STORM OVER WARLOCK
+  GALACTIC DERELICT
+  THE TIME TRADERS
+  STAR BORN
+  YANKEE PRIVATEER
+  THE STARS ARE OURS!
+
+_Edited by Andre Norton_
+
+  SPACE PIONEERS
+  SPACE SERVICE
+
+
+
+_THE
+DEFIANT
+AGENTS_
+
+_BY
+ANDRE
+NORTON_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK
+
+
+_Published by_ The World Publishing Company
+2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio
+
+_Published simultaneously in Canada by_
+Nelson, Foster & Scott Ltd.
+
+Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-9063
+
+
+
+FIRST EDITION
+
+WP262
+
+Copyright © 1962 by Andre Norton
+All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
+in any form without written permission from the publisher,
+except for brief passages included in a review appearing in
+a newspaper or magazine. Printed in the United States of America.
+
+
+_FOR P. SCHUYLER MILLER
+who expressed a wish
+for some Apache colonists,
+and CHARLES F. KELLEY
+who has a liking
+for "time agent" tales._
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEFIANT AGENTS_
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+No windows broke any of the four plain walls of the office; there was no
+focus of outer-world sunlight on the desk there. Yet the five disks set
+out on its surface appeared to glow--perhaps the heat of the mischief
+they could cause ... had caused ... blazed in them.
+
+But fanciful imaginings did not cushion or veil cold, hard fact. Dr.
+Gordon Ashe, one of the four men peering unhappily at the display, shook
+his head slightly as if to free his mind of such cobwebs.
+
+His neighbor to the right, Colonel Kelgarries, leaned forward to ask
+harshly: "No chance of a mistake?"
+
+"You saw the detector." The thin gray string of a man behind the desk
+answered with chill precision. "No, no possible mistake. These five have
+definitely been snooped."
+
+"And two choices among them," Ashe murmured. That was the important
+point now.
+
+"I thought these were under maximum security," Kelgarries challenged the
+gray man.
+
+Florian Waldour's remote expression did not change. "Every possible
+precaution was in force. There was a sleeper--a hidden
+agent--planted----"
+
+"Who?" Kelgarries demanded.
+
+Ashe glanced around at his three companions--Kelgarries, colonel in
+command of one sector of Project Star, Florian Waldour, the security
+head on the station, Dr. James Ruthven....
+
+"Camdon!" he said, hardly able to believe this answer to which logic had
+led him.
+
+Waldour nodded.
+
+For the first time since he had known and worked with Kelgarries Ashe
+saw him display open astonishment.
+
+"Camdon? But he was sent us by--" The colonel's eyes narrowed. "He must
+have been sent.... There were too many cross checks to fake that!"
+
+"Oh, he was sent, all right." For the first time there was a note of
+emotion in Waldour's voice. "He was a sleeper, a very deep sleeper. They
+must have planted him a full twenty-five or thirty years ago. He's been
+just what he claimed to be as long as that."
+
+"Well, he certainly was worth their time and trouble, wasn't he?" James
+Ruthven's voice was a growling rumble. He sucked in thick lips,
+continuing to stare at the disks. "How long ago were these snooped?"
+
+Ashe's thoughts turned swiftly from the enormity of the betrayal to that
+important point. The time element--that was the primary concern now that
+the damage was done, and they knew it.
+
+"That's one thing we don't know." Waldour's reply came slowly as if he
+hated the admission.
+
+"We'll be safer, then, if we presume the very earliest period."
+Ruthven's statement was as ruthless in its implications as the shock
+they had had when Waldour announced the disaster.
+
+"Eighteen months ago?" Ashe protested.
+
+But Ruthven was nodding. "Camdon was in on this from the very first.
+We've had the tapes in and out for study all that time, and the new
+detector against snooping was not put in service until two weeks ago.
+This case came up on the first checking round, didn't it?" he asked
+Waldour.
+
+"First check," the security man agreed. "Camdon left the base six days
+ago. But he has been in and out on his liaison duties from the first."
+
+"He had to go through those search points every time," Kelgarries
+protested. "Thought nothing could get through those." The colonel
+brightened. "Maybe he got his snooper films and then couldn't take them
+off base. Have his quarters been turned out?"
+
+Waldour's lips lifted in a grimace of exasperation. "Please, Colonel,"
+he said wearily, "this is not a kindergarten exercise. In confirmation
+of his success, listen...." He touched a button on his desk and out of
+the air came the emotionless chant of a newscaster.
+
+"Fears for the safety of Lassiter Camdon, space expediter for the
+Western Conference Space Council, have been confirmed by the discovery
+of burned wreckage in the mountains. Mr. Camdon was returning from a
+mission to the Star Laboratory when his plane lost contact with Ragnor
+Field. Reports of a storm in that vicinity immediately raised concern--"
+Waldour snapped off the voice.
+
+"True--or a cover for his escape?" Kelgarries wondered aloud.
+
+"Could be either. They may have deliberately written him off when they
+had all they wanted," Waldour acknowledged. "But to get back to our
+troubles--Dr. Ruthven is right to assume the worst. I believe we can
+only insure the recovery of our project by thinking that these tapes
+were snooped anywhere from eighteen months ago to last week. And we must
+work accordingly!"
+
+There was silence in the room as they all considered that. Ashe slipped
+down in his chair, his thoughts enmeshed in memories. First there had
+been Operation Retrograde, when specially trained "time agents" had
+shuttled back and forth in history, striving to locate and track down
+the mysterious source of alien knowledge which the eastern Communistic
+nations had suddenly begun to use.
+
+Ashe himself and a younger partner, Ross Murdock, had been part of the
+final action which had solved the mystery, having traced that source of
+knowledge not to an earlier and forgotten Terran civilization but to
+wrecked spaceships from an eon-old galactic empire--an empire which had
+flourished when glacial ice covered most of Europe and northern America
+and Terrans were cave-dwelling primitives. Murdock, trapped by the Reds
+in one of those wrecked ships, had inadvertently summoned its original
+owners, who had descended to trace--through the Russian time
+stations--the looters of their wrecks, destroying the whole Red
+time-travel system.
+
+But the aliens had not chanced on the parallel western system. And a
+year later that had been put into Project Folsom One. Again Ashe,
+Murdock, and a newcomer, the Apache Travis Fox, had gone back into time
+to the Arizona of the Folsom hunters, discovering what they wanted--two
+ships, one wrecked, the other intact. And when the full efforts of the
+project had been centered on bringing the intact ship back into the
+present, chance had triggered controls set by the dead alien commander.
+A party of four, Ashe, Murdock, Fox, and a technician, had then made an
+involuntary voyage into space, touching three worlds on which the
+galactic civilization of the far past was now marked only by ruins.
+
+Voyage tape fed into the controls of the ship had taken the men, and,
+when rewound, had--by a miracle--returned them to Terra with a cargo of
+similar tapes found in a building on a world which might have been the
+central capital for a government comprised not of countries or of worlds
+but of solar systems. Tapes--each one the key to another planet.
+
+And that ancient galactic knowledge was treasure such as the Terrans had
+never dreamed of possessing, though there were the attendant fears that
+such discoveries could be weapons in enemy hands. There had been an
+enforced sharing with other nations of tapes chosen at random at a great
+drawing. And each nation secretly remained convinced that, in spite of
+the untold riches it might hold as a result of chance, its rivals had
+done better. Right at this moment, Ashe did not in the least doubt,
+there were agents of his own party intent on accomplishing at the Red
+project just what Camdon had done there. However, that did not help in
+solving their present dilemma concerning Operation Cochise, one part of
+their project, but perhaps the most important now.
+
+Some of the tapes were duds, either too damaged to be useful, or set for
+worlds hostile to Terrans lacking the equipment the earlier
+star-traveling race had had at its command. Of the five tapes they now
+knew had been snooped, three would be useless to the enemy.
+
+But one of the remaining two.... Ashe frowned. One was the goal toward
+which they had been working feverishly for a full twelve months. To
+plant a colony across the gulf of space--a successful colony--later to
+be used as a steppingstone to other worlds....
+
+"So we have to move faster." Ruthven's comment reached Ashe through his
+stream of memories.
+
+"I thought you required at least three more months to conclude personnel
+training," Waldour observed.
+
+Ruthven lifted a fat hand, running the nail of a broad thumb back and
+forth across his lower lip in a habitual gesture Ashe had learned to
+mistrust. As the latter stiffened, bracing for a battle of wills, he saw
+Kelgarries come alert too. At least the colonel more often than not was
+ready to counter Ruthven's demands.
+
+"We test and we test," said the fat man. "Always we test. We move like
+turtles when it would be better to race like greyhounds. There is such a
+thing as overcaution, as I have said from the first. One would
+think"--his accusing glance included Ashe and Kelgarries--"that there
+had never been any improvising in this project, that all had always been
+done by the book. I say that this is the time we must take the big
+gamble, or else we may find we have been outbid for space entirely. Let
+those others discover even one alien installation they can master and--"
+his thumb shifted from his lip, grinding down on the desk top as if it
+were crushing some venturesome but entirely unimportant insect--"and we
+are finished before we really begin."
+
+There were a number of men in the project who would agree with that,
+Ashe knew. And a greater number in the country and conference at large.
+The public was used to reckless gambles which paid off, and there had
+been enough of those in the past to give an impressive argument for
+that point of view. But Ashe, himself, could not agree to a speed-up. He
+had been out among the stars, shaved disaster too closely because the
+proper training had not been given.
+
+"I shall report that I advise a take-off within a week," Ruthven was
+continuing. "To the council I shall say that--"
+
+"And I do not agree!" Ashe cut in. He glanced at Kelgarries for the
+quick backing he expected, but instead there was a lengthening moment of
+silence. Then the colonel spread out his hands and said sullenly:
+
+"I don't agree either, but I don't have the final say-so. Ashe, what
+would be needed to speed up any take-off?"
+
+It was Ruthven who replied. "We can use the Redax, as I have said from
+the start."
+
+Ashe straightened, his mouth tight, his eyes hard and angry.
+
+"And I'll protest that ... to the council! Man, we're dealing with human
+beings--selected volunteers, men who trust us--not with laboratory
+animals!"
+
+Ruthven's thick lips pouted into what was close to a smile of derision.
+"Always the sentimentalists, you experts in the past! Tell me, Dr. Ashe,
+were you always so thoughtful of your men when you sent agents back into
+time? And certainly a voyage into space is less a risk than time travel.
+These volunteers know what they have signed for. They will be ready----"
+
+"Then you propose telling them about the use of Redax--what it does to a
+man's mind?" countered Ashe.
+
+"Certainly. They will receive all necessary instructions."
+
+Ashe was not satisfied and he would have spoken again, but Kelgarries
+interrupted:
+
+"If it comes to that, none of us here has any right to make final
+decisions. Waldour has already sent in his report about the snoop. We'll
+have to await orders from the council."
+
+Ruthven levered himself out of his chair, his solid bulk stretching his
+uniform coveralls. "That is correct, Colonel. In the meantime I would
+suggest we all check to see what can be done to speed up each one's
+portion of labor." Without another word, he tramped to the door.
+
+Waldour eyed the other two with mounting impatience. It was plain he had
+work to do and wanted them to leave. But Ashe was reluctant. He had a
+feeling that matters were slipping out of his control, that he was about
+to face a crisis which was somehow worse than just a major security
+leak. Was the enemy always on the other side of the world? Or could he
+wear the same uniform, even share the same goals?
+
+In the outer corridor he still hesitated, and Kelgarries, a step or so
+in advance, looked back over his shoulder impatiently.
+
+"There's no use fighting--our hands are tied." His words were slurred,
+almost as if he wanted to disown them.
+
+"Then you'll agree to use the Redax?" For the second time within the
+hour Ashe felt as if he had taken a step only to have firm earth turn
+into slippery, shifting sand underfoot.
+
+"It isn't a matter of my agreeing. It may be a matter of getting through
+or not getting through--now. If they've had eighteen months, or even
+twelve...!" The colonel's fingers balled into a fist. "And _they_ won't
+be delayed by any humanitarian reasoning----"
+
+"Then you believe Ruthven will win the council's approval?"
+
+"When you are dealing with frightened men, you're talking to ears closed
+to anything but what they want to hear. After all, we can't prove that
+the Redax will be harmful."
+
+"But we've only used it under rigidly controlled conditions. To speed up
+the process would mean a total disregard of those controls. Snapping a
+party of men and women back into their racial past and holding them
+there for too long a period...." Ashe shook his head.
+
+"You have been in Operation Retrograde from the start, and we've been
+remarkably successful----"
+
+"Operating in a different way, educating picked men to return to certain
+points in history where their particular temperaments and
+characteristics fitted the roles they were selected to play, yes. And
+even then we had our percentage of failures. But to try this--returning
+people not physically into time, but _mentally and emotionally_ into
+prototypes of their ancestors--that's something else again. The Apaches
+have volunteered, and they've been passed by the psychologists and the
+testers. But they're Americans of today, not tribal nomads of two or
+three hundred years ago. If you break down some barriers, you might just
+end up breaking them all."
+
+Kelgarries was scowling. "You mean--they might revert utterly, have no
+contact with the present at all?"
+
+"That's just what I do mean. Education and training, yes, but full
+awakening of racial memories, no. The two branches of conditioning
+should go slowly and hand in hand, otherwise--real trouble!"
+
+"Only we no longer have the time to go slow. I'm certain Ruthven will be
+able to push this through--with Waldour's report to back him."
+
+"Then we'll have to warn Fox and the rest. They must be given a choice
+in the matter."
+
+"Ruthven said that would be done." The colonel did not sound convinced
+of that.
+
+Ashe snorted. "If I hear him telling them, I'll believe it!"
+
+"I wonder whether we can...."
+
+Ashe half turned and frowned at the colonel. "What do you mean?"
+
+"You said yourself that we had our failures in time travel. We expected
+those, accepted them, even when they hurt. When we asked for volunteers
+for this project we had to make them understand that there was a heavy
+element of risk involved. Three teams of recruits--the Eskimos from
+Point Barren, the Apaches, and the Islanders--all picked because their
+people had a high survival rating in the past, to be colonists on widely
+different types of planets. Well, the Eskimos and the Islanders aren't
+matched to any of the worlds on those snooped tapes, but Topaz is
+waiting for the Apaches. And we may have to move them in there in a
+hurry. It's a rotten gamble any way you see it!"
+
+"I'll appeal directly to the council."
+
+Kelgarries shrugged. "All right. You have my backing."
+
+"But you believe such an effort hopeless?"
+
+"You know the red-tape merchants. You'll have to move fast if you want
+to beat Ruthven. He's probably on a straight line now to Stanton,
+Reese, and Margate. This is what he has been waiting for!"
+
+"There are the news syndicates; public opinion would back us----"
+
+"You don't mean that, of course." Kelgarries was suddenly coldly remote.
+
+Ashe flushed under the heavy brown which overlay his regular features.
+To threaten a silence break was near blasphemy here. He ran both hands
+down the fabric covering his thighs as if to rub away some soil on his
+palms.
+
+"No," he replied heavily, his voice dull. "I guess I don't. I'll contact
+Hough and hope for the best."
+
+"Meanwhile," Kelgarries spoke briskly, "we'll do what we can to speed up
+the program as it now stands. I suggest you take off for New York within
+the hour----"
+
+"Me? Why?" Ashe asked with a trace of suspicion.
+
+"Because I can't leave without acting directly against orders, and that
+would put us wrong immediately. You see Hough and talk to him
+personally--put it to him straight. He'll have to have all the facts if
+he's going to counter any move from Stanton before the council. You know
+every argument we can use and all the proof on our side, and you're
+authority enough to make it count."
+
+"If I can do all that, I will." Ashe was alert and eager. The colonel,
+seeing his change of expression, felt easier.
+
+But Kelgarries stood a moment watching Ashe as he hurried down a side
+corridor, before he moved on slowly to his own box of office. Once
+inside he sat for a long unhappy time staring at the wall and seeing
+nothing but the pictures produced by his thoughts. Then he pressed a
+button and read off the symbols which flashed on a small visa-screen
+set in his desk. Another button pushed, and he picked up a hand mike to
+relay an order which might postpone trouble for a while. Ashe was far
+too valuable a man to lose, and his emotions could boil him straight
+into disaster over this.
+
+"Bidwell--reschedule Team A. They are to go to the Hypno-Lab instead of
+the reserve in ten minutes."
+
+Releasing the mike, he again stared at the wall. No one dared interrupt
+a hypno-training period, and this one would last three hours. Ashe could
+not possibly see the trainees before he left for New York. And that
+would remove one temptation from his path--he would not talk at the
+wrong time.
+
+Kelgarries' mouth twisted sourly. He had no pride in what he was doing.
+And he was perfectly certain that Ruthven would win and that Ashe's
+fears of Redax were well founded. It all came back to the old basic
+tenet of the service: the end justified the means. They must use every
+method and man under their control to make sure that Topaz would remain
+a western possession, even though that strange planet now swung far
+beyond the sky which covered both the western and eastern alliances on
+Terra. Time had run out too fast; they were being forced to play what
+cards they held, even though those might be very low ones. Ashe would be
+back, but not, Kelgarries hoped, until this had been decided one way or
+another. Not until this was finished.
+
+Finished! Kelgarries blinked at the wall. Perhaps _they_ were finished,
+too. No one would know until the transport ship landed on that other
+world which appeared on the direction tape symbolized by a jewellike
+disk of gold-brown which had given it the code name of Topaz.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+There were an even dozen of the air-borne guardians, each following the
+swing of its own orbital path just within the atmospheric envelope of
+the planet which glowed as a great bronze-golden gem in the four-world
+system of a yellow star. The globes had been launched to form a web of
+protection around Topaz six months earlier, and the highest skill had
+gone into their production. Just as contact mines sown in a harbor could
+close that landfall to ships not knowing the secret channel, so was this
+world supposedly closed to any spaceship not equipped with the signal to
+ward off the sphere missiles.
+
+That was the theory of the new off-world settlers whose protection they
+were to be, already tested as well as possible, but as yet not put to
+the ultimate proof. The small bright globes spun undisturbed across a
+two-mooned sky at night and made reassuring blips on an installation
+screen by day.
+
+Then a thirteenth object winked into being, began the encircling,
+closing spiral of descent. A sphere resembling the warden-globes, it was
+a hundred times their size, and its orbit was purposefully controlled
+by instruments under the eye and hand of a human pilot.
+
+Four men were strapped down on cushioned sling-seats in the control
+cabin of the Western Alliance ship, two hanging where their fingers
+might reach buttons and levers, the others merely passengers, their own
+labor waiting for the time when they would set down on the alien soil of
+Topaz. The planet hung there in their visa-screen, richly beautiful in
+its amber gold, growing larger, nearer, so that they could pick out
+features of seas, continents, mountain ranges, which had been studied on
+tape until they were familiar, yet now were strangely unfamiliar too.
+
+One of the warden-globes alerted, oscillated in its set path, whirled
+faster as its delicate interior mechanisms responded to the awakening
+spark which would send it on its mission of destruction. A relay
+clicked, but for the smallest fraction of a millimeter failed to set the
+proper course. On the instrument, far below, which checked the globe's
+new course the mistake was not noted.
+
+The screen of the ship spiraling toward Topaz registered a path which
+would bring it into violent contact with the globe. They were still some
+hundreds of miles apart when the alarm rang. The pilot's hand clawed out
+at the bank of controls; under the almost intolerable pressure of their
+descent, there was so little he could do. His crooked fingers fell back
+powerlessly from the buttons and levers; his mouth was a twisted grimace
+of bleak acceptance as the beat of the signal increased.
+
+One of the passengers forced his head around on the padded rest, fought
+to form words, to speak to his companion. The other was staring ahead at
+the screen, his thick lips wide and flat against his teeth in a snarl
+of rage.
+
+"They ... are ... here...."
+
+Ruthven paid no attention to the obvious as stated by his fellow
+scientist. His fury was a red, pulsing thing inside him, fed by his own
+helplessness. To be pinned here so near his goal, fastened up as a
+target for an inanimate but cunningly fashioned weapon, ate into him
+like a stream of deadly acid. His big gamble would puff out in a blast
+of fire to light up Topaz's sky, with nothing left--nothing. On the
+armrest of his sling-seat his nails scratched deep.
+
+The four men in the control cabin could only sit and watch, waiting for
+the rendezvous which would blot them out. Ruthven's flaming anger was a
+futile blaze. His companion in the passenger seat had closed his eyes,
+his lips moving soundlessly in an expression of his own scattered
+thoughts. The pilot and his assistant divided their attention between
+the screen, with its appalling message, and the controls they could not
+effectively use, feverishly seeking a way out in these last moments.
+
+Below them in the bowl of the ship were those who would not know the end
+consciously--save in one compartment. In a padded cage a prick-eared
+head stirred where it rested on forepaws, slitted eyes blinked, aware
+not only of familiar surroundings, but also of the tension and fear
+generated by human minds and emotions levels above. A pointed nose
+raised, and there was a growling deep in a throat covered with thick
+buff-gray hair.
+
+The growl aroused another similar captive. Knowing yellow eyes met
+yellow eyes. An intelligence, which was certainly not that of the animal
+body which contained it, fought down instinct raging to send both those
+bodies hurtling at the fastenings of the twin cages. Curiosity and the
+ability to adapt had been bred into both from time immemorial. Then
+something else had been added to sly and cunning brains. A step up had
+been taken--to weld intelligence to cunning, connect thought to
+instinct.
+
+More than a generation earlier mankind had chosen barren desert--the
+"white sands" of New Mexico--as a testing ground for atomic experiments.
+Humankind could be barred, warded out of the radiation limits; the
+natural desert dwellers, four-footed and winged, could not be so
+controlled.
+
+For thousands of years, since the first southward roving Amerindian
+tribes had met with their kind, there had been a hunter of the open
+country, a smaller cousin of the wolf, whose natural abilities had made
+an undeniable impression on the human mind. He was in countless Indian
+legends as the Shaper or the Trickster, sometimes friend, sometimes
+enemy. Godling for some tribes, father of all evil for others. In the
+wealth of tales the coyote, above all other animals, had a firm place.
+
+Driven by the press of civilization into the badlands and deserts,
+fought with poison, gun, and trap, the coyote had survived, adapting to
+new ways with all his legendary cunning. Those who had reviled him as
+vermin had unwillingly added to the folklore which surrounded him,
+telling their own tales of robbed traps, skillful escapes. He continued
+to be a trickster, laughing on moonlit nights from the tops of ridges at
+those who would hunt him down.
+
+Then, close to the end of the twentieth century, when myths were
+scoffed at, the stories of the coyote's slyness began once more on a
+fantastic scale. And finally scientists were sufficiently intrigued to
+seek out this creature that seemed to display in truth all the abilities
+credited to his immortal namesake by pre-Columbian tribes.
+
+What they discovered was indeed shattering to certain closed minds. For
+the coyote had not only adapted to the country of the white sands; he
+had evolved into something which could not be dismissed as an animal,
+clever and cunning, but limited to beast range. Six cubs had been
+brought back on the first expedition, coyote in body, their developing
+minds different. The grandchildren of those cubs were now in the ship's
+cages, their mutated senses alert, ready for the slightest chance of
+escape. Sent to Topaz as eyes and ears for less keenly endowed humans,
+they were not completely under the domination of man. The range of their
+mental powers was still uncomprehended by those who had bred, trained,
+and worked with them from the days their eyes had opened and they had
+taken their first wobbly steps away from their dams.
+
+The male growled again, his lips wrinkling back in a snarl as the
+emanations of fear from the men he could not see reached panic peak. He
+still crouched, belly flat, on the protecting pads of his cage; but he
+strove now to wriggle closer to the door, just as his mate made the same
+effort.
+
+Between the animals and those in the control cabin lay the others--forty
+of them. Their bodies were cushioned and protected with every ingenious
+device known to those who had placed them there so many weeks earlier.
+Their minds were free of the ship, roving into places where men had not
+trod before, a territory potentially more dangerous than any solid earth
+could ever be.
+
+Operation Retrograde had returned men bodily into the past, sending
+agents to hunt mammoths, follow the roads of the Bronze Age traders,
+ride with Attila and Genghis Khan, pull bows among the archers of
+ancient Egypt. But Redax returned men in mind to the paths of their
+ancestors, or this was the theory. And those who slept here and now in
+their narrow boxes, lay under its government, while the men who had
+arbitrarily set them so could only assume they were actually reliving
+the lives of Apache nomads in the wide southwestern wastes of the late
+eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
+
+Above, the pilot's hand pushed out again, fighting the pressure to reach
+one particular button. That, too, had been a last-minute addition, an
+experiment which had only had partial testing. To use it was the final
+move he could make, and he was already half convinced of its
+uselessness.
+
+With no faith and only a very wan hope, he sent that round of metal
+flush with the board. What followed no one ever lived to explain.
+
+On the planet the installation which tracked the missiles flashed on a
+screen bright enough to blind momentarily the duty man on watch, and its
+tracker was shaken off course. When it jiggled back into line it was no
+longer the efficient eye-in-the-sky it had been, though its tenders were
+not to realize that for an important minute or two.
+
+While the ship, now out of control, sped in dizzy whirls toward Topaz,
+engines fought blindly to stabilize, to re-establish their functions.
+Some succeeded, some wobbled in and out of the danger zone, two failed.
+And in the control cabin three dead men spun in prisoning seats.
+
+Dr. James Ruthven, blood bubbling from his lips with every shallow
+breath he could draw, fought the stealthy tide of blackness which crept
+up his brain, his stubborn will holding to rags of consciousness,
+refusing to acknowledge the pain of his fatally injured body.
+
+The orbiting ship was on an erratic path. Slowly the machines were
+correcting, relays clicking, striving to bring it to a landing under
+auto-pilot. All the ingenuity built into a mechanical brain was now
+centered in landing the globe.
+
+It was not a good landing, in fact a very bad one, for the sphere
+touched a mountain side, scraped down rocks, shearing away a portion of
+its outer bulk. But the mountain barrier was now between it and the base
+from which the missiles had been launched, and the crash had not been
+recorded on that tracking instrument. So far as the watchers several
+hundred miles away knew, the warden in the sky had performed as
+promised. Their first line of defense had proven satisfactory, and there
+had been no unauthorized landing on Topaz.
+
+In the wreckage of the control cabin Ruthven pawed at the fastenings of
+his sling-chair. He no longer tried to suppress the moans every effort
+tore out of him. Time held the whip, drove him. He rolled from his seat
+to the floor, lay there gasping, as again he fought doggedly to remain
+above the waves--those frightening, fast-coming waves of dark faintness.
+
+Somehow he was crawling, crawling along a tilted surface until he gained
+the well where the ladder to the lower section hung, now at an acute
+angle. It was that angle which helped him to the next level.
+
+He was too dazed to realize the meaning of the crumpled bulkheads. There
+was a spur of bare rock under his hands as he edged over and around
+twisted metal. The moans were now a gobbling, burbling, almost
+continuous cry as he reached his goal--a small cabin still intact.
+
+For long moments of anguish he paused by the chair there, afraid that he
+could not make the last effort, raise his almost inert bulk up to the
+point where he could reach the Redax release. For a second of unusual
+clarity he wondered if there was any reason for this supreme ordeal,
+whether any of the sleepers could be aroused. This might now be a ship
+of the dead.
+
+His right hand, his arm, and finally his bulk over the seat, he braced
+himself and brought his left hand up. He could not use any of the
+fingers; it was like lifting numb, heavy weights. But he lurched
+forward, swept the unfeeling lump of cold flesh down against the release
+in a gesture which he knew must be his final move. And, as he fell back
+to the floor, Dr. Ruthven could not be certain whether he had succeeded
+or failed. He tried to screw his head around, to focus his eyes upward
+at that switch. Was it down or still stubbornly up, locking the sleepers
+into confinement? But there was a fog between; he could not see it--or
+anything.
+
+The light in the cabin flickered, was gone as another circuit in the
+broken ship failed. It was dark, too, in the small cubby below which
+housed the two cages. Chance, which had snuffed out nineteen lives in
+the space globe, had missed ripping open that cabin on the mountain
+side. Five yards down the corridor the outside fabric of the ship was
+split wide open, the crisp air native to Topaz entering, sending a
+message to two keen noses through the combination of odors now pervading
+the wreckage.
+
+And the male coyote went into action. Days ago he had managed to work
+loose the lower end of the mesh which fronted his cage, but his mind had
+told him that a sortie inside the ship was valueless. The odd rapport
+he'd had with the human brains, unknown to them, had operated to keep
+him to the old role of cunning deception, which in the past had saved
+countless of his species from sudden and violent death. Now with teeth
+and paws he went diligently to work, urged on by the whines of his mate,
+that tantalizing smell of an outside world tickling their nostrils--a
+wild world, lacking the taint of man-places.
+
+He slipped under the loosened mesh and stood up to paw at the front of
+the female's cage. One forepaw caught in the latch and pressed it down,
+and the weight of the door swung against him. Together they were free
+now to reach the corridor and see ahead the subdued light of a strange
+moon beckoning them on into the open.
+
+The female, always more cautious than her mate, lingered behind as he
+trotted forward, his ears a-prick with curiosity. Their training had
+been the same since cubhood--to range and explore, but always in the
+company and at the order of man. This was not according to the pattern
+she knew, and she was suspicious. But to her sensitive nose the smell of
+the ship was an offense, and the puffs of breeze from without enticing.
+Her mate had already slipped through the break; now he barked with
+excitement and wonder, and she trotted on to join him.
+
+Above, the Redax, which had never been intended to stand rough usage,
+proved to be a better survivor of the crash than most of the other
+installations. Power purred along a network of lines, activated beams,
+turned off and on a series of fixtures in those coffin-beds. For five of
+the sleepers--nothing. The cabin which had held them was a flattened
+smear against the mountain side. Three more half aroused, choked, fought
+for life and breath in a darkness which was a mercifully short
+nightmare, and succumbed.
+
+But in the cabin nearest the rent through which the coyotes had escaped,
+a young man sat up abruptly, looking into the dark with wide-open,
+terror-haunted eyes. He clawed for purchase against the smooth edge of
+the box in which he had lain, somehow got to his knees, weaving weakly
+back and forth, and half fell, half pushed to the floor where he could
+stand only by keeping his hold on the box.
+
+Dazed, sick, weak, he swayed there, aware only of himself and his own
+sensations. There were small sounds in the dark, a stilled moan, a
+gasping sigh. But that meant nothing. Within him grew a compulsion to be
+out of this place, his terror making him lurch forward.
+
+His flailing hand rapped painfully against an upright surface which his
+questing fingers identified hazily as an exit. Unconsciously he fumbled
+along the surface of the door until it gave under that weak pressure.
+Then he was out, his head swimming, drawn by the light behind the wall
+rent.
+
+He progressed toward that in a scrambling crawl, making his way over the
+splintered skin of the globe. Then he dropped with a jarring thud onto
+the mound of earth the ship had pushed before it during its downward
+slide. Limply he tumbled on in a small cascade of clods and sand,
+hitting against a less movable rock with force enough to roll him over
+on his back and stun him again.
+
+The second and smaller moon of Topaz swung brightly through the sky, its
+weird green rays making the blood-streaked face of the explorer an alien
+mask. It had passed well on to the horizon, and its large yellow
+companion had risen when a yapping broke the small sounds of the night.
+
+As the _yipp, yipp, yipp_ arose in a crescendo, the man stirred, putting
+one hand to his head. His eyes opened, he looked vaguely about him and
+sat up. Behind him was the torn and ripped ship, but he did not look
+back at it.
+
+Instead, he got to his feet and staggered out into the direct path of
+the moonlight. Inside his brain there was a whirl of thoughts, memories,
+emotions. Perhaps Ruthven or one of his assistants could have explained
+that chaotic mixture for what it was. But for all practical purposes
+Travis Fox--Amerindian Time Agent, member of Team A, Operation
+Cochise--was far less of a thinking animal now than the two coyotes
+paying their ritual addresses to a moon which was not the one of their
+vanished homeland.
+
+Travis wavered on, drawn somehow by that howling. It was familiar, a
+thread of something real through all the broken clutter in his head. He
+stumbled, fell, crawled up again, but he kept on.
+
+Above, the female coyote lowered her head, drew a test sniff of a new
+scent. She recognized that as part of the proper way of life. She yapped
+once at her mate, but he was absorbed in his night song, his muzzle
+pointed moonward as he voiced a fine wailing.
+
+Travis tripped, pitched forward on his hands and knees, and felt the jar
+of such a landing shoot up his stiffened forearms. He tried to get up,
+but his body only twisted, so he landed on his back and lay looking up
+at the moon.
+
+A strong, familiar odor ... then a shadow looming above him. Hot breath
+against his cheek, and the swift sweep of an animal tongue on his face.
+He flung up his hand, gripped thick fur, and held on as if he had found
+one anchor of sanity in a world gone completely mad.
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+Travis, one knee braced against the red earth, blinked as he parted a
+screen of tall rust-brown grass with cautious fingers to look out into a
+valley where golden mist clouded most of the landscape. His head ached
+with dull persistence, the pain fostered in some way by his own
+bewilderment. To study the land ahead was like trying to see through one
+picture interposed over another and far different one. He knew what
+ought to be there, but what was before him was very dissimilar.
+
+A buff-gray shape flitted through the tall cover grass, and Travis
+tensed. _Mba'a_--coyote? Or were these companions of his actually
+_ga-n_, spirits who could choose their shape at will and had, oddly,
+this time assumed the bodies of man's tricky enemy? Were they
+_ndendai_--enemies--or _dalaanbiyat'i_, allies? In this mad world he did
+not know.
+
+_Ei'dik'e?_ His mind formed a word he did not speak: Friend?
+
+Yellow eyes met his directly. Dimly he had been aware, ever since
+awaking in this strange wilderness with the coming of morning light,
+that the four-footed ones trotting with him as he walked aimlessly had
+unbeastlike traits. Not only did they face him eye-to-eye, but in some
+ways they appeared able to read his thoughts.
+
+He had longed for water to ease the burning in his throat, the
+ever-present pain in his head, and the creatures had nudged him in
+another direction, bringing him to a pool where he had mouthed liquid
+with a strange sweet, but not unpleasant taste.
+
+Now he had given them names, names which had come out of the welter of
+dreams which shadowed his stumbling journey across this weird country.
+
+Nalik'ideyu (Maiden-Who-Walks-Ridges) was the female who continued to
+shepherd him along, never venturing too far from his side. Naginlta
+(He-Who-Scouts-Ahead) was the male who did just that, disappearing at
+long intervals and then returning to face the man and his mate as if
+conveying some report necessary to their journey.
+
+It was Nalik'ideyu who sought out Travis now, her red tongue lolling
+from her mouth as she panted. Not from exertion, he was certain of that.
+No, she was excited and eager ... on the hunt! That was it--a hunt!
+
+Travis' own tongue ran across his lips as an impression hit him with
+feral force. There was meat--rich, fresh--just ahead. Meat that lived,
+waiting to be killed. Inside him his own avid hunger roused, shaking him
+farther out of the crusting dream.
+
+His hands went to his waist, but the groping fingers did not find what
+vague memory told him should be there--a belt, heavy with knife in
+sheath.
+
+He examined his own body with attention to find he was adequately
+covered by breeches of a smooth, dull brown material which blended well
+with the vegetation about him. He wore a loose shirt, belted in at the
+narrow waist by a folded strip of cloth, the ends of which fluttered
+free. On his feet were tall moccasins, the leg pieces extending some
+distance up his calves, the toes turned up in rounded points.
+
+Some of this he found familiar, but these were fragments of memory;
+again his mind fitted one picture above another. One thing he did know
+for sure--he had no weapons. And that realization struck home with a
+thrust of real and terrible fear which tore away more of the
+bewilderment cloaking his mind.
+
+Nalik'ideyu was impatient. Having advanced a step or two, she now looked
+back at him over her shoulder, yellow eyes slitted, her demand on him as
+instant and real as if she had voiced understandable words. Meat was
+waiting, and she was hungry. Also she expected Travis to aid in the
+hunt--at once.
+
+Though he could not match her fluid grace in moving through the grass,
+Travis followed her, keeping to cover. He shook his head vigorously, in
+spite of the stab of pain the motion cost him, and paid more attention
+to his surroundings. It was apparent that the earth under him, the grass
+around, the valley of the golden haze, were all real, not part of a
+dream. Therefore that other countryside which he kept seeing in a
+ghostly fashion was a hallucination.
+
+Even the air which he drew into his lungs and expelled again, had a
+strange smell, or was it taste? He could not be sure which. He knew that
+hypno-training could produce queer side effects, but ... this....
+
+Travis paused, staring unseeingly before him at the grass still waving
+from the coyote's passage. Hypno-training! What was that? Now three
+pictures fought to focus in his mind: the two landscapes which did not
+match and a shadowy third. He shook his head again, his hands to his
+temples. This--this only was real: the ground, the grass, the valley,
+the hunger in him, the hunt waiting....
+
+He forced himself to concentrate on the immediate present and the
+portion of world he could see, feel, scent, which lay here and now about
+him.
+
+The grass grew shorter as he proceeded in Nalik'ideyu's wake. But the
+haze was not thinning. It seemed to hang in patches, and when he
+ventured through the edge of a patch it was like creeping through a fog
+of golden, dancing motes with here and there a glittering speck whirling
+and darting like a living thing. Masked by the stuff, Travis reached a
+line of brush and sniffed.
+
+It was a warm scent, a heavy odor he could not identify and yet one he
+associated with a living creature. Flat to earth, he pushed head and
+shoulders under the low limbs of the bush to look ahead.
+
+Here was a space where the fog did not hold, a pocket of earth clear
+under the morning sun. And grazing there were three animals. Again shock
+cleared a portion of Travis' bemused brain.
+
+They were about the size, he thought, of antelopes, and they had a
+general resemblance to those beasts in that they had four slender legs,
+a rounded body, and a head. But they had alien features, so alien as to
+hold him in open-mouthed amazement.
+
+The bodies had bare spots here and there, and patches of creamy--fur? Or
+was it hair which hung in strips, as if the creatures had been partially
+plucked in a careless fashion? The necks were long and moved about in a
+serpentine motion, as though their spines were as limber as reptiles'.
+On the end of those long and twisting necks were heads which also
+appeared more suitable to another species--broad, rather flat, with a
+singular toadlike look--but furnished with horns set halfway down the
+nose, horns which began in a single root and then branched into two
+sharp points.
+
+They were unearthly! Again Travis blinked, brought his hand up to his
+head as he continued to view the browsers. There were three of them: two
+larger and with horns, the other a smaller beast with less of the ragged
+fur and only the beginning button of a protuberance on the nose; it was
+probably a calf.
+
+One of those mental alerts from the coyotes broke his absorption.
+Nalik'ideyu was not interested in the odd appearance of the grazing
+creatures; she was intent upon their usefulness in another way--as a
+full and satisfying meal--and she was again impatient with him for his
+dull response.
+
+His examination took a more practical turn. An antelope's defense was
+speed, though it could be tricked into hunting range through its
+inordinate curiosity. The slender legs of these beasts suggested a like
+degree of speed, and Travis had no weapons at all.
+
+Those nose horns had an ugly look; this thing might be a fighter rather
+than a runner. But the suggestion which had flashed from coyote to him
+had taken root. Travis was hungry, he was a hunter, and here was meat on
+the hoof, queer as it looked.
+
+Again he received a message. Naginlta was on the opposite side of the
+clearing. If the creatures depended on speed, then Travis believed they
+could probably outrun not only him but the coyotes as well--which left
+cunning and some sort of plan.
+
+Travis glanced at the cover where he knew Nalik'ideyu crouched and from
+which had come that flash of agreement. He shivered. These were truly no
+animals, but _ga-n_, _ga-n_ of power! And as _ga-n_ he must treat them,
+accede to their will. Spurred by that, the Apache gave only flicks of
+attention to the browsers while at the same time he studied the part of
+the landscape uncovered by mist.
+
+Without weapons or speed, they must conceive a trap. Again Travis sensed
+that agreement which was _ga-n_ magic, and with it the strong impression
+urging him to the right. He was making progress with skill he did not
+even recognize and which he had never been conscious of learning.
+
+The bushes and small, droop-limbed trees, their branches not clothed
+with leaves from proper twigs but with a reddish bristly growth
+protruding directly from their surfaces, made a partial wall for the
+pocket-sized meadow. That screen reached a rocky cleft where the mist
+curled in a long tongue through a wall twice Travis' height. If the
+browsers could be maneuvered into taking the path through that cleft....
+
+Travis searched about him, and his hands closed upon the oldest weapon
+of his species, a stone pulled from an earth pocket and balanced neatly
+in the palm of his hand. It was a long chance but his best one.
+
+The Apache took the first step on a new and fearsome road. These _ga-n_
+had put their thoughts--or their desires--into his mind. Could he so
+contact them in return?
+
+With the stone clenched in his fist, his shoulders back against the wall
+not too far from the cleft opening, Travis strove to think out, clearly
+and simply, this poor plan of his. He did not know that he was reacting
+the way scientists deep space away had hoped he might. Nor did Travis
+guess that at this point he had already traveled far beyond the
+expectations of the men who had bred and trained the two mutant coyotes.
+He only believed that this might be the one way he could obey the wishes
+of the two spirits he thought far more powerful than any man. So he
+pictured in his mind the cleft, the running creatures, and the part the
+_ga-n_ could play if they so willed.
+
+Assent--in its way as loud and clear as if shouted. The man fingered the
+stone, weighed it. There would probably be just one moment when he could
+use it to effect, and he must be ready.
+
+From this point he could no longer see the small meadow where the
+grazers were. But Travis knew, as well as if he watched the scene, that
+the coyotes were creeping in, belly flat to earth, adding a feline
+stealth and patience to their own cunning.
+
+There! Travis' head jerked, the alert had come, the drive was beginning.
+He tensed, gripping his stone.
+
+A yapping bark was answered by a sound he could not describe, a noise
+which was neither cough nor grunt but a combination of both. Again a
+yap-yap....
+
+A toad-head burst through the screen of brush, the double horn on its
+nose festooned with a length of grass torn up by the roots. Wide
+eyes--milky and seeming to be without pupils--fastened on Travis, but he
+could not be sure the thing saw him, for it kept on, picking up speed
+as it approached the cleft. Behind it ran the calf, and that guttural
+cry was bubbling from its broad flat lips.
+
+The long neck of the adult writhed, the frog-head swung closer to the
+ground so that the twin points of the horn were at a slant--aimed now at
+Travis. He had been right in his guess at their deadliness, but he had
+only a fleeting chance to recognize that fact as the thing bore down,
+its whole attitude expressing the firm intention of goring him.
+
+He hurled his stone and then flung his body to one side, stumbling and
+rolling into the brush where he fought madly to regain his feet,
+expecting at any moment to feel trampling hoofs and thrusting horns.
+There was a crash to his right, and the bushes and grass were wildly
+shaken.
+
+On his hands and knees the Apache retreated, his head turned to watch
+behind him. He saw the flirt of a triangular flap-tail in the mouth of
+the cleft. The calf had escaped. And now the threshing in the bushes
+stilled.
+
+Was the thing stalking him? He got to his feet, for the first time
+hearing clearly the continued yapping, as if a battle was in progress.
+Then the second of the adult beasts came into view, backing and turning,
+trying to keep lowered head with menacing double horn always pointed to
+the coyotes dancing a teasing, worrying circle about it.
+
+One of the coyotes flung up its head, looked upslope, and barked. Then,
+as one, both rushed the fighting beast, but for the first time from the
+same side, leaving it a clear path to retreat. It made a rush before
+which they fled easily, and then it whirled with a speed and grace,
+which did not fit its ungainly, ill-proportioned body, and jumped
+toward the cleft, the coyotes making no effort to hinder its escape.
+
+Travis came out of cover, approaching the brush which had concealed the
+crash of the other animal. The actions of the coyotes had convinced him
+that there was no danger now; they would never have allowed the escape
+of their prey had the first beast not been in difficulties.
+
+His shot with the stone, the Apache decided as he stood moments later
+surveying the twitching crumpled body, must have hit the thing in the
+head, stunning it. Then the momentum of its charge had carried it full
+force against the rock to kill it. Blind luck--or the power of the
+_ga-n_? He pulled back as the coyotes came padding up shoulder to
+shoulder to inspect the kill. It was truly more theirs than his.
+
+Their prey yielded not only food but a weapon for Travis. Instead of the
+belt knife he had remembered having, he was now equipped with two. The
+double horn had been easy to free from the shattered skull, and some
+careful work with stones had broken off one prong at just the angle he
+wanted. So now he had a short and a longer tool, defense. At least they
+were better than the stone with which he had entered the hunt.
+
+Nalik'ideyu pushed past him to lap daintily at the water. Then she sat
+up on her haunches, watching Travis as he smoothed the horn with a
+stone.
+
+"A knife," he said to her, "this will be a knife. And--" he glanced up,
+measuring the value of the wood represented by trees and bushes--"then a
+bow. With a bow we shall hunt better."
+
+The coyote yawned, her yellow eyes half closed, her whole pose one of
+satisfaction and contentment.
+
+"A knife," Travis repeated, "and a bow." He needed weapons; he had to
+have them!
+
+Why? His hand stopped scraping. Why? The toad-faced double horn had been
+quick to attack, but Travis could have avoided it, and it had not hunted
+him first. Why was he ridden by this fear that he must not be unarmed?
+
+He dipped his hand into the pool of the spring and lifted the water to
+cool his sweating face. The coyote moved, turned around in the grass,
+crushing down the growth into a nest in which she curled up, head on
+paws. But Travis sat back on his heels, his now idle hands hanging down
+between his knees, and forced himself to the task of sorting out jumbled
+memories.
+
+This landscape was wrong--totally unlike what it should be--but it was
+real. He had helped kill this alien creature. He had eaten its meat,
+raw. Its horn lay within touch now. All that was real and unchangeable.
+Which meant that the rest of it, that other desert world in which he had
+wandered with his kind, ridden horses, raided invading men of another
+race, that was not real--or else far, far removed from where he now sat.
+
+Yet there had been no dividing line between those two worlds. One moment
+he had been in the desert place, returning from a successful foray
+against the Mexicans. Mexicans! Travis caught at that identification,
+tried to use it as a thread to draw closer to the beginning of his
+mystery.
+
+Mexicans.... And he was an Apache, one of the Eagle people, one who rode
+with Cochise. No!
+
+Sweat again beaded his face where the water had cooled it. He was not of
+that past. He was Travis Fox, of the very late twentieth century, not a
+nomad of the middle nineteenth! He was of Team A of the project!
+
+The Arizona desert and then this! From one to the other in an instant.
+He looked about him in rising fear. Wait! He had been in the dark when
+he got out of the desert, lying in a box. Getting out, he had crawled
+down a passage to reach moonlight, strange moonlight.
+
+A box in which he had lain, a passage with smooth metallic walls, and an
+alien world at the end of it.
+
+The coyote's ears twitched, her head came up, she was staring at the
+man's drawn face, at his eyes with their core of fear. She whined.
+
+Travis caught up the two pieces of horn, thrust them into his sash belt,
+and got to his feet. Nalik'ideyu sat up, her head cocked a little to one
+side. As the man turned to seek his own back trail she padded along in
+his wake and whined for Naginlta. But Travis was more intent now on what
+he must prove to himself than he was on the actions of the two animals.
+
+It was a wandering trail, and now he did not question his skill in being
+able to follow it so unerringly. The sun was hot. Winged things buzzed
+from the bushes, small scuttling things fled from him through the tall
+grass. Once Naginlta growled a warning which led them all to a detour,
+and Travis might not have picked up the proper trace again had not the
+coyote scout led him to it.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked once, and then guessed it would have better been
+said, "What are you?" These were not animals, or rather they were more
+than the animals he had always known. And one part of him, the part
+which remembered the desert rancherias where Cochise had ruled, said
+they were spirits. Yet that other part of him.... Travis shook his
+head, accepting them now for what they were--welcome company in an alien
+place.
+
+The day wore on close to sunset, and still Travis followed that
+wandering trail. The need which drove him kept him going through the
+rough country of hills and ravines. Now the mist lifted above towering
+walls of mountains very near him, yet not the mountains of his memory.
+These were dull brown, with a forbidding look, like sun-dried skulls
+baring teeth in warning against all comers.
+
+With great difficulty, Travis topped a rise. Ahead against the skyline
+stood both coyotes. And, as the man joined them, first one and then the
+other flung back its head and sounded the sobbing, shattering cry which
+had been a part of that other life.
+
+The Apache looked down. His puzzle was answered in part. The wreckage
+crumpled on the mountain side was identifiable--a spaceship! Cold fear
+gripped him and his own head went back; from between his tight lips came
+a cry as desolate and despairing as the one the animals had voiced.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+Fire, mankind's oldest ally, weapon, tool, leaped high before the naked
+stone of the mountain side. Men sat cross-legged about it, fifteen of
+them. And behind, guarded by the flames and that somber circle, were the
+women. There was a uniformity in this gathering. The members were
+plainly all of the same racial stock, of medium height, stocky yet fined
+down to the peak of stamina and endurance, their skin brown, their
+shoulder-length hair black. And they were all young--none over thirty,
+some still in their late teens. Alike, too, was a certain drawn look in
+their faces, a tenseness of the eyes and mouth as they listened to
+Travis.
+
+"So we must be on Topaz. Do any of you remember boarding the ship?"
+
+"No. Only that we awoke within it." Across the fire one chin lifted; the
+eyes which caught Travis' held a deep, smoldering anger. "This is more
+trickery of the Pinda-lick-o-yi, the White Eyes. Between us there has
+never been fair dealing. They have broken their promise as a man breaks
+a rotten stick, for their words are as rotten. And it was you, Fox, who
+brought us to listen to them."
+
+A stir about the circle, a murmur from the women.
+
+"And do I not also sit here with you in this strange wilderness?" he
+countered.
+
+"I do not understand," another of the men held out his hand, palm up, in
+a gesture of asking--"what has happened to us. We were in the old Apache
+world.... I, Jil-Lee, was riding with Cuchillo Negro as we went down to
+the taking of Ramos. And then I was here, in a broken ship and beside me
+a dead man who was once my brother. How did I come out of the past of
+our people into another world across the stars?"
+
+"Pinda-lick-o-yi tricks!" The first speaker spat into the fire.
+
+"It was the Redax, I think," Travis replied. "I heard Dr. Ashe discuss
+this. A new machine which could make a man remember not his own past,
+but the past of his ancestors. While we were on that ship we must have
+been under its influence, so we lived as our people lived a hundred
+years or more ago--"
+
+"And the purpose of such a thing?" Jil-Lee asked.
+
+"To make us more like our ancestors perhaps. It is part of what they
+told us at the project. To venture into these new worlds requires a
+different type of man than lives on Terra today. Traits we have
+forgotten are needed to face the dangers of wild places."
+
+"You, Fox, have been beyond the stars before, and you found there were
+such dangers to face?"
+
+"It is true. You have heard of the three worlds I saw when the ship from
+the old days took us off, unwilling, to the stars. Did you not all
+volunteer to pioneer in this manner so you could also see strange and
+new things?"
+
+"But we did not agree to be returned to the past in medicine dreams and
+be sent unknowingly into space!"
+
+Travis nodded. "Deklay is right. But I know no more than you why we were
+so sent, or why the ship crashed. We have found Dr. Ruthven's body in
+the cabin with that new installation. Only we have discovered nothing
+else which tells us why we were brought here. With the ship broken, we
+must stay."
+
+They were silent now, men and women alike. Behind them lay several days
+of activity, nights of exhausted slumber. Against the cliff wall lay the
+packs of supplies they had salvaged from the wreck. By mutual consent
+they had left the vicinity of the broken globe, following their old
+custom of speedily withdrawing from a place of death.
+
+"This is a world empty of men?" Jil-Lee wanted to know.
+
+"So far we have found only animal signs, and the _ga-n_ have not warned
+us of anything else----"
+
+"Those devil ones!" Again Deklay spat into the fire. "I say we should
+have no dealings with them. The _mba'a_ is no friend to the People."
+
+Again a murmur which seemed one of agreement answered that outburst.
+Travis stiffened. Just how much influence had the Redax had over them?
+He knew from his own experience that sometimes he had an odd double
+reaction--two different feelings which almost sickened him when they
+struck simultaneously. And he was beginning to suspect that with some of
+the others the return to the past had been far more deep and lasting.
+Now Jil-Lee was actually to reason out what had happened. While Deklay
+had reverted to an ancestor who had ridden with Victorio or Magnus
+Colorado! Travis had a flash of premonition, a chill which made him
+half foresee a time when the past and the present might well split them
+apart--fatally.
+
+"Devil or _ga-n_." A man with a quiet face, rather deeply sunken eyes,
+spoke for the first time. "We are in two minds because of this Redax, so
+let us not do anything in haste. Back in the desert world of the People
+I have seen the _mba'a_, and he was very clever. With the badger he went
+hunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the
+_mba'a_ wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those who
+would escape that way. Between him and the badger there was no war.
+These two who sit over yonder now--they are also hunters and they seem
+friendly to us. In a strange place a man needs all the help he can find.
+Let us not call names out of old tales, which may mean nothing in fact."
+
+"Buck speaks straightly," Jil-Lee agreed. "We seek a camp which can be
+defended. For perhaps there are men here whose hunting territory we have
+invaded, though we have not yet seen them. We are a people small in
+number and alone. Let us walk softly on trails which are strange to our
+feet."
+
+Inwardly Travis sighed in relief. Buck, Jil-Lee ... for the moment their
+sensible words appeared to swing the opinions of the party. If either of
+them could be established as _haldzil_, or clan leader, they would all
+be safer. He himself had no aspirations in that direction and dared not
+push too hard. It had been his initial urging which had brought them as
+volunteers into the project. Now he was doubly suspect, and especially
+by those who thought as Deklay, he was considered too alien to their old
+ways.
+
+So far their protests had been fewer than he anticipated. Although
+brothers and sisters had followed each other into the team after the
+immemorial desire of Apaches to cling to family ties, they were not a
+true clan with solidity of that to back them, but representatives of
+half a dozen.
+
+Basically, back on Terra, they had all been among the most progressive
+of their people--progressive, that is, in the white man's sense of the
+word. Travis had a fleeting recognition of his now oblique way of
+thinking. He, too, had been marked by the Redax. They had all been
+educated in the modern fashion and all possessed a spirit of adventure
+which marked them over their fellows. They had volunteered for the team
+and successfully passed the tests to weed out the temperamentally unfit
+or fainthearted. But all that was before Redax....
+
+Why had they been submitted to that? And why this flight? What had
+pushed Dr. Ashe and Murdock and Colonel Kelgarries, time agents he knew
+and trusted, into dispatching them without warning to Topaz? Something
+had happened, something which had given Dr. Ruthven ascendancy over
+those others and had started them on this wild trip.
+
+Travis was conscious of a stir about the firelit circle. The men were
+rising, moving back into the shadows, stretching out on the blankets
+they had found among other stores on the ship. They had discovered
+weapons there--knives, bows, quivers of arrows, all of which they had
+been trained to use in the intensive schooling of the project and which
+needed no more repair than they themselves could give. And the rations
+they carried were field supplies, few of them. Tomorrow they must begin
+hunting in earnest....
+
+"Why has this thing been done to us?" Buck was beside Travis, those
+quiet eyes sliding past him to seek the fire once more. "I do not think
+you were told when the rest of us were not----"
+
+Travis seized upon that. "There are those who say that I knew, agreed?"
+
+"That is so. Once we stood at the same place in time--in our thoughts,
+our desires. Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway,
+each at his own speed--a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon.
+Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a series
+of step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble--"
+
+"The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing of
+this, that I climb with you on these stairs."
+
+"So I believe. But there comes a time when it is best not to be a woman
+stirring a pot of boiling stew but rather one who stands quietly at a
+distance--"
+
+"You mean?" Travis pressed.
+
+"I say that alone among us you have crossed the stars before, therefore
+new things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout. Also the
+coyotes run in your footsteps, and you do not fear them."
+
+It made good sense. Let him scout ahead of the party, taking the coyotes
+with him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak small--until the
+people on Buck's stairway were more closely united.
+
+"I go in the morning," Travis agreed. He could slip away tonight, but
+just now he could not force himself away from the fire, from the
+companionship.
+
+"You might take Tsoay with you," Buck continued.
+
+Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one of
+the youngest of their group, Buck's own cross-cousin and near-brother.
+
+"It is well," Buck explained, "that we learn this land, and it has
+always been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of the
+older. Also, not only should trails be learned, but also men."
+
+Travis caught the thought behind that. Perhaps by taking the younger men
+as scouts, one after another, he could build up among them a following
+of sorts. Among the Apaches, leadership was wholly a matter of
+personality. Until the reservation days, chieftains had gained their
+position by force of character alone, though they might come
+successively from one family clan over several generations.
+
+He did not want the chieftainship here. No, but neither did he want
+growing whispers working about him to cut him off from his people. To
+every Apache severance from the clan was a little death. He must have
+those who would back him if Deklay, or those who thought like Deklay,
+turned grumbling into open hostility.
+
+"Tsoay is one quick to learn," Travis agreed. "We go at dawn--"
+
+"Along the mountain range?" Buck inquired.
+
+"If we seek a protected place for the rancheria, yes. The mountains have
+always provided good strongholds for the People."
+
+"And you think there is need for a fort?"
+
+Travis shrugged. "I have been one day's journey out into this world. I
+saw nothing but animals. But that is no promise that elsewhere there are
+no enemies. The planet was on the tapes we brought back from that other
+world, and so it was known to the others who once rode between star and
+star as we rode between ranch and town. If they had this world set on a
+journey tape, it was for a reason; that reason may still be in force."
+
+"Yet it was long ago that these star people rode so...." Buck mused.
+"Would the reason last so long?"
+
+Travis remembered two other worlds, one of weird desert inhabited by
+beast things--or had they once been human, human to the point of
+possessing intelligence?--that had come out of sand burrows at night to
+attack a spaceship. And the second world where the ruins of a giant city
+had stood choked with jungle vegetation, where he had made a blowgun
+from tubes of rustless metal as a weapon gift for small winged men--but
+were they men? Both had been remnants of that ancient galactic empire.
+
+"Some things could so remain," he answered soberly. "If we find them, we
+must be careful. But first a good site for the rancheria."
+
+"There is no return to home for us," Buck stated flatly.
+
+"Why do you say that? There could be a rescue ship later--"
+
+The other raised his eyes again to Travis. "When you slept under the
+Redax how did you ride?"
+
+"As a warrior--raiding ... living...."
+
+"And I--I was one with _go'ndi_," Buck returned simply.
+
+"But--"
+
+"But the white man has assured us that such power--the power of a
+chief--does not exist? Yes, the Pinda-lick-o-yi has told us so many
+things. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. And
+those who think in another fashion cannot be measured by his rules, so
+they are foolish dreamers. Not all white men think so. There was Dr.
+Ashe--he was beginning to understand a little.
+
+"Perhaps I, too, am standing still, halfway up the stairway of the past.
+But of this I am very sure: For us, there will be no return to our own
+place. And the time will come when something new shall grow from the
+seed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders of
+that growth. So I urge you, take Tsoay, and the next time, Lupe. For the
+young who may be swayed this way and that by words--as the wind shakes a
+small tree--must be given firm roots."
+
+In Travis education warred with instinct, just as the picture Redax had
+planted in his mind had warred with his awaking to this alien landscape.
+Yet now he believed he must be guided by what he felt. And he knew that
+no man of his race would claim _go'ndi_, the power of spirit known only
+to a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. It
+might have been fostered by hallucination in the past, but the aura of
+it carried into the here and now. And Travis had no doubts that Buck
+believed implicitly in what he said, and that belief carried credulity
+to others.
+
+"This is wisdom, _Nantan_--"
+
+Buck shook his head. "I am no _nantan_, no chief. But of some things I
+am sure. You also be sure of what lies within you, younger brother!"
+
+On the third day, ranging eastward along the base of the mountain range,
+Travis found what he believed would be an acceptable camp site. There
+was a canyon with a good spring of water cut round by well-marked game
+trails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrub
+wood could be used to build the wickiups. Water and food lay within
+reach, and the ledge approach was easy to defend. Even Deklay and his
+fellow malcontents were forced to concede the value of the site.
+
+His duty to the clan accomplished, Travis returned to his own concern,
+one which had haunted him for days. Topaz had been taped by men of the
+vanished star empire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? As
+yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence
+level of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed by
+the certainty that there _was_ something here, waiting.... And the
+desire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache.
+
+Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come to
+follow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis was
+content to scout with only the coyotes for company, and he did not find
+the loneliness of the unknown planet as intimidating as most of the
+others.
+
+He was checking his small trail pack on the fourth day after they had
+settled on the plateau when Buck and Jil-Lee hunkered down beside him.
+
+"You go to hunt--?" Buck broke the silence first.
+
+"Not for meat."
+
+"What do you fear? That _ndendai_--enemy people--have marked this as
+their land?" Jil-Lee questioned.
+
+"That may be true, but now I hunt for what this world was at one time,
+the reason why the ancient star men marked it as their own."
+
+"And this knowledge may be of value to us?" Jil-Lee asked slowly. "Will
+it bring food to our mouths, shelter for our bodies--mean life for us?"
+
+"All that is possible. It is the unknowing which is bad."
+
+"True. Unknowing is always bad," Buck agreed. "But the bow which is
+fitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to another.
+Remember that, younger brother. Also, do you go alone?"
+
+"With Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu I am not alone."
+
+"Take Tsoay with you also. The four-footed ones are indeed _ga-n_ for
+the service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alone
+from his kind."
+
+There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did not
+always share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. On
+other scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the country and a
+liking for experimentation which was not a universal attribute even
+among those of his own age.
+
+"I would go to find a path through the mountains; it may be a long
+trail," Travis half protested.
+
+"You believe what you seek may lie to the north?"
+
+Travis shrugged. "I do not know. How can I? But it will be another way
+of seeking."
+
+"Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper for
+the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours," Buck replied. "It
+is in him also, this need to see new places."
+
+"There is this," Jil-Lee got to his feet, "--do not go so far, brother,
+that you may not easily find a way to return. This is a wide land, and
+within it we are but a handful of men alone----"
+
+"That, too, I know." Travis thought he could read more than one kind of
+warning in Jil-Lee's words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were the second day away from the plateau camp, and climbing, when
+they chanced upon the pass Travis had hoped might exist. Before them lay
+an abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked in
+a dusky amber Travis now knew was the thick grass found in the southern
+valleys. Tsoay pointed with his chin.
+
+"Wide land--good for horses, cattle, ranches...."
+
+But all those lay far beyond the black space surrounding them. Travis
+wondered if there was any native animal which could serve man in place
+of the horse.
+
+"Do we go down?" Tsoay asked.
+
+From this point Travis could sight no break far out on the amber plain,
+no sign of any building or any disturbance of its smooth emptiness. Yet
+it drew him. "We go," he decided.
+
+Close as it had looked from the pass, the plain was yet a day and a
+night, spent in careful watching by turns, ahead of them. It was
+midmorning of the second day that they left the foothill breaks, and the
+grass of the open country was waist high about them. Travis could see it
+rippling where the coyotes threaded ahead. Then he was conscious of a
+persistent buzzing, a noise which irritated faintly until he was
+compelled to trace it to its source.
+
+The grass had been trampled flat for an irregular patch, with a trail
+of broken stalks out of the heart of the plain. At one side was a
+buzzing, seething mass of glitter-winged insects which Travis already
+knew as carrion eaters. They arose reluctantly from their feast as he
+approached.
+
+He drew a short breath which was close to a grunt of astounded
+recognition. What lay there was so impossible that he could not believe
+the evidence of his eyes. Tsoay gave a sharp exclamation, went down on
+one knee for a closer examination, then looked at Travis over his
+shoulder, his eyes wide, more than a trace of excitement in his voice.
+
+"Horse dung--and fresh!"
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+"There was one horse, unshod but ridden. It came here from the plains
+and it had been ridden hard, going lame. There was a rest here, maybe
+shortly after dawn." Travis sorted out what they had learned by a
+careful examination of the ground.
+
+Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta, Tsoay, watched and listened as if the coyotes
+as well as the boy could understand every word.
+
+"There is that also--" Tsoay indicated the one trace left by the unknown
+rider, an impression blurred as if some attempt had been made to conceal
+it.
+
+"Small and light, the rider is both. Also in fear, I think--"
+
+"We follow?" Tsoay asked.
+
+"We follow," Travis assented. He looked to the coyotes, and as he had
+learned to do, thought out his message. This trail was the one to be
+followed. When the rider was sighted they were to report back if the
+Apaches had not yet caught up.
+
+There was no visible agreement; the coyotes simply vanished through the
+wall of grass.
+
+"Then there are others here," Tsoay said as he and Travis began their
+return to the foothills. "Perhaps there was a second ship--"
+
+"That horse," Travis said, shaking his head. "There was no provision in
+the project for the shipping of horses."
+
+"Perhaps they have always been here."
+
+"Not so. To each world its own species of beasts. But we shall know the
+truth when we look upon that horse--and its rider."
+
+It was warmer this side of the mountains, and the heat of the plains
+beat at them. Travis thought that the horse might well be seeking water
+if allowed his head. Where did he come from? And why had his rider gone
+in haste and fear?
+
+This was rough, broken country and the tired, limping horse seemed to
+have picked the easiest way through it, without any hindrance from the
+man with him. Travis spotted a soft patch of ground with a deep-set
+impression. This time there had been no attempt at erasure; the boot
+track was plain. The rider had dismounted and was leading the horse--yet
+he was moving swiftly.
+
+They followed the tracks around the bend of a shallow cut and found
+Nalik'ideyu waiting for them. Between her forefeet was a bundle still
+covered with smears of soft earth, and behind her were drag marks from a
+hole under the overhang of a bush. The coyote had plainly just
+disinterred her find. Travis squatted down to examine it, using his eyes
+before his hands.
+
+It was a bag made of hide, probably the hide of one of the split horns
+by its color and the scraps of long hair which had been left in a
+simple decorative fringe along the bottom. The sides had been laced
+together neatly by someone used to working in leather, the closing flap
+lashed down tightly with braided thong loops.
+
+As the Apache leaned closer to it he could smell a mixture of odors--the
+hide itself, horse, wood smoke, and other scents--strange to him. He
+undid the fastenings and pulled out the contents.
+
+There was a shirt, with long full sleeves, of a gray wool undyed from
+the sheep. Then a very bulky short jacket which, after fingering it
+doubtfully, Travis decided was made of felt. It was elaborately
+decorated with highly colorful embroidery, and there was no mistaking
+the design--a heavy antlered Terran deer in mortal combat with what
+might be a puma. It was bordered with a geometric pattern of beautiful,
+oddly familiar work. Travis smoothed it flat over his knee and tried to
+remember where he had seen its like before ... a book! An illustration
+in a book! But which book, when? Not recently, and it was not a pattern
+known to his own people.
+
+Twisted into the interior of the jacket was a silklike scarf, clear,
+light blue--the blue of Terra's cloudless skies on certain days, so
+different from the yellow shield now hanging above them. A small case of
+leather, with silhouetted designs cut from hide and affixed to it,
+designs as intricate and complex as the embroidery on the jacket--art of
+a high standard. In the case a knife and spoon, the bowl and blade of
+dull metal, the handles of horn carved with horse heads, the tiny
+wide-open eyes set with glittering stones.
+
+Personal possessions dear to the owner, so that when they must be
+abandoned for flight they were hidden with some hope of recovery. Travis
+slowly repacked them, trying to fold the garments into their original
+creases. He was still puzzled by those designs.
+
+"Who?" Tsoay touched the edge of the jacket with one finger, his
+admiration for it plain to read.
+
+"I don't know. But it is of our own world."
+
+"That is a deer, though the horns are wrong," Tsoay agreed. "And the
+puma is very well done. The one who made this knows animals well."
+
+Travis pushed the jacket back into the bag and laced it shut. But he did
+not return it to the hiding place. Instead, he made it a part of his own
+pack. If they did not succeed in running down the fugitive, he wanted an
+opportunity for closer study, a chance to remember just where he had
+seen that picture before.
+
+The narrow valley where they had discovered the bag sloped upward, and
+there were signs that their quarry found the ground harder to cover. The
+second discard lay in open sight--again a leather bag which Nalik'ideyu
+sniffed and then began to lick eagerly, thrusting her nose into its
+flaccid interior.
+
+Travis picked it up, finding it damp to the touch. It had an odd smell,
+like that of sour milk. He ran a finger around inside, brought it out
+wet; yet this was neither water bag nor canteen. And he was completely
+mystified when he turned it inside out, for though the inner surface was
+wet, the bag was empty. He offered it to the coyote, and she took it
+promptly.
+
+Holding it firmly to the earth with her forepaws, she licked the
+surface, though Travis could see no deposit which might attract her. It
+was clear that the bag had once held some sort of food.
+
+"Here they rested," Tsoay said. "Not too far ahead now--"
+
+But now they were in the kind of country where a man could hide in order
+to check on his back trail. Travis studied the terrain and then made his
+own plans. They would leave the plainly marked trace of the fugitive,
+strike out upslope to the east and try to parallel the other's route. In
+that maze of rock outcrops and wood copses there was tricky going.
+
+Nalik'ideyu gave a last lick to the bag as Travis signaled her. She
+regarded him, then turned her head to survey the country before them. At
+last she trotted on, her buff coat melting into the vegetation. With
+Naginlta she would scout the quarry and keep watch, leaving the men to
+take the longer way around.
+
+Travis pulled off his shirt, folding it into a packet and tucking it
+beneath the folds of his sash-belt, just as his ancestors had always
+done before a fight. Then he cached his pack and Tsoay's. As they began
+the stiff climb they carried only their bows, the quivers slung on their
+shoulders, and the long-bladed knives. But they flitted like shadows
+and, like the coyotes, their red-brown bodies became indistinguishable
+against the bronze of the land.
+
+They should be, Travis judged, not more than an hour away from sundown.
+And they had to locate the stranger before the dark closed in. His
+respect for their quarry had grown. The unknown might have been driven
+by fear, but he held to a good pace and headed intelligently for just
+the kind of country which would serve him best. If Travis could only
+remember where he had seen the like of that embroidery! It had a
+meaning which might be important now....
+
+Tsoay slipped behind a wind-gnarled tree and disappeared. Travis stooped
+under a line of bush limbs. Both were working their way south, using the
+peak ahead as an agreed landmark, pausing at intervals to examine the
+landscape for any hint of a man and horse.
+
+Travis squirmed snake fashion into an opening between two rock pillars
+and lay there, the westering sun hot on his bare shoulders and back, his
+chin propped on his forearm. In the band holding back his hair he had
+inserted some concealing tufts of wiry mountain grass, the ends of which
+drooped over his rugged features.
+
+Only seconds earlier he had caught that fragmentary warning from one of
+the coyotes. What they sought was very close, it was right down there.
+Both animals were in ambush, awaiting orders. And what they found was
+familiar, another confirmation that the fugitive was Terran, not native
+to Topaz.
+
+With searching eyes, Travis examined the site indicated by the coyotes.
+His respect for the stranger was raised another notch. In time either he
+or Tsoay might have sighted that hideaway without the aid of the animal
+scouts; on the other hand, they might have failed. For the fugitive had
+truly gone to earth, using some pocket or crevice in the mountain wall.
+
+There was no sign of the horse, but a branch here and there had been
+pulled out of place, the scars of their removal readable when one knew
+where to look. Odd, Travis began to puzzle over what he saw. It was
+almost as if whatever pursuit the stranger feared would come not at
+ground level but from above; the precautions the stranger had taken were
+to veil his retreat to the reaches of the mountain side.
+
+Had he expected any trailer to make a flanking move from up that slope
+where the Apaches now lay? Travis' teeth nipped the weathered skin of
+his forearm. Could it be that at some time during the day's journeying
+the fugitive had doubled back, having seen his trackers? But there had
+been no traces of any such scouting, and the coyotes would surely have
+warned them. Human eyes and ears could be tricked, but Travis trusted
+the senses of Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu far above his own.
+
+No, he did not believe that the rider expected the Apaches. But the man
+did expect someone or something which would come upon him from the
+heights. The heights.... Travis rolled his head slightly to look at the
+upper reaches of the hills about him--with suspicion.
+
+In their own journey across the mountains and through the pass they had
+found nothing threatening. Dangerous animals might roam there. There had
+been some paw marks, one such trail the coyotes had warned against. But
+the type of precautions the stranger had taken were against intelligent,
+thinking beings, not against animals more likely to track by scent than
+by sight.
+
+And if the stranger expected an attack from above, then Travis and Tsoay
+must be alert. Travis analyzed each feature of the hillside, setting in
+his mind a picture of every inch of ground they must cross. Just as he
+had wanted daylight as an ally before, so now was he willing to wait for
+the shadows of twilight.
+
+He closed his eyes in a final check, able to recall the details of the
+hiding place, knowing that he could reach it when the conditions
+favored, without mistake. Then he edged back from his vantage point, and
+raising his fingers to his lips, made a small angry chittering, three
+times repeated. One of the species inhabiting these heights, as they had
+noted earlier, was a creature about as big as the palm of a man's hand,
+resembling nothing so much as a round ball of ruffled feathers, though
+its covering might actually have been a silky, fluffy fur. Its short
+legs could cover ground at an amazing speed, and it had the bold
+impudence of a creature with few natural enemies. This was its usual
+cry.
+
+Tsoay's hand waved Travis on to where the younger man had taken position
+behind the bleached trunk of a fallen tree.
+
+"He hides," Tsoay whispered.
+
+"Against trouble from above." Travis added his own observation.
+
+"But not us, I think."
+
+So Tsoay had come to that conclusion too? Travis tried to gauge the
+nearness of twilight. There was a period after the passing of Topaz' sun
+when the dusky light played odd tricks with shadows. That would be the
+first time for their move. He said as much, and Tsoay nodded eagerly.
+They sat with their backs to a boulder, the tree trunk serving as a
+screen, and chewed methodically on ration tablets. There was energy and
+sustenance in the tasteless squares which would support men, even though
+their stomachs continued to demand the satisfaction of fresh meat.
+
+Taking turns, they dozed a little. But the last banners of Topaz' sun
+were still in the sky when Travis judged the shadows cover enough. He
+had no way of knowing how the stranger was armed. Though he used a horse
+for transportation, he might well carry a rifle and the most modern
+Terran sidearms.
+
+The Apaches' bows were little use for infighting, but they had their
+knives. However, Travis wanted to take the fugitive unharmed if he
+could. There was information he must have. So he did not even draw his
+knife as he started downhill.
+
+When he reached a pool of violet dusk at the bottom of the small ravine
+Naginlta's eyes regarded him knowingly. Travis signaled with his hand
+and thought out what would be the coyotes' part in this surprise attack.
+The prick-eared silhouette vanished. Uphill the chitter of a fluff-fur
+sounded twice--Tsoay was in position.
+
+A howl ... wailing ... sobbing ... was heard, one of the keening songs
+of the _mba'a_. Travis darted forward. He heard the nicker of a
+frightened horse, a clicking which could have marked the pawing of hoof
+on gravel, saw the brush hiding the stranger's hole tremble, a portion
+of it fall away.
+
+Travis sped on, his moccasins making no sound on the ground. One of the
+coyotes gave tongue for the second time, the eerie wailing rising to a
+yapping which echoed from the rocks about them. Travis poised for a
+dive.
+
+Another section of those artfully heaped branches had given way and a
+horse reared, its upflung head plainly marked against the sky. A blurred
+figure weaved back and forth before it, trying to control the mount. The
+stranger had his hands full, certainly no weapon drawn--this was it!
+
+Travis leaped. His hands found their mark, the shoulders of the
+stranger. There was a shrill cry from the other as he tried to turn in
+the Apache's hold, to face his attacker. But Travis bore them both on,
+rolling almost under the feet of the horse, sliding downhill, the
+unknown's writhing body pinned down by the Apache's weight and his
+clasp, tight as an iron grip, about the other's chest and upper arms.
+
+He felt his opponent go limp, but was suspicious enough not to release
+that hold, for the heavy breathing of the stranger was not that of an
+unconscious man. They lay so, the unknown still tight in Travis' hold
+but no longer fighting. The Apache could hear Tsoay soothing the horse
+with the purring words of a practiced horseman.
+
+Still the stranger did not resume the struggle. They could not lie in
+this position all night, Travis thought with a wry twist of amusement.
+He shifted his hold, and got the lightning-quick response he had
+expected. But it was not quite quick enough, for Travis had the other's
+hands behind his back, cupping slender, almost delicate wrists together.
+
+"Throw me a cord!" he called to Tsoay.
+
+The younger man ran up with an extra bow cord, and in a moment they had
+bonds on the struggling captive. Travis rolled their catch over,
+reaching down for a fistful of hair to pull the head into a patch of
+clearer light.
+
+In his grasp that hair came loose, a braid unwinding. He grunted as he
+looked down into the stranger's face. Dust marks were streaked now with
+tear runnels, but the gray eyes which turned fiercely on him said that
+their owner cried more in rage than fear.
+
+His captive might be wearing long trousers tucked into curved, toed
+boots, and a loose overblouse, but she was certainly not only a woman,
+but a very young and attractive one. Also, at the present moment, an
+exceedingly angry one. And behind that anger was fear, the fear of one
+fighting hopelessly against insurmountable odds. But as she eyed Travis
+now her expression changed.
+
+He felt she had expected another captor altogether and was astounded at
+the sight of him. Her tongue touched her lips, moistening them, and now
+the fear in her was another kind--the wary fear of one facing a totally
+new and perhaps dangerous thing.
+
+"Who are you?" Travis spoke in English, for he had no doubts that she
+was Terran.
+
+Now she sucked in her breath with a gasp of pure astonishment.
+
+"Who are _you_?" she parroted his question in a marked accent. English
+was not her native tongue, he was sure.
+
+Travis reached out, and again his hands closed on her shoulders. She
+started to twist and then realized he was merely pulling her up to a
+sitting position. Some of the fear had left her eyes, an intent interest
+taking its place.
+
+"You are not Sons of the Blue Wolf," she stated in her heavily accented
+speech.
+
+Travis smiled. "I am the Fox, not the Wolf," he returned. "And the
+Coyote is my brother." He snapped his fingers at the shadows, and the
+two animals came noiselessly into sight. Her gaze widened even more at
+Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu, and she deduced the bond which must exist
+between her captor and the beasts.
+
+"This woman is also of our world." Tsoay spoke in Apache, looking over
+their prisoner with frank interest. "Only she is not of the People."
+
+Sons of the Blue Wolf? Travis thought again of the embroidery designs on
+the jacket. Who had called themselves by that picturesque
+title--where--and when in time?
+
+"What do you fear, Daughter of the Blue Wolf?" he asked.
+
+And with that question he seemed to touch some button activating terror.
+She flung back her head so that she could see the darkening sky.
+
+"The flyer!" Her voice was muted as if more than a whisper would carry
+to the stars just coming into brilliance above them. "They will come ...
+tracking. I did not reach the inner mountains in time."
+
+There was a despairing note in that which cut through to Travis, who
+found that he, too, was searching the sky, not knowing what he looked
+for or what kind of menace it promised, only that it was real danger.
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+"The night comes," Tsoay spoke slowly in English. "Do these you fear
+hunt in the dark?"
+
+She shook her head to free her forehead from a coil of braid, pulled
+loose in her struggle with Travis.
+
+"They do not need eyes or such noses as those four-footed hunters of
+yours. They have a machine to track--"
+
+"Then what purpose is this brush pile of yours?" Travis raised his chin
+at the disturbed hiding place.
+
+"They do not constantly use the machine, and one can hope. But at night
+they can ride on its beam. We are not far enough into the hills to lose
+them. Bahatur went lame, and so I was slowed...."
+
+"And what lies in these mountains that those you fear dare not invade
+them?" Travis continued.
+
+"I do not know, save if one can climb far enough inside, one is safe
+from pursuit."
+
+"I ask it again: Who are you?" The Apache leaned forward, his face in
+the fast-fading light now only inches away from hers. She did not shrink
+from his close scrutiny but met him eye to eye. This was a woman of
+proud independence, truly a chief's daughter, Travis decided.
+
+"I am of the People of the Blue Wolf. We were brought across the star
+lanes to make this world safe for ... for ... the...." She hesitated,
+and now there was a shade of puzzlement on her face. "There is a
+reason--a dream. No, there is the dream and there is reality. I am
+Kaydessa of the Golden Horde, but sometimes I remember other
+things--like this speech of strange words I am mouthing now----"
+
+"The Golden Horde!" Travis knew now. The embroidery, Sons of the Blue
+Wolf, all fitted into a special pattern. But what a pattern! Scythian
+art, the ornament that the warriors of Genghis Khan bore so proudly.
+Tatars, Mongols--the barbarians who had swept from the fastness of the
+steppes to change the course of history, not only in Asia but across the
+plains of middle Europe. The men of the Emperor Khans who had ridden
+behind the yak-tailed standards of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan,
+Tamerlane--!
+
+"The Golden Horde," Travis repeated once again. "That lies far back in
+the history of another world, Wolf Daughter."
+
+She stared at him, a queer, lost expression on her dust-grimed face.
+
+"I know." Her voice was so muted he could hardly distinguish the words.
+"My people live in two times, and many do not realize that."
+
+Tsoay had crouched down beside them to listen. Now he put out his hand,
+touching Travis' shoulder.
+
+"Redax?"
+
+"Or its like." For Travis was sure of one point. The project, which had
+been training three teams for space colonization--one of Eskimos, one of
+Pacific Islanders, and one of his own Apaches--had no reason or chance
+to select Mongols from the wild past of the raiding Hordes. There was
+only one nation on Terra which could have picked such colonists.
+
+"You are Russian." He studied her carefully, intent on noting the effect
+of his words.
+
+But she did not lose that lost look. "Russian ... Russian ..." she
+repeated, as if the very word was strange.
+
+Travis was alarmed. Any Russian colony planted here could well possess
+technicians with machines capable of tracking a fugitive, and if
+mountain heights were protection against such a hunt, he intended to
+gain them, even by night traveling. He said this to Tsoay, and the other
+emphatically agreed.
+
+"The horse is too lame to go on," the younger man reported.
+
+Travis hesitated for a long second. Since the time they had stolen their
+first mounts from the encroaching Spanish, horses had always been wealth
+to his people. To leave an animal which could well serve the clan was
+not right. But they dared not waste time with a lame beast.
+
+"Leave it here, free," he ordered.
+
+"And the woman?"
+
+"She goes with us. We must learn all we can of these people and what
+they do here. Listen, Wolf Daughter," again Travis leaned close to make
+sure she was listening to him as he spoke with emphasis--"you will
+travel with us into these high places, and there will be no trouble from
+you." He drew his knife and held the blade warningly before her eyes.
+
+"It was already in my mind to go to the mountains," she told him evenly.
+"Untie my hands, brave warrior, you have surely nothing to fear from a
+woman."
+
+His hand made a swift sweep and plucked a knife as long and keen as his
+from the folds of the sash beneath her loose outer garment.
+
+"Not now, Wolf Daughter, since I have drawn your fangs."
+
+He helped her to her feet and slashed the cord about her wrists with her
+knife, which he then fastened to his own belt. Alerting the coyotes, he
+dispatched them ahead; and the three started on, the Mongol girl between
+the two Apaches. The abandoned horse nickered lonesomely and then began
+to graze on tufts of grass, moving slowly to favor his foot.
+
+The two moons rode the sky as the hours advanced, their beams fighting
+the shadows. Travis felt reasonably safe from any attack at ground
+level, depending upon the coyotes for warning. But he held them all to a
+steady pace. And he did not question the girl again until all three of
+them hunkered down at a small mountain spring, to dash icy water over
+their faces and drink from cupped hands.
+
+"Why do you flee your own people, Wolf Daughter?"
+
+"My name is Kaydessa," she corrected him.
+
+He chuckled with laughter at the prim tone of her voice. "And you see
+here Tsoay of the People--the Apaches--while I am Fox." He was giving
+her the English equivalent of his tribal name.
+
+"Apaches." She tried to repeat the word with the same accent he had
+used. "And what are Apaches?"
+
+"Indians--Amerindians," he explained. "But you have not answered my
+question, Kaydessa. Why do you run from your own people?"
+
+"Not from my people," she said, shaking her head determinedly. "From
+those others. It is like this--Oh, how can I make you understand
+rightly?" She spread her wet hands out before her in the moonlight, the
+damp patches on her sleeves clinging to her arms. "There are my people
+of the Golden Horde, though once we were different and we can remember
+bits of that previous life. Then there are also the men who live in the
+sky ship and use the machine so that we think only the thoughts they
+would have us think. Now why," she looked at Travis intently--"do I wish
+to tell you all this? It is strange. You say you are
+Indian--American--are we then enemies? There is a part memory which says
+that we are ... were...."
+
+"Let us rather say," he corrected her, "that the Apaches and the Horde
+are not enemies here and now, no matter what was before." That was the
+truth, Travis recognized. By all accounts his people had come out of
+Asia in the very dim beginnings of migrating peoples. For all her
+dark-red hair and gray eyes, this girl who had been arbitrarily returned
+to a past just as they had been by Redax, could well be a distant
+clan-cousin.
+
+"You--" Kaydessa's fingers rested for a moment on his wrist--"you, too,
+were sent here from across the stars. Is this not so?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"And there are those here who govern you now?"
+
+"No. We are free."
+
+"How did you become free?" she demanded fiercely.
+
+Travis hesitated. He did not want to tell of the wrecked ship, the fact
+that his people possessed no real defenses against the
+Russian-controlled colony.
+
+"We went to the mountains," he replied evasively.
+
+"Your governing machine failed?" Kaydessa laughed. "Ah, they are so
+great, those men of the machines. But they are smaller and weaker when
+their machines cannot obey them."
+
+"It is so with your camp?" Travis probed gently. He was not quite sure
+of her meaning, but he dared not ask more detailed questions without
+dangerously revealing his own ignorance.
+
+"In some manner their control machine--it can only work upon those
+within a certain distance. They discovered that in the days of the first
+landing, when hunters went out freely and many of them did not return.
+After that when hunters were sent out to learn how lay this land, they
+went along in the flyer with a machine so that there would be no more
+escapes. But we knew!" Kaydessa's fingers curled into small fists. "Yes,
+we knew that if we could get beyond the machines, there was freedom for
+us. And we planned--many of us--planned. Then nine or ten sleeps ago
+those others were very excited. They gathered in their ship, watching
+their machines. And something happened. For a while all those machines
+went dead.
+
+"Jagatai, Kuchar, my brother Hulagur, Menlik...." She was counting the
+names off on her fingers. "They raided the horse herd, rode out...."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I, too, should have ridden. But there was Aljar, my sister--Kuchar's
+wife. She was very near her time and to ride thus, fleeing and fast,
+might kill her and the child. So I did not go. Her son was born that
+night, but the others had the machine at work once more. We might long
+to go here," she brought her fist up to her breast, and then raised it
+to her head--"but there was that _here_ which kept us to the camp and
+their will. We only knew that if we could reach the mountains, we might
+find our people who had already gained their freedom."
+
+"But you are here. How did you escape?" Tsoay wanted to know.
+
+"They knew that I would have gone had it not been for Aljar. So they
+said they would make her ride out with them unless I played guide to
+lead them to my brother and the others. Then I knew I must take up the
+sword of duty and hunt with them. But I prayed that the spirits of the
+upper air look with favor upon me, and they granted aid...." Her eyes
+held a look of wonder. "For when we were out on the plains and well away
+from the settlement, a grass devil attacked the leader of the searching
+party, and he dropped the mind control and so it was broken. Then I
+rode. Blue Sky Above knows how I rode. And those others are not with
+their horses as are the people of the Wolf."
+
+"When did this happen?"
+
+"Three suns ago."
+
+Travis counted back in his mind. Her date for the failure of the machine
+in the Russian camp seemed to coincide with the crash landing of the
+American ship. Had one thing any connection with the other? It was very
+possible. The planeting spacer might have fought some kind of weird duel
+with the other colony before it plunged to earth on the other side of
+the mountain range.
+
+"Do you know where in these mountains your people hide?"
+
+Kaydessa shook her head. "Only that I must head south, and when I reach
+the highest peak make a signal fire on the north slope. But that I
+cannot do now, for those in the flyer may see it. I know they are on my
+trail, for twice I have seen it. Listen, Fox, I ask this of you--I,
+Kaydessa, who am eldest daughter to the Khan--for you are like unto us,
+a warrior and a brave man, that I believe. It may be that you cannot be
+governed by their machine, for you have not rested under their spell,
+nor are of our blood. Therefore, if they come close enough to send forth
+the call, the call I must obey as if I were a slave dragged upon a horse
+rope, then do you bind my hands and feet and hold me here, no matter how
+much I struggle to follow that command. For that which is truly me does
+not want to go. Will you swear this by the fires which expel demons?"
+
+The utter sincerity of her tone convinced Travis that she was pleading
+for aid against a danger she firmly believed in. Whether she was right
+about his immunity to the Russian mental control was another matter, and
+one he would rather not put to the test.
+
+"We do not swear by your fires, Blue Wolf Maiden, but by the Path of the
+Lightning." His fingers moved as if to curl about the sacred charred
+wood his people had once carried as "medicine." "So do I promise!"
+
+She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded in satisfaction.
+
+They left the pool and pushed on toward the mountain slopes, working
+their way back to the pass. A low growl out of the dark brought them to
+an instant halt. Naginlta's warning was sharp; there was danger ahead,
+acute danger.
+
+The moonlight from the moons made a weird pattern of light and dark on
+the stretch ahead. Anything from a slinking four-footed hunter to a war
+party of intelligent beings might have been lying in wait there.
+
+A flitting shadow out of shadows. Nalik'ideyu pressed against Travis'
+legs, making a barrier of her warm body, attracting his attention to a
+spot at the left perhaps a hundred yards on. There was a great splotch
+of dark there, large enough to hide a really formidable opponent; that
+wordless communication between animal and man told Travis that such an
+opponent was just what was lurking there.
+
+Whatever lay in ambush beside the upper track was growing impatient as
+its destined prey ceased to advance, the coyotes reported.
+
+"Your left--beyond that pointed rock--in the big shadow--"
+
+"Do you see it?" Tsoay demanded.
+
+"No. But the _mba'a_ do."
+
+The men had their bows ready, arrows set to the cords. But in this light
+such weapons were practically useless unless the enemy moved into the
+path of the moon.
+
+"What is it?" Kaydessa asked in a half whisper.
+
+"Something waits for us ahead."
+
+Before he could stop her, she set her fingers to her lips and gave a
+piercing whistle.
+
+There was answering movement in the shadow. Travis shot at that, his
+arrow followed instantly by one from Tsoay. There was a cry, scaling up
+in a throat-scalding scream which made Travis flinch. Not because of
+the sound, but because of the hint which lay behind it--could it have
+been a human cry?
+
+The thing flopped out into a patch of moonlight. It was four-limbed, its
+body silvery--and it was large. But the worst was that it had been
+groveling on all fours when it fell, and now it was rising on its hind
+feet, one forepaw striking madly at the two arrows dancing head-deep in
+its upper shoulder. Man? No! But something sufficiently manlike to chill
+the three downtrail.
+
+A whirling four-footed hunter dashed in, snapped at the creature's legs,
+and it squalled again, aiming a blow with a forepaw; but the attacking
+coyote was already gone. Together Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu were
+harassing the creature, just as they had fought the split horn, giving
+the hunters time to shoot. Travis, although he again felt that touch of
+horror and disgust he could not account for, shot again.
+
+Between them the Apaches must have sent a dozen arrows into the raving
+beast before it went to its knees and Naginlta sprang for its throat.
+Even then the coyote yelped and flinched, a bleeding gash across its
+head from the raking talons of the dying thing. When it no longer moved,
+Travis approached to see more closely what they had brought down. That
+smell....
+
+Just as the embroidery on Kaydessa's jacket had awakened memories from
+his Terran past, so did this stench remind him of something.
+Where--when--had he smelled it before? Travis connected it with dark,
+dark and danger. Then he gasped in a half exclamation.
+
+Not on this world, no, but on two others: two worlds of that broken
+stellar empire where he had been an involuntary explorer two planet
+years ago! The beast things which had lived in the dark of the desert
+world the Terrans' wandering galactic derelict had landed upon. Yes, the
+beast things whose nature they had never been able to deduce. Were they
+the degenerate dregs of a once intelligent species? Or were they
+animals, akin to man, but still animals?
+
+The ape-things had controlled the night of the desert world. And they
+had been met again--also in the dark--in the ruins of the city which had
+been the final goal of the ship's taped voyage. So they were a part of
+the vanished civilization. And Travis' own vague surmise concerning
+Topaz was proven correct. This had not been an empty world for the
+long-gone space people. This planet had a purpose and a use, or else
+this beast would not have been here.
+
+"Devil!" Kaydessa made a face of disgust.
+
+"You know it?" Tsoay asked Travis. "What is it?"
+
+"That I do not know, but it is a thing left over from the star people's
+time. And I have seen it on two other of their worlds."
+
+"A man?" Tsoay surveyed the body critically. "It wears no clothes, has
+no weapons, but it walks erect. It looks like an ape, a very big ape. It
+is not a good thing, I think."
+
+"If it runs with a pack--as they do elsewhere--this could be a very bad
+thing." Travis, remembering how these creatures had attacked in force on
+the other worlds, looked about him apprehensively. Even with the coyotes
+on guard, they could not stand up to such a pack closing in through the
+dark. They had better hole up in some defendable place and wait out the
+rest of the night.
+
+Naginlta brought them to a cliff overhang where they could set their
+backs to the hard rock of the mountain, face outward to a space they
+could cover with arrow flight if the need arose. And the coyotes, lying
+before them with their noses resting on paws, would, Travis knew, alert
+them long before the enemy could close in.
+
+They huddled against the rock, Kaydessa between them, alert at first to
+every sound of the night, their hearts beating faster at a small scrape
+of gravel, the rustle of a bush. Slowly, they began to relax.
+
+"It is well that two sleep while one guards," Travis observed. "By
+morning we must push on, out of this country."
+
+So the two Apaches shared the watch in turn, the Tatar girl at first
+protesting, and then falling exhausted into a slumber which left her
+breathing heavily.
+
+Travis, on the dawn watch, began to speculate about the ape-thing they
+had killed. The two previous times he had met this creature it had been
+in ruins of the old empire. Were there ruins somewhere here? He wanted
+to make sure about that. On the other hand, there was the problem of the
+Tatar-Mongol settlement controlled by the Reds. There was no doubt in
+his mind that, were the Reds to suspect the existence of the Apache
+camp, they would make every attempt to hunt down and kill or capture the
+survivors from the American ship. A warning must be carried to the
+rancheria as quickly as they could make the return trip.
+
+Beside him the girl stirred, raising her head. Travis glanced at her and
+then watched with attention. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes as
+fixed as if she were in a trance. Now she inched forward from the
+mountain wall, wriggling out of its shelter.
+
+"What--?" Tsoay had awakened again. But Travis was already moving. He
+pushed on, rushing up to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder.
+
+"What is it? Where do you go?" he asked.
+
+She made no answer, did not even seem aware of his voice. He caught at
+her arm and she pulled to free herself. When he tightened his grip she
+did not fight him actively as during their first encounter, but merely
+pulled and twisted as if she were being compelled to go ahead.
+
+Compulsion! He remembered her plea the night before, asking his help
+against recapture by the machine. Now he deliberately tripped her,
+twisted her hands behind her back. She swayed in his hold, trying to win
+to her feet, paying no attention to him save as a hindrance against her
+answering that demanding call he could not hear.
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+"What happened?" Tsoay took a swift stride, stood over the writhing girl
+whose strength was now such that Travis had to exert all his efforts to
+control her.
+
+"I think that the machine she spoke about is holding her. She is being
+drawn to it out of hiding as one draws a calf on a rope."
+
+Both coyotes had arisen and were watching the struggle with interest,
+but there was no warning from them. Whatever called Kaydessa into such
+mindless and will-less answer did not touch the animals. And neither
+Apache felt it. So perhaps only Kaydessa's people were subject to it, as
+she had thought. How far away was that machine? Not too near, for
+otherwise the coyotes would have traced the man or men operating it.
+
+"We cannot move her," Tsoay brought the problem into the open--"unless
+we bind and carry her. She is one of their kind. Why not let her go to
+them, unless you fear she will talk." His hand went to the knife in his
+belt, and Travis knew what primitive impulse moved in the younger man.
+
+In the old days a captive who was likely to give trouble was
+efficiently eliminated. In Tsoay that memory was awake now. Travis shook
+his head.
+
+"She has said that others of her kin are in these hills. We must not set
+two wolf packs hunting us," Travis said, giving the more practical
+reason which might better appeal to that savage instinct for
+self-preservation. "But you are right, since she has tried to answer
+this summons, we cannot force her with us. Therefore, do you take the
+back trail. Tell Buck what we have discovered and have him make the
+necessary precautions against either these Mongol outlaws or a Red
+thrust over the mountains."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I stay to discover where the outlaws hide and learn all I can of this
+settlement. We may have reason to need friends----"
+
+"Friends!" Tsoay spat. "The People need no friends! If we have warning,
+we can hold our own country! As the Pinda-lick-o-yi have discovered
+before."
+
+"Bows and arrows against guns and machines?" Travis inquired bitingly.
+"We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future.
+Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before,"
+Travis calculated--"ten suns. If I do not, send no search party; the
+clan is too small to risk more lives for one."
+
+"And if these Reds take you--?"
+
+Travis grinned, not pleasantly. "They shall learn nothing! Can their
+machines sort out the thoughts of a dead man?" He did not intend his
+future to end as abruptly as that, but also he would not be easy meat
+for any Red hunting party.
+
+Tsoay took a share of their rations and refused the company of the
+coyotes. Travis realized that for all his seeming ease with the animals,
+the younger scout had little more liking for them than Deklay and the
+others back at the rancheria. Tsoay went at dawn, aiming at the pass.
+
+Travis sat down beside Kaydessa. They had bound her to a small tree, and
+she strove incessantly to free herself, turning her head at an acute and
+painful angle, only to face the same direction in which she had been
+tied. There was no breaking the spell which held her. And she would soon
+wear herself out with that struggling. Then he struck an expert blow.
+
+The girl sagged limply, and he untied her. It all depended now on the
+range of the beam or broadcast of that diabolical machine. From the
+attitude of the coyotes, he assumed that those using the machine had not
+made any attempt to come close. They might not even know where their
+quarry was; they would simply sit and wait in the foothills for the
+caller to reel in a helpless captive.
+
+Travis thought that if he moved Kaydessa farther away from that point,
+sooner or later they would be out of range and she would awake from the
+knockout, free again. Although she was not light, he could manage to
+carry her for a while. So burdened, Travis started on, with the coyotes
+scouting ahead.
+
+He speedily discovered that he had set himself an ambitious task. The
+going was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to a
+snail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to make careful plans.
+
+As long as the Reds held the balance of power on this side of the
+mountain range, the rancheria was in danger. Bows and knives against
+modern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter of
+time before exploration on the part of the northern settlement--or some
+tracking down of Tatar fugitives--would bring the enemy across the pass.
+
+The Apaches could move farther south into the unknown continent below
+the wrecked ship, thus prolonging the time before they were discovered.
+But that would only postpone the inevitable showdown. Whether Travis
+could make his clan believe that, was also a matter of concern.
+
+On the other hand, if the Red overlords could be met in some practical
+way.... Travis' mind fastened on that more attractive idea, worrying it
+as Naginlta worried a prey, tearing out and devouring the more delicate
+portions. Every bit of sense and prudence argued against such an
+approach, whose success could rest only between improbability and
+impossibility; yet that was the direction in which he longed to move.
+
+Across his shoulder Kaydessa stirred and moaned. The Apache doubled his
+efforts to reach the outcrop of rock he could see ahead, chiseled into
+high relief by the winds. In its lee they would have protection from any
+sighting from below. Panting, he made it, lowering the girl into the
+guarded cup of space, and waited.
+
+She moaned again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open,
+and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and her
+surroundings intelligently or not.
+
+"Kaydessa!"
+
+Her heavy eyelids lifted, and he had no doubt she could see him. But
+there was no recognition of his identity in her gaze, only surprise and
+fear--the same expression she had worn during their first meeting in the
+foothills.
+
+"Daughter of the Wolf," he spoke slowly. "Remember!" Travis made that an
+order, an emphatic appeal to the mind under the influence of the caller.
+
+She frowned, the struggle she was making naked on her face. Then she
+answered:
+
+"You--Fox--"
+
+Travis grunted with relief, his alarm subsiding. Then she _could_
+remember.
+
+"Yes," he responded eagerly.
+
+But she was gazing about, her puzzlement growing. "Where is this--?"
+
+"We are higher in the mountains."
+
+Now fear was pushing out bewilderment. "How did I come here?"
+
+"I brought you." Swiftly he outlined what had happened at their night
+camp.
+
+The hand which had been at her head was now pressed tight across her
+lips as if she were biting furiously into its flesh to still some panic
+of her own, and her gray eyes were round and haunted.
+
+"You are free now," Travis said.
+
+Kaydessa nodded, and then dropped her hand to speak. "You brought me
+away from the hunters. You did not have to obey them?"
+
+"I heard nothing."
+
+"You do not hear--you feel!" She shuddered. "Please." She clawed at the
+stone beside her, pulling up to her feet. "Let us go--let us go quickly!
+They will try again--move farther in--"
+
+"Listen," Travis had to be sure of one thing--"have they any way of
+knowing that they had you under control and that you have again
+escaped?"
+
+Kaydessa shook her head, some of the panic again shadowing her eyes.
+
+"Then we'll just go on--" his chin lifted to the wastelands before
+them--"try to keep out of their reach."
+
+And away from the pass to the south, he told himself silently. He dared
+not lead the enemy to that secret, so he must travel west or hole up
+somewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessa
+was no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyond
+its beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin,
+just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things.
+Before dark they must discover a protected camp site.
+
+They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration tablets. But
+the coyotes could locate water.
+
+"Come!" Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of him
+so that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once again
+to the influence of the enemy. But his burdened early morning flight had
+told on Travis more than he thought, and he discovered he could not spur
+himself on to a pace better than a walk. Now and again one of the
+coyotes, usually Nalik'ideyu, would come into view, express impatience
+in both stance and mental signal, and then be gone again. The Apache was
+increasingly aware that the animals were disturbed, yet to his tentative
+gropings at contact they did not reply. Since they gave no warning of
+hostile animal or man, he could only be on constant guard, watching the
+countryside about him.
+
+They had been following a ledge for several minutes before Travis was
+aware of some strange features of that path. Perhaps he had actually
+noted them with a trained eye before his archaeological studies of the
+recent past gave him a reason for the faint marks. This crack in the
+mountain's skin might have begun as a natural fault, but afterward it
+had been worked with tools, smoothed, widened to serve the purpose of
+some form of intelligence!
+
+Travis caught at Kaydessa's shoulder to slow her pace. He could not have
+told why he did not want to speak aloud here, but he felt the need for
+silence. She glanced around, perplexed, more so when he went down on his
+knees and ran his fingers along one of those ancient tool marks. He was
+certain it was very old. Inside of him anticipation bubbled. A road made
+with such labor could only lead to something of importance. He was going
+to make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into these
+mountains.
+
+"What is it?" Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge.
+
+"This was cut by someone, a long time ago," Travis half whispered and
+then wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers could
+hear him when perhaps a thousand years or more lay between the chipping
+of that stone and this day.
+
+The Tatar girl looked over her shoulder. Perhaps she too was troubled by
+the sense that here time was subtly telescoped, that past and present
+might be meeting. Or was that feeling with them both because of their
+enforced conditioning?
+
+"Who?" Now her voice sank in turn.
+
+"Listen--" he regarded her intently--"did your people or the Reds ever
+find any traces of the old civilization here--ruins?"
+
+"No." She leaned forward, tracing with her own finger the same
+almost-obliterated marks which had intrigued Travis. "But I think they
+have looked. Before they discovered that we could be free, they sent out
+parties--to hunt, they said--but afterward they always asked many
+questions about the country. Only they never asked about ruins. Is that
+what they wished us to find? But why? Of what value are old stones piled
+on one another?"
+
+"In themselves, little, save for the knowledge they may give us of the
+people who piled them. But for what the stones might contain--much
+value!"
+
+"And how do you know what they might contain, Fox?"
+
+"Because I have seen such treasure houses of the star men," he returned
+absently. To him the marks on the ledge were a pledge of greater
+discoveries to come. He must find where that carefully constructed road
+ran--to what it led. "Let us see where this will take us."
+
+But first he gave the chittering signal in four sharp bursts. And the
+tawny-gray bodies came out of the tangled brush, bounding up to the
+ledge. Together the coyotes faced him, their attention all for his
+halting communication.
+
+Ruins might lie ahead; he hoped that they did. But on another planet
+such ruins had twice proved to be deadly traps, and only good fortune
+had prevented their closing on Terran explorers. If the ape-things or
+any other dangerous form of life had taken up residence before them, he
+wanted good warning.
+
+Together the coyotes turned and loped along the now level way of the
+ledge, disappearing around a curve fitted to the mountain side while
+Travis and Kaydessa followed.
+
+They heard it before they saw its source--a waterfall. Probably not a
+large one, but high. Rounding the curve, they came into a fine mist of
+spray where sunlight made rainbows of color across a filmy veil of
+water.
+
+For a long moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry,
+held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lips
+again to suck the gathered moisture.
+
+Water slicked the surface of the ledge, and Travis pushed her back
+against the wall of the cliff. As far as he could discern, their road
+continued behind the out-flung curtain of water, and footing on the wet
+stone was treacherous. With their backs to the solid security of the
+wall, facing outward into the solid drape of water, they edged behind it
+and came out into rainbowed sunlight again.
+
+Here either provident nature or ancient art had hollowed a pocket in the
+stone which was filled with water. They drank. Then Travis filled his
+canteen while Kaydessa washed her face, holding the cold freshness of
+the moisture to her cheeks with both palms.
+
+She spoke, but he could not hear her through the roar. She leaned closer
+and raised her voice to a half shout:
+
+"This is a place of spirits! Do you not also feel their power, Fox?"
+
+Perhaps for a space out of time he did feel something. This was a
+watering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place--and to his
+desert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be taken
+for granted. The rainbow--the Spirit People's sacred sign--old beliefs
+stirred in Travis, moving him. "I feel," he said, nodding in emphasis to
+his agreement.
+
+They followed the ledge road to a section where a landslide of an
+earlier season had choked it. Travis worked a careful way across the
+debris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn. Then they were on a
+sloping downward way which led to a staircase--the treads weather-worn
+and crumbling, the angle so steep Travis wondered if it had ever been
+intended for beings with a physique approximating the Terrans'.
+
+They came to a cleft where an arch of stone was chiseled out as a
+roofing. Travis thought he could make out a trace of carving on the
+capstone, so worn by years and weather that it was now only a faint
+shadow of design.
+
+The cleft was a door into another valley. Here, too, golden mist swirled
+in tendrils to disguise and cloak what stood there. Travis had found his
+ruins. Only the structures were intact, not breached by time.
+
+Mist flowed in lapping tongues back and forth, confusing outlines, now
+shuttering, now baring oval windows which were spaced in diamonds of
+four on round tower surfaces. There were no visible cracks, no cloaking
+of climbing vegetation, nothing to suggest age and long roots in the
+valley. Nor did the architecture he could view match any he had seen on
+those other worlds.
+
+Travis strode away from the cleft doorway. Under his moccasins was a
+block pavement, yellow and green stone set in a simple pattern of
+checks. This, too, was level, unchipped and undisturbed, save for a
+drift or two of soil driven in by the wind. And nowhere could he see any
+vegetation.
+
+The towers were of the same green stone as half the pavement blocks, a
+glassy green which made him think of jade--if jade could be mined in
+such quantities as these five-story towers demanded.
+
+Nalik'ideyu padded to him, and he could hear the faint click of her
+claws on the pavement. There was a deep silence in this place, as if the
+air itself swallowed and digested all sound. The wind which had been
+with them all the day of their journeying was left beyond the cleft.
+
+Yet there was life here. The coyote told him that in her own way. She
+had not made up her mind concerning that life--wariness and curiosity
+warred in her now as her pointed muzzle lifted toward the windows
+overhead.
+
+The windows were all well above ground level, but there was no opening
+in the first stories as far as Travis could see. He debated moving into
+the range of those windows to investigate the far side of the towers for
+doorways. The mist and the message from Nalik'ideyu nourished his
+suspicions. Out in the open he would be too good a target for whatever
+or whoever might be standing within the deep-welled frames.
+
+The silence was shattered by a boom. Travis jumped, slewed half around,
+knife in hand.
+
+Boom-boom ... a second heavy beat-beat ... then a clangor with a
+swelling echo.
+
+Kaydessa flung back her head and called, her voice rising up as if
+tunneled by the valley walls. She then whistled as she had done when
+they fronted the ape-thing and ran on to catch at Travis' sleeve, her
+face eager.
+
+"My people! Come--it is my people!"
+
+She tugged him on before breaking into a run, weaving fearlessly around
+the base of one of the towers. Travis ran after her, afraid he might
+lose her in the mist.
+
+Three towers, another stretch of open pavement, and then the mist lifted
+to show them a second carved doorway not two hundred yards ahead. The
+boom-boom seemed to pull Kaydessa, and Travis could do nothing but trail
+her, the coyotes now trotting beside him.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+They burst through a last wide band of mist into a wilderness of tall
+grass and shrubs. Travis heard the coyotes give tongue, but it was too
+late. Out of nowhere whirled a leather loop, settling about his chest,
+snapping his arms tight to his body, taking him off his feet with a jerk
+to be dragged helplessly along the ground behind a galloping horse.
+
+A tawny fury sprang in the air to snap at the horse's head. Travis
+kicked fruitlessly, trying to regain his feet as the horse reared, and
+fought against the control of his shouting rider. All through the melee
+the Apache heard Kaydessa shrilly screaming words he did not understand.
+
+Travis was on his knees, coughing in the dust, exerting the muscles in
+his chest and shoulders to loosen the lariat. On either side of him the
+coyotes wove a snarling pattern of defiance, dashing back and forth to
+present no target for the enemy, yet keeping the excited horses so
+stirred up that their riders could use neither ropes nor blades.
+
+Then Kaydessa ran between two of the ringing horses to Travis and jerked
+at the loop about him. The tough, braided leather eased its hold, and he
+was able to gasp in full lungfuls of air. She was still shouting, but
+the tone had changed from one of recognition to a definite scolding.
+
+Travis won to his feet just as the rider who had lassoed him finally got
+his horse under rein and dismounted. Holding the rope, the man walked
+hand over hand toward them, as Travis back on the Arizona range would
+have approached a nervous, unschooled pony.
+
+The Mongol was an inch or so shorter than the Apache, and his face was
+young, though he had a drooping mustache bracketing his mouth with
+slender spear points of black hair. His breeches were tucked into high
+red boots, and he wore a loose felt jacket patterned with the same
+elaborate embroidery Travis had seen on Kaydessa's. On his head was a
+hat with a wide fur border--in spite of the heat--and that too bore
+touches of scarlet and gold design.
+
+Still holding his lariat, the Mongol reached Kaydessa and stood for a
+moment, eying her up and down before he asked a question. She gave an
+impatient twitch to the rope. The coyotes snarled, but the Apache
+thought the animals no longer considered the danger immediate.
+
+"This is my brother Hulagur." Kaydessa made the introduction over her
+shoulder. "He does not have your speech."
+
+Hulagur not only did not understand, he was also impatient. He jerked at
+the rope with such sudden force that Travis was almost thrown. Then
+Kaydessa dragged as fiercely on the lariat in the other direction and
+burst into a soaring harangue which drew the rest of the men closer.
+
+Travis flexed his upper arms, and the slack gained by Kaydessa's action
+made the lariat give again. He studied the Tatar outlaws. There were
+five of them beside Hulagur, lean men, hard-faced, narrow-eyed, the
+ragged clothing of three pieced out with scraps of hide. Besides the
+swords with the curved blades, they were armed with bows, two to each
+man, one long, one shorter. One of the riders carried a lance, long
+tassels of woolly hair streaming from below its head. Travis saw in them
+a formidable array of barbaric fighting men, but he thought that man for
+man the Apaches could not only take on the Mongols with confidence, but
+might well defeat them.
+
+The Apache had never been a hot-headed, ride-for-glory fighter like the
+Cheyenne, the Sioux, and the Comanche of the open plains. He estimated
+the odds against him, used ambush, trick, and every feature of the
+countryside as weapon and defense. Fifteen Apache fighting men under
+Chief Geronimo had kept five thousand American and Mexican troops in the
+field for a year and had come off victorious for the moment.
+
+Travis knew the tales of Genghis Khan and his formidable generals who
+swept over Asia into Europe, unbeaten and seemingly undefeatable. But
+they had been a wild wave, fed by a reservoir of manpower from the
+steppes of their homeland, utilizing driven walls of captives to protect
+their own men in city assaults and attacks. He doubted if even that
+endless sea of men could have won the Arizona desert defended by Apaches
+under Cochise, Victorio, or Magnus Colorado. The white man had done
+it--by superior arms and attrition; but bow against bow, knife against
+sword, craft and cunning against craft and cunning--he did not think
+so....
+
+Hulagur dropped the end of the lariat, and Kaydessa swung around,
+loosening the loop so that the rope fell to Travis' feet. The Apache
+stepped free of it, turned and passed between two of the horsemen to
+gather up the bow he had dropped. The coyotes had gone with him and when
+he turned again to face the company of Tatars, both animals crowded past
+him to the entrance of the valley, plainly urging him to retire there.
+
+The horsemen had faced about also, and the warrior with the lance
+balanced the shaft of the weapon in his hand as if considering the
+possibility of trying to spear Travis. But just then Kaydessa came up,
+towing Hulagur by a firm hold on his sash-belt.
+
+"I have told this one," she reported to Travis, "how it is between us
+and that you also are enemy to those who hunt us. It is well that you
+sit together beside a fire and talk of these things."
+
+Again that boom-boom broke her speech, coming from farther out in the
+open land.
+
+"You will do this?" She made of it a half question, half statement.
+
+Travis glanced about him. He could dodge back into the misty valley of
+the towers before the Tatars could ride him down. However, if he could
+patch up some kind of truce between his people and the outlaws, the
+Apaches would have only the Reds from the settlement to watch. Too many
+times in Terran past had war on two fronts been disastrous.
+
+"I come--carrying this--and not pulled by your ropes." He held up his
+bow in an exaggerated gesture so that Hulagur could understand.
+
+Coiling the lariat, the Mongol looked from the Apache bow to Travis.
+Slowly, and with obvious reluctance, he nodded agreement.
+
+At Hulagur's call the lancer rode up to the waiting Apache, stretched
+out a booted foot in the heavy stirrup, and held down a hand to bring
+Travis up behind him riding double. Kaydessa mounted in the same fashion
+behind her brother.
+
+Travis looked at the coyotes. Together the animals stood in the door to
+the tower valley, and neither made any move to follow as the horses
+trotted off. He beckoned with his hand and called to them.
+
+Heads up, they continued to watch him go in company with the Mongols.
+Then without any reply to his coaxing, they melted back into the mists.
+For a moment Travis was tempted to slide down and run the risk of taking
+a lance point between the shoulders as he followed Naginlta and
+Nalik'ideyu into retreat. He was startled, jarred by the new awareness
+of how much he had come to depend on the animals. Ordinarily, Travis Fox
+was not one to be governed by the wishes of a _mba'a_, intelligent and
+un-animallike as it might be. This was an affair of men, and coyotes had
+no part in it!
+
+Half an hour later Travis sat in the outlaw camp. There were fifteen
+Mongols in sight, a half dozen women and two children adding to the
+count. On a hillock near their yurts, the round brush-and-hide
+shelters--not too different from the wickiups of Travis' own people--was
+a crude drum, a hide stretched taut over a hollowed section of log. And
+next to that stood a man wearing a tall pointed cap, a red robe, and a
+girdle from which swung a fringe of small bones, tiny animal skulls, and
+polished bits of stone and carved wood.
+
+It was this man's efforts which sent the boom-boom sounding at intervals
+over the landscape. Was this a signal--part of a ritual? Travis was not
+certain, though he guessed that the drummer was either medicine man or
+shaman, and so of some power in this company. Such men were credited
+with the ability to prophesy and also endowed with mediumship between
+man and spirit in the old days of the great Hordes.
+
+The Apache evaluated the rest of the company. As was true of his own
+party, these men were much the same age--young and vigorous. And it was
+also apparent that Hulagur held a position of some importance among
+them--if he were not their chief.
+
+After a last resounding roll on the drum, the shaman thrust the sticks
+into his girdle and came down to the fire at the center of the camp. He
+was taller than his fellows, pole thin under his robes, his face narrow,
+clean-shaven, with brows arched by nature to give him an unchanging
+expression of scepticism. He strode along, his tinkling collection of
+charms providing him with a not unmusical accompaniment, and came to
+stand directly before Travis, eying him carefully.
+
+Travis copied his silence in what was close to a duel of wills. There
+was that in the shaman's narrowed green eyes which suggested that if
+Hulagur did in fact lead these fighting men, he had an advisor of
+determination and intelligence behind him.
+
+"This is Menlik." Kaydessa did not push past the men to the fireside,
+but her voice carried.
+
+Hulagur growled at his sister, but his admonition made no impression on
+her, and she replied in as hot a tone. The shaman's hand went up,
+silencing both of them.
+
+"You are--who?" Like Kaydessa, Menlik spoke a heavily accented English.
+
+"I am Travis Fox, of the Apaches."
+
+"The Apaches," the shaman repeated. "You are of the West, the American
+West, then."
+
+"You know much, man of spirit talk."
+
+"One remembers. At times one remembers," Menlik answered almost
+absently. "How does an Apache find his way across the stars?"
+
+"The same way Menlik and his people did," Travis returned. "You were
+sent to settle this planet, and so were we."
+
+"There are many more of you?" countered Menlik swiftly.
+
+"Are there not many of the Horde? Would one man, or three, or four, be
+sent to hold a world?" Travis fenced. "You hold the north, we the south
+of this land."
+
+"But _they_ are not governed by a machine!" Kaydessa cut in. "They are
+free!"
+
+Menlik frowned at the girl. "Woman, this is a matter for warriors. Keep
+your tongue silent between your jaws!"
+
+She stamped one foot, standing with her fists on her hips.
+
+"I am a Daughter of the Blue Wolf. And we are all warriors--men and
+women alike--so shall we be as long as the Horde is not free to ride
+where we wish! These men have won their freedom; it is well that we
+learn how."
+
+Menlik's expression did not change, but his lids drooped over his eyes
+as a murmur of what might be agreement came from the group. More than
+one of them must have understood enough English to translate for the
+others. Travis wondered about that. Had these men and women who had
+outwardly reverted to the life of their nomad ancestors once been well
+educated in the modern sense, educated enough to learn the basic
+language of the nation their rulers had set up as their principal enemy?
+
+"So you ride the land south of the mountains?" the shaman continued.
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Then why did you come hither?"
+
+Travis shrugged. "Why does anyone ride or travel into new lands? There
+is a desire to see what may lie beyond----"
+
+"Or to scout before the march of warriors!" Menlik snapped. "There is no
+peace between your rulers and mine. Do you ride now to take the herds
+and pastures of the Horde--or to try to do so?"
+
+Travis turned his head deliberately from side to side, allowing them all
+to witness his slow and openly contemptuous appraisal of their camp.
+
+"_This_ is your Horde, Shaman? Fifteen warriors? Much has changed since
+the days of Temujin, has it not?"
+
+"What do you know of Temujin--you, who are a man of no ancestors, out of
+the West?"
+
+"What do I know of Temujin? That he was a leader of warriors and became
+Genghis Khan, the great lord of the East. But the Apaches had their
+warlords also, rider of barren lands. And I am of those who raided over
+two nations when Victorio and Cochise scattered their enemies as a man
+scatters a handful of dust in the wind."
+
+"You talk bold, Apache...." There was a hint of threat in that.
+
+"I speak as any warrior, Shaman. Or are you so used to talking with
+spirits instead of men that you do not realize that?"
+
+He might have been alienating the shaman by such a sharp reply, but
+Travis thought he judged the temper of these people. To face them boldly
+was the only way to impress them. They would not treat with an inferior,
+and he was already at a disadvantage coming on foot, without any backing
+in force, into a territory held by horsemen who were suspicious and
+jealous of their recently acquired freedom. His only chance was to
+establish himself as an equal and then try to convince them that Apache
+and Tatar-Mongol had a common cause against the Reds who controlled the
+settlement on the northern plains.
+
+Menlik's right hand went to his sash-girdle and plucked out a carved
+stick which he waved between them, muttering phrases Travis could not
+understand. Had the shaman retreated so far along the road to his past
+that he now believed in his own supernatural powers? Or was this to
+impress his watching followers?
+
+"You call upon your spirits for aid, Menlik? But the Apache has the
+companionship of the _ga-n_. Ask of Kaydessa: Who hunts with the Fox in
+the wilds?" Travis' sharp challenge stopped that wand in mid-air.
+Menlik's head swung to the girl.
+
+"He hunts with wolves who think like men." She supplied the information
+the shaman would not openly ask for. "I have seen them act as his
+scouts. This is no spirit thing, but real and of this world!"
+
+"Any man may train a dog to his bidding!" Menlik spat.
+
+"Does a dog obey orders which are not said aloud? These brown wolves
+come and sit before him, look into his eyes. And then he knows what lies
+within their heads, and they know what he would have them do. This is
+not the way of a master of hounds with his pack!"
+
+Again the murmur ran about the camp as one or two translated. Menlik
+frowned. Then he rammed his sorcerer's wand back into his sash.
+
+"If you are a man of power--such powers," he said slowly, "then you may
+walk alone where those who talk with spirits go--into the mountains." He
+then spoke over his shoulder in his native tongue, and one of the women
+reached behind her into a hut, brought out a skin bag and a horn cup.
+Kaydessa took the cup from her and held it while the other woman poured
+a white liquid from the bag to fill it.
+
+Kaydessa passed the cup to Menlik. He pivoted with it in his hand,
+dribbling expertly over its brim a few drops at each point of the
+compass, chanting as he moved. Then he sucked in a mouthful of the
+contents before presenting the vessel to Travis.
+
+The Apache smelled the same sour scent that had clung to the emptied bag
+in the foothills. And another part of memory supplied him with the
+nature of the drink. This was kumiss, a fermented mare's milk which was
+the wine and water of the steppes.
+
+He forced himself to swallow a draft, though it was alien to his taste,
+and passed the cup back to Menlik. The shaman emptied the horn and,
+with that, set aside ceremony. With an upraised hand he beckoned Travis
+to the fire again, indicating a pot set on the coals.
+
+"Rest ... eat!" he bade abruptly.
+
+Night was gathering in. Travis tried to calculate how far Tsoay must
+have backtracked to the rancheria. He thought that he could have already
+made the pass and be within a day and a half from the Apache camp if he
+pushed on, as he would. As to where the coyotes were, Travis had no
+idea. But it was plain that he himself must remain in this encampment
+for the night or risk rousing the Mongols' suspicion once more.
+
+He ate of the stew, spearing chunks out of the pot with the point of his
+knife. And it was not until he sat back, his hunger appeased, that the
+shaman dropped down beside him.
+
+"The Khatun Kaydessa says that when she was slave to the caller, you did
+not feel its chains," he began.
+
+"Those who rule you are not my overlords. The bonds they set upon your
+minds do not touch me." Travis hoped that that was the truth and his
+escape that morning had not been just a fluke.
+
+"This could be, for you and I are not of one blood," Menlik agreed.
+"Tell me--how did you escape your bonds?"
+
+"The machine which held us so was broken," Travis replied with a portion
+of the truth, and Menlik sucked in his breath.
+
+"The machines, always the machines!" he cried hoarsely. "A thing which
+can sit in a man's head and make him do what it will against his will;
+it is demon sent! There are other machines to be broken, Apache."
+
+"Words will not break them," Travis pointed out.
+
+"Only a fool rides to his death without hope of striking a single blow
+before he chokes on the blood in his throat," Menlik retorted. "We
+cannot use bow or tulwar against weapons which flame and kill quicker
+than any storm lightning! And always the mind machines can make a man
+drop his knife and stand helplessly waiting for the slave collar to be
+set on his neck!"
+
+Travis asked a question of his own. "I know that they can bring a caller
+part way into this mountain, for this very day I saw its effect upon the
+maiden. But there are many places in the hills well set for ambushes,
+and those unaffected by the machine could be waiting there. Would there
+be many machines so that they could send out again and again?"
+
+Menlik's bony hand played with his wand. Then a slow smile curved his
+lips into the guise of a hunting cat's noiseless snarl.
+
+"There is meat in that pot, Apache, rich meat, good for the filling of a
+lean belly! So men whose minds the machine could not trouble--such men
+to be waiting in ambush for the taking of the men who use such a
+machine--yes. But here would have to be bait, very good bait for such a
+trap, Lord of Wiles. Never do those others come far into the mountains.
+Their flyer does not lift well here, and they do not trust traveling on
+horseback. They were greatly angered to come so far in to reach
+Kaydessa, though they could not have been too close, or you would not
+have escaped at all. Yes, strong bait."
+
+"Such bait as perhaps the knowledge that there were strangers across the
+mountains?"
+
+Menlik turned his wand about in his hands. He was no longer smiling, and
+his glance at Travis was sharp and swift.
+
+"Do you sit as Khan in your tribe, Lord?"
+
+"I sit as one they will listen to." Travis hoped that was so. Whether
+Buck and the moderates would hold clan leadership upon his return was a
+fact he could not count upon as certain.
+
+"This is a thing which we must hold council over," Menlik continued.
+"But it is an idea of power. Yes, one to think about, Lord. And I shall
+think...."
+
+He got up and moved away. Travis blinked at the fire. He was very tired,
+and he disliked sleeping in this camp. But he must not go without the
+rest his body needed to supply him with a clear head in the morning. And
+not showing uneasiness might be one way of winning Menlik's confidence.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+Travis settled his back against the spire of rock and raised his right
+hand into the path of the sun, cradling in his palm a disk of glistening
+metal. Flash ... flash ... he made the signal pattern just as his
+ancestors a hundred years earlier and far across space had used trade
+mirrors to relay war alerts among the Chiricahua and White Mountain
+ranges. If Tsoay had returned safely, and if Buck had kept the agreed
+lookout on that peak a mile or so ahead, then the clan would know that
+he was coming and with what escort.
+
+He waited now, rubbing the small metal mirror absently on the loose
+sleeve of his shirt, waiting for a reply. Mirrors were best, not smoke
+fires which would broadcast too far the presence of men in the hills.
+Tsoay must have returned....
+
+"What is it that you do?"
+
+Menlik, his shaman's robe pulled up so that his breeches and boots were
+dark against the golden rock, climbed up beside the Apache. Menlik,
+Hulagur, and Kaydessa were riding with Travis, offering him one of
+their small ponies to hurry the trip. He was still regarded warily by
+the Tatars, but he did not blame them for their cautious attitude.
+
+"Ah--" A flicker of light from the point ahead. One ... two ... three
+flashes, a pause, then two more together. He had been read. Buck had
+dispatched scouts to meet them, and knowing his people's skill at the
+business, Travis was certain the Tatars would never suspect their
+flanking unless the Apaches purposefully revealed themselves. Also the
+Tatars were not to go to the rancheria, but would be met at a mid-point
+by a delegation of Apaches. This was no time for the Tatars to learn
+just how few the clan numbered.
+
+Menlik watched Travis flash an acknowledgment to the sentry ahead. "In
+this way you speak to your men?"
+
+"This way I speak."
+
+"A thing good and to be remembered. We have the drum, but that is for
+the ears of all with hearing. This is for the eyes only of those on
+watch for it. Yes, a good thing. And your people--they will meet with
+us?"
+
+"They wait ahead," Travis confirmed.
+
+It was close to midday and the heat, gathered in the rocky ways, was
+like a heaviness in the air itself. The Tatars had shucked their heavy
+jackets and rolled the fur brims of their hats far up their heads away
+from their sweat-beaded faces. And at every halt they passed from hand
+to hand the skin bag of kumiss.
+
+Now even the ponies shuffled on with drooping heads, picking a way in a
+cut which deepened into a canyon. Travis kept a watch for the scouts.
+And not for the first time he thought of the disappearance of the
+coyotes. Somehow, back in the Tatar camp, he had counted confidently on
+the animals' rejoining him once he had started his return over the
+mountains.
+
+But he had seen nothing of either beast, nor had he felt that
+unexplainable mental contact with them which had been present since his
+first awakening on Topaz. Why they had left him so unceremoniously after
+defending him from the Mongol attack, and why they were keeping
+themselves aloof now, he did not know. But he was conscious of a thread
+of alarm for their continued absence, and he hoped he would find they
+had gone back to the rancheria.
+
+The ponies thudded dispiritedly along a sandy wash which bottomed the
+canyon. Here the heat became a leaden weight and the men were panting
+like four-footed beasts running before hunters. Finally Travis sighted
+what he had been seeking, a flicker of movement on the wall well above.
+He flung up his hand, pulling his mount to a stand. Apaches stood in
+full view, bows ready, arrows on cords. But they made no sound.
+
+Kaydessa cried out, booted her mount to draw equal with Travis.
+
+"A trap!" Her face, flushed with heat, was also stark with anger.
+
+Travis smiled slowly. "Is there a rope about you, Wolf Daughter?" he
+inquired softly. "Are you now dragged across this sand?"
+
+Her mouth opened and then closed again. The quirt she had half raised to
+slash at him, flopped across her pony's neck.
+
+The Apache glanced back at the two men. Hulagur's hand was on his sword
+hilt, his eyes darting from one of those silent watchers to the next.
+But the utter hopelessness of the Tatar position was too plain. Only
+Menlik made no move toward any weapon, even his spirit wand. Instead, he
+sat quietly in the saddle, displaying no emotion toward the Apaches save
+his usual self-confident detachment.
+
+"We go on." Travis pointed ahead.
+
+Just as suddenly as they had appeared from the heart of the golden
+cliffs, so did the scouts vanish. Most of them were already on their way
+to the point Buck had selected for the meeting place. There had been
+only six men up there, but the Tatars had no way of knowing just how
+large a portion of the whole clan that number was.
+
+Travis' pony lifted his head, nickered, and achieved a stumbling trot.
+Somewhere ahead was water, one of those oases of growth and life which
+pocked the whole mountain range--to the preservation of all animals and
+all men.
+
+Menlik and Hulagur pushed on until their mounts were hard on the heels
+of the two ridden by the girl and Travis. Travis wondered if they still
+waited for some arrow to strike home, though he saw that both men rode
+with outward disregard for the patrolling scouts.
+
+A grass-leaf bush beckoned them on and again the ponies quickened pace,
+coming out into a tributary canyon which housed a small pool and a good
+stand of grass and brush. To one side of the water Buck stood, his arms
+folded across his chest, armed only with his belt knife. Grouped behind
+him were Deklay, Tsoay, Nolan, Manulito--Travis tabulated hurriedly.
+Manulito and Deklay were to be classed together--or had been when he was
+last in the rancheria. On Buck's stairway from the past, both had
+halted more than halfway down. Nolan was a quiet man who seldom spoke,
+and whose opinion Travis could not foretell. Tsoay would back Buck.
+
+Probably such a divided party was the best Travis could have hoped to
+gather. A delegation composed entirely of those who were ready to leave
+the past of the Redax--a collection of Bucks and Jil-Lees--was outside
+the bounds of possibility. But Travis was none too happy to have Deklay
+in on this.
+
+Travis dismounted, letting the pony push forward by himself to dip nose
+into the pool.
+
+"This is," Travis pointed politely with his chin--"Menlik, one who talks
+with spirits.... Hulagur, who is son to a chief ... and Kaydessa, who is
+daughter to a chief. They are of the horse people of the north." He made
+the introduction carefully in English.
+
+Then he turned to the Tatars. "Buck, Deklay, Nolan, Manulito, Tsoay," he
+named them all, "these stand to listen, and to speak for the Apaches."
+
+But sometime later when the two parties sat facing each other, he
+wondered whether a common decision could come from the clansmen on his
+side of that irregular circle. Deklay's expression was closed; he had
+even edged a short way back, as if he had no desire to approach the
+strangers. And Travis read into every line of Deklay's body his distrust
+and antagonism.
+
+He himself began to speak, retelling his adventures since they had
+followed Kaydessa's trail, sketching in the situation at the
+Tatar-Mongol settlement as he had learned it from her and from Menlik.
+He was careful to speak in English so that the Tatars could hear all he
+was reporting to his own kind. And the Apaches listened blank-faced,
+though Tsoay must already have reported much of this. When Travis was
+done it was Deklay who asked a question:
+
+"What have we to do with these people?"
+
+"There is this--" Travis chose his words carefully, thinking of what
+might move a warrior still conditioned to riding with the raiders of a
+hundred years earlier, "the Pinda-lick-o-yi (whom we call 'Reds,') are
+never willing to live side by side with any who are not of their mind.
+And they have weapons such as make our bow cords bits of rotten string,
+our knives slivers of rust. They do not kill; they enslave. And when
+they discover that we live, then they will come against us--"
+
+Deklay's lips moved in a wolf grin. "This is a large land, and we know
+how to use it. The Pinda-lick-o-yi will not find us--"
+
+"With their eyes maybe not," Travis replied. "With their machines--that
+is another matter."
+
+"Machines!" Deklay spat. "Always these machines.... Is that all you can
+talk about? It would seem that you are bewitched by these machines,
+which we have not seen--none of us!"
+
+"It was a machine which brought you here," Buck observed. "Go you back
+and look upon the spaceship and remember, Deklay. The knowledge of the
+Pinda-lick-o-yi is greater than ours when it deals with metal and wire
+and things which can be made with both. Machines brought us along the
+road of the stars, and there is no tracker in the clan who could hope to
+do the same. But now I have this to ask: Does our brother have a plan?"
+
+"Those who are Reds," Travis answered slowly, "they do not number many.
+But more may later come from our own world. Have you heard of such
+arriving?" he asked Menlik.
+
+"Not so, but we are not told much. We live apart and no one of us goes
+to the ship unless he is summoned. For they have weapons to guard them,
+or long since they would have been dead. It is not proper for a man to
+eat from the pot, ride in the wind, sleep easy under the same sky with
+him who has slain his brother."
+
+"They have then killed among your people?"
+
+"They have killed," Menlik returned briefly.
+
+Kaydessa stirred and muttered a word or two to her brother. Hulagur's
+head came up, and he exploded into violent speech.
+
+"What does he say?" Deklay demanded.
+
+The girl replied: "He speaks of our father who aided in the escape of
+three and so afterward was slain by the leader as a lesson to us--since
+he was our 'white beard,' the Khan."
+
+"We have taken the oath in blood--under the Wolf Head Standard--that
+they will also die," Menlik added. "But first we must shake them out of
+their ship-shell."
+
+"That is the problem," Travis elaborated for the benefit of his
+clansmen. "We must get these Reds away from their protected camp--out
+into the open. When they now go they are covered by this 'caller' which
+keeps the Tatars under their control, but it has no effect on us."
+
+"So, again I say: What is all this to us?" Deklay got to his feet. "This
+machine does not hunt us, and we can make our camps in this land where
+no Pinda-lick-o-yi can find them----"
+
+"We are not _dobe-gusndhe-he_--invulnerable. Nor do we know the full
+range of machines they can use. It does no one well to say
+'_doxa-da_'--this is not so--when he does not know all that lies in an
+enemy's wickiup."
+
+To Travis' relief he saw agreement mirrored on Buck's face, Tsoay's,
+Nolan's. From the beginning he had had little hope of swaying Deklay; he
+could only trust that the verdict of the majority would be the accepted
+one. It went back to the old, old Apache institution of prestige. A
+_nantan_-chief had the _go'ndi_, the high power, as a gift from birth.
+Common men could possess horse power or cattle power; they might have
+the gift of acquiring wealth so they could make generous gifts--be
+_ikadntl'izi_, the wealthy ones who spoke for their family groups within
+the loose network of the tribe. But there was no hereditary
+chieftainship or even an undivided rule within a rancheria. The
+_nagunlka-dnat'an_, or war chief, often led only on the warpath and had
+no voice in clan matters save those dealing with a raid.
+
+And to have a split now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklay
+and those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the rest
+could deny him that right.
+
+"We shall think on this," Buck said. "Here is food, water, pasturage for
+horses, a camp for our visitors. They will wait here." He looked at
+Travis. "You will wait with them, Fox, since you know their ways."
+
+Travis' immediate reaction was objection, but then he realized Buck's
+wisdom. To offer the proposition of alliance to the Apaches needed an
+impartial spokesman. And if he himself did it, Deklay might
+automatically oppose the idea. Let Buck talk and it would be a statement
+of fact.
+
+"It is well," Travis agreed.
+
+Buck looked about, as if judging time from the lie of sun and shadow on
+the ground. "We shall return in the morning when the shadow lies here."
+With the toe of his high moccasin he made an impression in the soft
+earth. Then, without any formal farewell, he strode off, the others fast
+on his heels.
+
+"He is your chief, that one?" Kaydessa asked, pointing after Buck.
+
+"He is one having a large voice in council," Travis replied. He set
+about building up the cooking fire, bringing out the body of a
+split-horn calf which had been left them. Menlik sat on his heels by the
+pool, dipping up drinking water with his hand. Now he squinted his eyes
+against the probe of the sun.
+
+"It will require much talking to win over the short one," he observed.
+"That one does not like us or your plan. Just as there will be those
+among the Horde who will not like it either." He flipped water drops
+from his fingers. "But this I do know, man who calls himself Fox, if we
+do not make a common cause, then we have no hope of going against the
+Reds. It will be for them as a man crushing fleas." He brought his hand
+down on his knee in emphatic slaps. "So ... and so ... and so!"
+
+"This do I think also," Travis admitted.
+
+"So let us both hope that all men will be as wise as we," Menlik said,
+smiling. "And since we can take a hand in that decision, this remains a
+time for rest."
+
+The shaman might be content to sleep the afternoon away, but after he
+had eaten, Hulagur wandered up and down the valley, making a lengthy
+business of rubbing down their horses with twists of last season's
+grass. Now and then he paused beside Kaydessa and spoke, his uneasiness
+plain to Travis although he could not understand the words.
+
+Travis had settled down in the shade, half dozing, yet alert to every
+movement of the three Tatars. He tried not to think of what might be
+happening in the rancheria by switching his mind to that misty valley of
+the towers. Did any of those three alien structures contain such a grab
+bag of the past as he, Ashe, and Murdock had found on that other world
+where the winged people had gathered together for them the artifacts of
+an older civilization? At that time he had created for their hosts a new
+weapon of defense, turning metal tubes into blow-guns. It had been
+there, too, where he had chanced upon the library of tapes, one of which
+had eventually landed Travis and his people here on Topaz.
+
+Even if he did find racks of such tapes in one of those towers, there
+would be no way of using them--with the ship wrecked on the mountain
+side. Only--Travis' fingers itched where they lay quiet on his
+knees--there might be other things waiting. If he were only free to
+explore!
+
+He reached out to touch Menlik's shoulder. The shaman half turned,
+opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the spark
+of intelligence awoke in them quickly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+For a moment Travis hesitated, already regretting his impulse. He did
+not know how much Menlik remembered of the present. Remember of the
+present--one part of the Apache's mind was wryly amused at that snarled
+estimate of their situation. Men who had been dropped into their racial
+and ancestral pasts until the present time was less real than the
+dreams conditioning them had a difficult job evaluating any situation.
+But since Menlik had clung to his knowledge of English, he must be less
+far down that stairway.
+
+"When we met you, Kaydessa and I, it was outside that valley." Travis
+was still of two minds about this questioning, but the Tatar camp had
+been close to the towers and there was a good chance the Mongols had
+explored them. "And inside were buildings ... very old...."
+
+Menlik was fully alert now. He took his wand, played with it as he
+spoke:
+
+"That is, or was, a place of much power, Fox. Oh, I know that you
+question my kinship with the spirits and the powers they give. But one
+learns not to dispute what one feels here--and here--" His long,
+somewhat grimy fingers went to his forehead and then to the bare brown
+chest where his shirt fell open. "I have walked the stone path in that
+valley, and there have been the whispers--"
+
+"Whispers?"
+
+Menlik twirled the wand. "Whispers which are too low for many ears to
+distinguish. You can hear them as one hears the buzzing of an insect,
+but never the words--no, never the words! But that is a place of great
+power!"
+
+"A place to explore!"
+
+But Menlik watched only his wand. "That I wonder, Fox, truly do I
+wonder. This is not our world. And here there may be that which does not
+welcome us."
+
+Tricks-in-trade of a shaman? Or was it true recognition of something
+beyond human description? Travis could not be sure, but he knew that he
+must return to the valley and see for himself.
+
+"Listen," Menlik said, leaning closer, "I have heard your tale, that
+you were on that first ship, the one which brought you unwilling along
+the old star paths. Have you ever seen such a thing as this?"
+
+He smoothed a space of soft earth and with the narrow tip of his wand
+began to draw. Whatever role Menlik had played in the present before he
+had been reconditioned into a shaman of the Horde, he had had the
+ability of an artist, for with a minimum of lines he created a figure in
+that sketch.
+
+It was a man or at least a figure with general human outlines. But the
+round, slightly oversized skull was bare, the clothing skintight to
+reveal unnaturally thin limbs. There were large eyes, small nose and
+mouth, rather crowded into the lower third of the head, giving an
+impression of an over-expanded brain case above. And it was familiar.
+
+Not the flying men of the other world, certainly not the nocturnal
+ape-things. Yet for all its alien quality Travis was sure he had seen
+its like before. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it apart from
+lines in the soil.
+
+Such a head, white, almost like the bone of a skull laid bare, such a
+head lying face down on a bone-thin arm clad in a blue-purple skintight
+sleeve. Where had he seen it?
+
+The Apache gave a sharp exclamation as he remembered fully. The derelict
+spaceship as he had first found it--the dead alien officer had still
+been seated at its controls! The alien who had set the tape which took
+them out into that forgotten empire--he was the subject of Menlik's
+drawing!
+
+"Where? When did you see such a one?" The Apache bent down over the
+Tatar.
+
+Menlik looked troubled. "He came into my mind when I walked the valley.
+I thought I could almost see such a face in one of the tower windows,
+but of that I am not sure. Who is it?"
+
+"Someone from the old days--those who once ruled the stars," Travis
+answered. But were they still here then, the remnant of a civilization
+which had flourished ten thousand years ago? Were the Baldies, who
+centuries ago had hunted down so ruthlessly the Russians who had dared
+to loot their wrecked ships, still on Topaz?
+
+He remembered the story of Ross Murdock's escape from those aliens in
+the far past of Europe, and he shivered. Murdock was tough, steel tough,
+yet his own description of that epic chase and the final meeting had
+carried with it his terror. What could a handful of primitively armed
+and almost primitively minded Terrans do now if they had to dispute
+Topaz with the Baldies?
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+"Beyond this--" Menlik worked his way to the very lip of a drop, raising
+a finger cautiously--"beyond this we do not go."
+
+"But you say that the camp of your people lies well out in the plains--"
+Jil-Lee was up on one knee, using the field glasses they had brought
+from the stores of the wrecked ship. He passed them along to Travis.
+There was nothing to be sighted but the rippling amber waves of the tall
+grasses, save for an occasional break of a copse of trees near the
+foothills.
+
+They had reached this point in the early morning, threading through the
+pass, making their way across the section known to the outlaws. From
+here they could survey the debatable land where their temporary allies
+insisted the Reds were in full control.
+
+The result of the conference in the south had been this uneasy alliance.
+From the start Travis realized that he could not hope to commit the clan
+to any set plan, that even to get this scouting party to come against
+the stubborn resistance of Deklay and his reactionaries was a major
+achievement. There was now an opening wedge of six Apaches in the
+north.
+
+"Beyond this," Menlik repeated, "they keep watch and can control us with
+the caller."
+
+"What do you think?" Travis passed the glasses to Nolan.
+
+If they were ever to develop a war chief, this lean man, tall for an
+Apache and slow to speak, might fill that role. He adjusted the lenses
+and began a detailed study-sweep of the open territory. Then he
+stiffened; his mouth, below the masking of the glasses, was tight.
+
+"What is it?" Jil-Lee asked.
+
+"Riders--two ... four ... five.... Also something else--in the air."
+
+Menlik jerked back and grabbed at Nolan's arm, dragging him down by the
+weight of his body.
+
+"The flyer! Come back--back!" He was still pulling at Nolan, prodding at
+Travis with one foot, and the Apaches stared at him with amazement.
+
+The shaman sputtered in his own language, and then, visibly regaining
+command of himself, spoke English once more.
+
+"Those are hunters, and they carry a caller. Either some others have
+escaped or they are determined to find our mountain camp."
+
+Jil-Lee looked at Travis. "You did not feel anything when the woman was
+under that spell?"
+
+Travis shook his head. Jil-Lee nodded and then said to the shaman: "We
+shall stay here and watch. But since it is bad for you--do you go. And
+we shall meet you near this place of the towers. Agreed?"
+
+For a moment Menlik's face held a shadowy expression Travis tried to
+read. Was it resentment--resentment that he was forced to retreat when
+the others could stand their ground? Did the Tatar believe that he lost
+face this way? But the shaman gave a grunt of what they took as assent
+and slipped over the edge of the lookout point. A moment later they
+heard him speaking the Mongol tongue, warning Hulagur and Lotchu, his
+companions on the scout. Then came the clatter of pony hoofs as they
+rode their mounts away.
+
+The Apaches settled back in the cup, which gave them a wide view over
+the plains. Soon it was not necessary to use the glasses in order to
+sight the advancing party of hunters--five riders, four wearing Tatar
+dress. The fifth had such an odd outline that Travis was reminded of
+Menlik's sketch of the alien. Under the sharper vision of the glasses he
+saw that the rider was equipped with a pack strapped between his
+shoulders and a bulbous helmet covering most of his head. Highly
+specialized equipment for communication, Travis guessed.
+
+"That is a 'copter up above," Nolan said. "Different shape from ours."
+
+They had been familiar with helicopters back on Terra. Ranchers used
+them for range inspection, and all of the Apache volunteers had flown in
+them. But Nolan was correct; this one possessed several unfamiliar
+features.
+
+"The Tatars say they don't bring those very far into the mountains,"
+Jil-Lee mused. "That could explain their man on horseback; he gets in
+where they don't fly."
+
+Nolan fingered his bow. "If these Reds depend upon their machine to
+control what they seek, then they may be taken by surprise----"
+
+"But not yet!" Travis spoke sharply. Nolan frowned at him.
+
+Jil-Lee chuckled. "The way is not so dark for us, younger brother, that
+we need your torch held for our feet!"
+
+Travis swallowed back any retort, accepting the fairness of that rebuke.
+He had no right to believe that he alone knew the best way of handling
+the enemy. Biting on the sourness of that realization, he lay quietly
+with the others, watching the riders enter the foothills perhaps a
+quarter of a mile to the west.
+
+The helicopter was circling now over the men riding into a cut between
+two rises. When they were lost to view, the pilot made wider casts, and
+Travis thought the flyer's crew were probably in communication with the
+helmeted one of the quintet on the ground.
+
+He stirred. "They are heading for the Tatar camp, just as if they know
+exactly where it is--"
+
+"That also may be true," Nolan replied. "What do we know of these
+Tatars? They have freely said that the Reds can hold them in mind ropes
+when they wish. Already they may be so bound. I say--let us go back to
+our own country." He added to the decisiveness of that by handing
+Jil-Lee the glasses and sliding down from their perch.
+
+Travis looked at the other. In a way he could understand the wisdom of
+Nolan's suggestion. But he was sure that withdrawal now would only
+postpone trouble. Sooner or later the Apaches would have to stand
+against the Reds, and if they could do it now while the enemy was
+occupied with trouble from the Tatars, so much the better.
+
+Jil-Lee was following Nolan. But something in Travis rebelled. He
+watched the circling helicopter. If it was overhanging the action area
+of the horsemen, they had either reined in or were searching a
+relatively small section of the foothills.
+
+Reluctantly Travis descended to the hollow where Jil-Lee stood with
+Nolan. Tsoay and Lupe and Rope were a little to one side as if the final
+orders would come from their seniors.
+
+"It would be well," Jil-Lee said slowly, "if we saw what weapons they
+have. I want a closer look at the equipment of that one in the helmet.
+Also," he smiled straight at Nolan--"I do not think that they can detect
+the presence of warriors of the People unless we will it so."
+
+Nolan ran a finger along the curve of his bow, shot a measuring glance
+right and left at the general contours of the country.
+
+"There is wisdom in what you say, elder brother. Only this is a trail we
+shall take alone, not allowing the men with fur hats to know where we
+walk." He looked pointedly in Travis' direction.
+
+"That is wisdom, _Ba'is'a_," Travis promptly replied, giving Nolan the
+old title accorded the leader of a war party. Travis was grateful for
+that much of a concession.
+
+They swung into action, heading southeast at an angle which should bring
+them across the track of the enemy hunting party. The path was theirs at
+last, only moments after the passing of their quarry. None of the five
+riders was taking any precautions to cover his trail. Each moved with
+the confidence of one not having to fear any attack.
+
+From cover the Apaches looked aloft. They could hear the faint hum of
+the helicopter. It was still circling, Tsoay reported from a higher
+check point, but those circles remained close over the plains area--the
+riders had already passed beyond the limits of that aerial sentry.
+
+Three to a side, the Apaches advanced with the trail between them. They
+were carefully hidden when they caught up with the hunters. The four
+Tatars were grouped together; the fifth man, heavily burdened by his
+pack, had climbed from the saddle and was sitting on the ground, his
+hands busy with a flat plate which covered him from upper chest to belt.
+
+Now that he had a chance to see them closely, Travis noted the lack of
+expression on the broad Tatar faces. The four men were blank of eye,
+astride their mounts with no apparent awareness of their present
+surroundings. Then as one, their heads swung around to the helmeted
+leader before they dismounted and stood motionless for a long moment in
+a way which reminded Travis of the coyotes' attitude when they
+endeavored to pass some message to him. But these men even lacked the
+signs of thinking intelligence the animals had.
+
+The helmeted man's hand moved across his chest plate, and instantly his
+followers came into a measure of life. One put his hand to his forehead
+with an odd, half-dazed gesture. Another half crouched, his lips
+wrinkling back in a snarl. And the leader, watching him, laughed. Then
+he snapped an order, his hand poised over his control plate.
+
+One of the four took the horse reins, made the mounts fast to near-by
+bushes. Then as one they began to walk forward, the Red bringing up the
+rear several paces behind the nearest Tatar. They were going upslope to
+the crest of a small ridge.
+
+The Tatar who first reached the crest put his hands to cup his mouth,
+sent a ringing cry southward, and the faint "hu-hu-hu" echoed on and on
+through the hills.
+
+Either Menlik had reached the camp in time, or his people were not to be
+so easily enticed. For though the hunters waited for a long time, there
+was no answer to that hail. At last the helmeted man called his
+captives, bringing them sullenly down to mount and ride again--a move
+which suited the Apaches.
+
+They could not tell how close was the communication between the rider
+and the helicopter. And they were still too near the plains to attack
+unless it was necessary for their own protection. Travis dropped back to
+join Nolan.
+
+"He controls them by that plate on his chest," he said. "If we would
+take them, we must get at that--"
+
+"These Tatars use lariats in fighting. Did they not rope you as a calf
+is roped for branding? Then why do they not so take this Red, binding
+his arms to his sides?" The suspicion in Nolan's voice was plain.
+
+"Perhaps in them is some conditioned control making it so that they
+cannot attack their rulers--"
+
+"I do not like this matter of machines which can play this way and that
+with minds and bodies!" flared Nolan. "A man should only _use_ a weapon,
+not be one!"
+
+Travis could agree to that. Had they by the wreck of their own ship and
+the death of Ruthven, escaped just such an existence as these Tatars now
+endured? If so, why? He and all the Apaches were volunteers, eager and
+willing to form new world colonies. What had happened back on Terra that
+they had been so ruthlessly sent out without warning and under Redax?
+Another small piece of that puzzle, or maybe the heart of the whole
+picture snapped into place. Had the project learned in some way of the
+Tatar settlement on Topaz and so been forced to speed up that
+translation from late twentieth-century Americans to primitives? That
+would explain a lot!
+
+Travis returned abruptly to the matter now at hand as he saw a peak
+ahead. The party they were trailing was heading directly for the outlaw
+hide-out. Travis hoped Menlik had warned them in time. There--that wall
+of cliff to his left must shelter the valley of the towers, though it
+was still miles ahead. Travis did not believe the hunters would be able
+to reach their goal unless they traveled at night. They might not know
+of the ape-things which could menace the dark.
+
+But the enemy, whether he knew of such dangers or not, did not intend to
+press on. As the sun pulled away, leaving crevices and crannies shadow
+dark, the hunters stopped to make camp. The Apaches, after their custom
+on the war trail, gathered on the heights above.
+
+"This Red seems to think that he shall find those he seeks sitting
+waiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoay
+remarked.
+
+"It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe they
+are greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking into
+the arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.
+
+"A man with a rifle does not fear a man armed only with a stick," Travis
+cut in quickly. "This one is armed with a weapon which he has good
+reason to believe makes him invulnerable to attack. If he rests tonight,
+he probably leaves his machine on guard."
+
+"At least we are sure of one thing," Nolan said in half agreement. "This
+one does not suspect that there are any in these hills save those he can
+master. And his machine does not work against us. Thus at dawn--" He
+made a swift gesture, and they smiled in concert.
+
+At dawn--the old time of attack. An Apache does not attack at night.
+Travis was not sure that any of them could break that old taboo and
+creep down upon the camp before the coming of new light.
+
+But tomorrow morning they would take over this confident Red, strip him
+of his enslaving machine.
+
+Travis' head jerked. It had come as suddenly as a blow between his
+eyes--to half stun him. What ... what was it? Not any physical
+impact--no, something which was dazing but still immaterial. He braced
+his whole body, awaiting its return, trying frantically to understand
+what had happened in that instant of vertigo and seeming disembodiment.
+Never had he experienced anything like it--or had he? Two years or more
+ago when he had gone through the time transfer to enter the Arizona of
+the Folsom Men some ten thousand years earlier--that moment of transfer
+had been something like this, a sensation of being awry in space and
+time with no stable footing to be found.
+
+Yet he was lying here on very tangible rock and soil, and nothing about
+him in the shadow-hung landscape of Topaz had changed in the slightest.
+But that blow had left behind it a quivering residue of panic buried far
+inside him, a tender spot like an open wound.
+
+Travis drew a deep breath which was almost a sob, levered himself up on
+one elbow to stare intently down into the enemy camp. Was this some
+attack from the other's unknown weapon? Suddenly he was not at all sure
+what might happen when the Apaches made that dawn rush.
+
+Jil-Lee was in station on his right. Travis must compare notes with him
+to be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now than
+to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the
+chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in
+a cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect.
+
+"Did you feel something just now--in your head?" Travis found it
+difficult to put that sensation into words.
+
+"Not so. But you did?"
+
+He had--of course, he had! The remains of it were still in him, that
+point of panic. "Yes."
+
+"The machine?"
+
+"I don't know." Travis' confusion grew. It might be that he alone of the
+party had been struck. If so, he could be a danger to his own kind.
+
+"This is not good. I think we had better hold council, away from here."
+Jil-Lee's whisper was the merest ghost of sound. He chirped again to be
+answered from Tsoay upslope, who passed on the signal.
+
+The first moon was high in the sky as the Apaches gathered together.
+Again Travis asked his question: Had any of the others felt that odd
+blow? He was met by negatives.
+
+But Nolan had the final word: "This is not good," he echoed Jil-Lee's
+comment. "If it was the Red machine at work, then we may all be swept
+into his net along with those he seeks. Perhaps the longer one remains
+close to that thing, the more influence it gains over him. We shall stay
+here until dawn. If the enemy would reach the place they seek, then they
+must pass below us, for that is the easiest road. Burdened with his
+machine, that Red has ever taken the easiest way. So, we shall see if he
+also has a defense against these when they come without warning." He
+touched the arrows in his quiver.
+
+To kill from ambush meant that they might never learn the secret of the
+machine, but after his experience Travis was willing to admit that
+Nolan's caution was the wise way. Travis wanted no part of a second
+attack like that which had shaken him so. And Nolan had not ordered a
+general retreat. It must be in the war chief's thoughts as it was in
+Travis' that if the machine could have an influence over Apaches, it
+must cease to function.
+
+They set their ambush with the age-old skill the Redax had grafted into
+their memories. Then there was nothing to do but wait.
+
+It was an hour after dawn when Tsoay signaled that the enemy was coming,
+and shortly after, they heard the thud of ponies' hoofs. The first Tatar
+plodded into view, and by the stance of his body in the saddle, Travis
+knew the Red had him under full control. Two, then three Tatars passed
+between the teeth of the Apache trap. The fourth one had allowed a wider
+gap to open between himself and his fellows.
+
+Then the Red leader came. His face below the bulge of the helmet was not
+happy. Travis believed the man was not a horseman by inclination. The
+Apache set arrow to bow cord, and at the chirp from Nolan, fired in
+concert with his clansmen.
+
+Only one of those arrows found a target. The Red's pony gave a shrill
+scream of pain and terror, reared, pawing at the air, toppled back,
+pinning its shouting rider under it.
+
+The Red had had a defense right enough, one which had somehow deflected
+the arrows. But he neither had protection against his own awkward seat
+in the saddle nor the arrow which had seriously wounded the now
+threshing pony.
+
+Ahead the Tatars twisted and writhed, mouthed tortured cries, then
+dropped out of their saddles to lie limply on the ground as if the
+arrows aimed at the master had instead struck each to the heart.
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+Either the Red was lucky, or his reactions were quick. He had somehow
+rolled clear of the struggling horse as Lupe leaped from behind a
+boulder, knife out and ready. To the eyes of the Apaches the helmeted
+man lay easy prey to Lupe's attack. Nor did he raise an arm to defend
+himself, though one hand lay free across the plate on his chest.
+
+But the young Apache stumbled, rebounding back as if he had run into an
+unseen wall--when his knife was still six inches away from the other.
+Lupe cried out, shook under a second impact as the Red fired an
+automatic with his other hand.
+
+Travis dropped his bow, returned to the most primitive weapon of all.
+His hand closed around a stone and he hurled the fist-sized oval
+straight at the helmet so clearly outlined against the rocks below.
+
+But even as Lupe's knife had never touched flesh, so was the rock
+deflected; the Red was covered by some protective field. This was
+certainly nothing the Apaches had seen before. Nolan's whistle summoned
+them to draw back.
+
+The Red fired again, the sharp bark of the hand gun harsh and loud. He
+did not have any real target, for with the exception of Lupe the Apaches
+had gone to earth. Between the rocks the Red was struggling to his feet,
+but he moved slowly, favoring his side and one leg; he had not come
+totally unharmed from his tumble with the pony.
+
+An armed enemy who could not be touched--one who knew there were more
+than outlaws in this region. The Red leader was far more of a threat to
+the Apaches now than he had ever been. He must not be allowed to escape.
+
+He was holstering his gun, moving along with one hand against the rocks
+to steady himself, trying to reach one of the ponies that stood with
+trailing reins beside the inert Tatars.
+
+But when the enemy reached the far side of that rock he would have to
+sacrifice either his steadying hold, or his touch on the chest plate
+where his other hand rested. Would he, then, for an instant be
+vulnerable?
+
+The pony!
+
+Travis put an arrow on bow cord and shot. Not at the Red, who had
+released his hold of the rock, preferring to totter instead of lose
+control of the chest plate--but into the air straight before the nose of
+the mount.
+
+The pony neighed wildly, tried to turn, and its shoulder caught the
+free, groping hand of the Red and spun the man around and back, so that
+he flung up both hands in an effort to ward himself off the rocks. Then
+the pony stampeded down the break, its companions catching the same
+fever, trailing in a mad dash which kept the Red hard against the
+boulders.
+
+He continued to stand there until the horses, save for the wounded one
+still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve.
+They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two
+strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the Apaches could
+handle.
+
+Apparently the other was also aware of that, for now he pushed out from
+the rocks and stumbled along after the ponies. But he went only a step
+or two. Then, settling back once more against a convenient boulder, he
+began to work at the plate on his chest.
+
+Nolan appeared noiselessly beside Travis. "What does he do?" His lips
+were very close to the younger man's ear, his voice hardly more than a
+breath.
+
+Travis shook his head slightly. The Red's actions were a complete
+mystery. Unless, now disabled and afoot, he was trying to summon aid.
+Though there was no landing place for a helicopter here.
+
+Now was the time to try and reach Lupe. Travis had seen a slight
+movement in the fallen Apache's hand, the first indication that the
+enemy's shot had not been as fatal as it had looked. He touched Nolan's
+arm, pointed to Lupe; and then, discarding his bow and quiver beside the
+war leader, he stripped for action. There was cover down to the wounded
+Apache which would aid him. He must pass one of the Tatars on the way,
+but none of the tribesmen had shown any signs of life since they had
+fallen from their saddles at the first attack.
+
+With infinite care, Travis lowered himself into a narrow passage, took a
+lizard's way between brush and boulder, pausing only when he reached the
+Tatar for a quick check on the potential enemy.
+
+The lean brown face was half turned, one cheek in the sand, but the
+slack mouth, the closed eyes were those, Travis believed, of a dead man.
+By some action of his diabolic machine the Red must have snuffed out his
+four captives--perhaps in the belief that they were part of the Apache
+attack.
+
+Travis reached the rock where Lupe lay. He knew that Nolan was watching
+the Red and would give him warning if he suddenly showed an interest in
+anything but his machine. The Apache reached out, his hands closing on
+Lupe's ankles. Beneath his touch, flesh and muscle tensed. Lupe's eyes
+were open, focused now on Travis. There was a bleeding furrow above his
+right ear. The Red had tried a difficult head shot, failing in his aim
+by a mere fraction of an inch.
+
+Lupe made a swift move for which Travis was ready. His grip on the
+other's body helped to tumble them both around a rock which lay between
+them and the Red. There was the crack of another shot and dust spurted
+from the side of the boulder. But they lay together, safe for the
+present, as Travis was sure the enemy would not risk an open attack on
+their small fortress.
+
+With Travis' aid Lupe struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited.
+Jil-Lee was there to make competent examination of the boy's wound.
+
+"Creased," he reported. "A sore head, but no great damage. Perhaps a
+scar later, warrior!" He gave Lupe an encouraging thump on the shoulder,
+before plastering an aid pack over the cut.
+
+"Now we go!" Nolan spoke with emphatic decision.
+
+"He saw enough of us to know we are not Tatars."
+
+Nolan's eyes were cold, his mouth grim as he faced Travis.
+
+"And how can we fight him--?"
+
+"There is a wall--a wall you cannot see--about him," Lupe broke in.
+"When I would strike at him, I could not!"
+
+"A man with invisible protection and a gun," Jil-Lee took up the
+argument. "How would you deal with him, younger brother?"
+
+"I don't know," Travis admitted. Yet he also believed that if they
+withdrew, left the Red here to be found by his own people, the enemy
+would immediately begin an investigation of the southern country.
+Perhaps, pushed by their need for learning more about the Apaches, they
+would bring the helicopter in over the mountains. The answer to all
+Apache dangers, for now, lay in the immediate future of this one man.
+
+"He is hurt, he cannot go far on foot. And even if he calls the 'copter,
+there is no landing place. He will have to move elsewhere to be picked
+up." Travis thought aloud, citing the thin handful of points in their
+favor.
+
+Tsoay nodded toward the rim of the ravine. "Rocks up there and rocks can
+roll. Start an earthslide...."
+
+Something within Travis balked at that. From the first he had been
+willing enough to slug it out with the Red, weapon to weapon, man to
+man. Also, he had wanted to take a captive, not stand over a body. But
+to use the nature of the country against the enemy, that was the oldest
+Apache trick of all and one they would have to be forced to employ.
+
+Nolan had already nodded in assent, and Tsoay and Jil-Lee started off.
+Even if the Red did possess a protective wall device, could it operate
+in full against a landslide? They all doubted that.
+
+The Apaches reached the cliff rim without exposing themselves to the
+enemy's fire. The Red still sat there calmly, his back against the rock,
+his hands busy with his equipment as if he had all the time in the
+world.
+
+Then suddenly came a scream from more than one throat.
+
+"_Dar-u-gar_!" The ancient war cry of the Mongol Hordes.
+
+Then over the lip of the other slope rose a wave of men--their curved
+swords out, a glazed set to their eyes--heading for the Amerindians with
+utter disregard for any personal safety. Menlik in the lead, his
+shaman's robe flapping wide below his belt like the wings of some
+oversized predatory bird. Hulagur ... Jagatai ... men from the outlaws'
+camp. And they were not striving to destroy their disabled overlord in
+the vale below, but to wipe out the Apaches!
+
+Only the fact that the Apaches were already sheltered behind the rocks
+they were laboring to dislodge gave them a precious few moments of
+grace. There was no time to use their bows. They could only use knives
+to meet the swords of the Tatars, knives and the fact that they could
+fight with unclouded minds.
+
+"He has them under control!" Travis pawed at Jil-Lee's shoulder. "Get
+him--they'll stop!"
+
+He did not wait to see if the other Apache understood. Instead, he threw
+the full force of his own body against the rock they had made the center
+stone of their slide. It gave, rolled, carrying with it and before it
+the rest of the piled rubble. Travis stumbled, fell flat, and then a
+body thudded down upon him, and he was fighting for his life to keep a
+blade from his throat. Around him were the shouts and cries of embroiled
+warriors; then all was silenced by a roar from below.
+
+Glazed eyes in a face only a foot from his own, the twisted, panting
+mouth sending gusts of breath into his nostrils. Suddenly there was
+reason back in those eyes, a bewilderment, which became fear ...
+panic.... The Tatar's body twisted in Travis' hold, striving now not to
+attack, but to win free. As the Apache loosened his grip the other
+jerked away, so that for a moment or two they lay gasping, side by side.
+
+Men sat up to look at men. There was a spreading stain down Jil-Lee's
+side and one of the Tatars sprawled near him, both his hands on his
+chest, coughing violently.
+
+Menlik clawed at the trunk of a wind-twisted mountain tree, pulled
+himself to his feet, and stood swaying as might a man long ill and
+recovering from severe exertion.
+
+Insensibly both sides drew apart, leaving a space between Tatar and
+Apache. The faces of the Amerindians were grim, those of the Mongols
+bewildered and then harsh as they eyed their late opponents with dawning
+reason. What had begun in compulsion for the Tatars might well flare now
+into rational combat--and from that to a campaign of extermination.
+
+Travis was on his feet. He looked over the lip of the drop. The Red was
+still in his place down there, a pile of rubble about him. His
+protection must have failed, for his head was back at an unnatural angle
+and the dent in his helmet could be easily seen.
+
+"That one is dead--or helpless!" Travis cried out. "Do you still wish to
+fight for him, Shaman?"
+
+Menlik came away from the tree and walked to the edge of the drop. The
+others, too, were moving forward. After the shaman looked down he
+stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it at the motionless Red.
+There was a crack of sound. They all saw the tiny spurt of flame, a curl
+of smoke from the plate on the Red's chest. Not only the man, but his
+control was finished now.
+
+A wolfish growl and two of the Tatars swung over, started down to the
+Red. Menlik shouted and they slackened pace.
+
+"We want that," he cried in English. "Perhaps so we can learn--"
+
+"The learning is yours," Jil-Lee replied. "Just as this land is yours,
+Shaman. But I warn you, from this day do not ride south!"
+
+Menlik turned, the charms on his belt clicking. "So that is the way it
+is to be, Apache?"
+
+"That is the way it shall be, Tatar! We do not ride to war with allies
+who may turn their knives against our backs because they are slaves to a
+machine the enemy controls."
+
+The Tatar's long, slender-fingered hands opened and closed. "You are a
+wise man, Apache, but sometimes more than wisdom alone is needed----"
+
+"We are wise men, Shaman, let it rest there," Jil-Lee replied somberly.
+
+Already the Apaches were on their way, putting two cliff ridges behind
+them before they halted to examine and cover their wounds.
+
+"We go." Nolan's chin lifted, indicating the southern route. "Here we
+do not come again; there is too much witchcraft in this place."
+
+Travis stirred, saw that Jil-Lee was frowning at him.
+
+"Go--?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes, younger brother? You would continue to run with these who are
+governed by a machine?"
+
+"No. Only, eyes are needed on this side of the mountains."
+
+"Why?" This time Jil-Lee was plainly on the side of the conservatives.
+"We have now seen this machine at work. It is fortunate that the Red is
+dead. He will carry no tales of us back to his people as you feared.
+Thus, if we remain south from now on, we are safe. And this fight
+between Tatar and Red is none of ours. What do you seek here?"
+
+"I must go again to the place of the towers," Travis answered with the
+truth. But his friends were facing him with heavy disapproval--now a
+full row of Deklays.
+
+"Did you not tell us that you felt this strange thing during the night
+we waited about the camp? What if you become one with these Tatars and
+are also controlled by the machine? Then you, too, can be made into a
+weapon against us--your clansmen!" Jil-Lee was almost openly hostile.
+
+Sense was on his side. But in Travis was this other desire of which he
+was becoming more conscious by the minute. There was a reason for those
+towers, perhaps a reason important enough for him to discover and run
+the risk of angering his own people.
+
+"There may be this--" Nolan's voice was remote and cold, "you may
+already be a piece of this thing, bound to the machines. If so, we do
+not want you among us."
+
+There it was--an open hostility with more power behind it than Deklay's
+motiveless disapproval had carried. Travis was troubled. The family, the
+clan--they were important. If he took the wrong step now and was
+outlawed from that tight fortress, then as an Apache he would indeed be
+a lost man. In the past of his people there had been renegades from the
+tribe--men such as the infamous Apache Kid who had killed and killed
+again, not only white men but his own people. Wolf men living wolves'
+lives in the hills. Travis was threatened with that. Yet--up the ladder
+of civilization, down the ladder--why did this feverish curiosity ride
+him so cruelly now?
+
+"Listen," Jil-Lee, his side padded with bandages, stepped closer--"and
+tell me, younger brother, what is it that you seek in these towers?"
+
+"On another world there were secrets of the old ones to be found in such
+ancient buildings. Here that might also be true."
+
+"And among the secrets of those old ones," Nolan's voice was still
+harsh--"were those which brought us to this world, is that not so?"
+
+"Did any man drive you, Nolan, or you, Tsoay, or you, Jil-Lee, or any of
+us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done,
+and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers!"
+
+"Save for this voyage when we were told nothing," Jil-Lee answered,
+cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Yet, Nolan, I do not
+believe that it is for more voyage tapes that our younger brother now
+searches, nor would those do us any good--as our ship will not rise
+again from here. What is it that you do seek?"
+
+"Knowledge--weapons, maybe. Can we stand against these machines of the
+Reds? Yet many of the devices they now use are taken from the star ships
+they have looted through time. To every weapon there is a defense."
+
+Nolan blinked and for the first time a hint of interest touched the mask
+of his face. "To the bow, the rifle," he said softly, "to the rifle, the
+machine gun, to the cannon, the big bomb. The defense can be far worse
+than the first weapon. So you think that in these towers there may be
+things which shall be to the Reds' machines as the bomb is to the cannon
+of the Horse Soldiers?"
+
+Travis had an inspiration. "Did not our people lay aside the bow for the
+rifle when we went up against the Bluecoats?"
+
+"We do not so go up against these Reds!" protested Lupe.
+
+"Not now. But what if they come across the mountains, perhaps driving
+the Tatars before them to do their fighting--?"
+
+"And you believe that if you find weapons in these towers, you will know
+how to use them?" Jil-Lee asked. "What will give you that knowledge,
+younger brother?"
+
+"I do not claim such knowledge," Travis countered. "But this much I do
+have: Once I studied to be an archaeologist and I have seen other
+storehouses of these star people. Who else among us can say as much as
+that?"
+
+"That is the truth," Jil-Lee acknowledged. "Also there is good sense in
+this seeking out of the tower things. Let the Reds find such first--if
+they exist at all--and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with
+only death at our heels."
+
+"And you would go to these towers now?" Nolan demanded.
+
+"I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the
+pass!" The feeling of urgency which had been mounting in Travis was now
+so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was
+surprised when Jil-Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger
+man.
+
+"Take care, younger brother! This is not a lucky business. And remember,
+if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no
+returning--"
+
+"We shall wait on the other side of the pass for one day," Nolan added.
+"Then--" he shrugged--"where you go will be your own affair."
+
+Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two
+steps down his chosen path.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+Travis had taken a direct cross route through the heights, but not
+swiftly enough to reach his objective before nightfall. And he had no
+wish to enter the tower valley by moonlight. In him two emotions now
+warred. There was the urge to invade the towers, to discover their
+secret, and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was
+he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the
+Redax and his modern education in the Pinda-lick-o-yi world--half Apache
+brave of the past, half modern archaeologist with a thirst for
+knowledge? Or was the fear rooted more deeply and for another reason?
+
+Travis crouched in a hollow, trying to understand what he felt. Why was
+it suddenly so overwhelmingly important for him to investigate the
+towers? If he only had the coyotes with him.... Why and where had they
+gone?
+
+He was alive to every noise out of the night, every scent the wind
+carried to him. The night had its own life, just as the daylight hours
+held theirs. Only a few of those sounds could he identify, even less did
+he see. There was one wide-winged, huge flying thing which passed
+across the green-gold plate of the nearer moon. It was so large that for
+an instant Travis believed the helicopter had come. Then the wings
+flapped, breaking the glide, and the creature merged in the shadows of
+the night--a hunter large enough to be a serious threat, and one he had
+never seen before.
+
+Relying on his own small defense, the strewing of brittle sticks along
+the only approach to the hollow, Travis dozed at intervals, his head
+down on his forearm across his bent knees. But the cold cramped him and
+he was glad to see the graying sky of pre-dawn. He swallowed two ration
+tablets and a couple of mouthfuls of water from his canteen and started
+on.
+
+By sunup he had reached the ledge of the waterfall, and he hurried along
+the ancient road at a pace which increased to a run the closer he drew
+to the valley. Deliberately he slowed, his native caution now in
+control, so that he was walking as he passed through the gateway into
+the swirling mists which alternately exposed and veiled the towers.
+
+There was no change in the scene from the time he had come there with
+Kaydessa. But now, rising from a comfortable sprawl on the
+yellow-and-green pavement, was a welcoming committee--Nalik'ideyu and
+Naginlta showing no more excitement at his coming than if they had
+parted only moments before.
+
+Travis went down on one knee, holding out his hand to the female, who
+had always been the more friendly. She advanced a step or two, touched a
+cold nose to his knuckles, and whined.
+
+"Why?" He voiced that one word, but behind it was a long list of
+questions. Why had they left him? Why were they here where there was no
+hunting? Why did they meet him now as if they had calmly expected his
+return?
+
+Travis glanced from the animals to the towers, those windows set in
+diamond pattern. And again he was visited by the impression that he was
+under observation. With the mist floating across those openings, it
+would be easy for a lurker to watch him unseen.
+
+He walked slowly on into the valley, his moccasins making no sound on
+the pavement, but he could hear the faint click of the coyotes' claws as
+they paced beside him, on each hand. The sun did not penetrate here,
+making merely a gilt fog of the mist. As he approached within touching
+distance of the first tower, it seemed to Travis that the mist was
+curling about him; he could no longer see the archway through which he
+had entered the valley.
+
+"Naye'nezyani--Slayer of Monsters--give strength to the bow arm, to the
+knife wrist!" Out of what long-buried memory did that ancient plea come?
+Travis was hardly aware of the sense of the words until he spoke them
+aloud. "You who wait--_shi inday to-dah ishan_--an Apache is not food
+for you! I am Fox of the Itcatcudnde'yu--the Eagle People; and beside me
+walk _ga'ns_ of power...."
+
+Travis blinked and shook his head as one waking. Why had he spoken so,
+using words and phrases which were not part of any modern speech?
+
+He moved on, around the base of the first tower, to find no door, no
+break in its surface below the second-story windows--to the next
+structure and the next, until he had encircled all three. If he were to
+enter any, he must find a way of reaching the lowest windows.
+
+On he went to the other opening of the valley, the one which gave upon
+the territory of the Tatar camp. But he did not sight any of the Mongols
+as he hacked down a sapling, trimmed, and smoothed it into a
+blunt-pointed lance. His sash-belt, torn into even strips and knotted
+together, gave him a rope which he judged would be barely long enough
+for his purpose.
+
+Then Travis made a chancy cast for the lower window of the nearest
+tower. On the second try the lance slipped in, and he gave a quick jerk,
+jamming the lance as a bar across the opening. It was a frail ladder but
+the best he could improvise. He climbed until the sill of the window was
+within reach and he could pull himself up and over.
+
+The sill was a wide one, at least a twenty-four-inch span between the
+inner and outer surface of the tower. Travis sat there for a minute,
+reluctant to enter. Near the end of his dangling scarf-rope the two
+coyotes lay on the pavement, their heads up, their tongues lolling from
+their mouths, their expressions ones of detached interest.
+
+Perhaps it was the width of the outer wall that subdued the amount of
+light in the room. The chamber was circular, and directly opposite him
+was a second window, the lowest of the matching diamond pattern. He took
+the four-foot drop from the sill to the floor but lingered in the light
+as he surveyed every inch of the room. There were no furnishings at all,
+but in the very center sank a well of darkness. A smooth pillar, glowing
+faintly, rose from its core. Travis' adjusting eyes noted how the light
+came in small ripples--green and purple, over a foundation shade of dark
+blue.
+
+The pillar seemed rooted below and it extended up through a similar
+opening in the ceiling, providing the only possible exit up or down,
+save for climbing from window to window outside. Travis moved slowly to
+the well. Underfoot was a smooth surface overlaid with a velvet carpet
+of dust which arose in languid puffs as he walked. Here and there he
+sighted prints in the dust, strange triangular wedges which he thought
+might possibly have been made by the claws of birds. But there were no
+other footprints. This tower had been undisturbed for a long, long time.
+
+He came to the well and looked down. There was dark there, dark in which
+the pulsations of light from the pillar shown the stronger. But that
+glow did not extend beyond the edge of the well through which the thick
+rod threaded. Even by close examination he could detect no break in the
+smooth surface of the pillar, nothing remotely resembling hand- or
+footholds. If it did serve the purpose of a staircase, there were no
+treads.
+
+At last Travis put out his hand to touch the surface of the pillar. And
+then he jerked back--to no effect. There was no breaking contact between
+his fingers and an unknown material which had the sleekness of polished
+metal but--and the thought made him slightly queasy--the warmth and very
+slight give of flesh!
+
+He summoned all his strength to pull free and could not. Not only did
+that hold grip him, but his other hand and arm were being drawn to join
+the first! Inside Travis primitive fears awoke full force, and he threw
+back his head, voicing a cry of panic as wild as that of a hunting
+beast.
+
+An instant later, his left palm was as tight a prisoner as his right.
+And with both hands so held, his whole body was suddenly snapped
+forward, off the safe foundation of the floor, tight to the pillar.
+
+In this position he was sucked down into the well. And while unable to
+free himself from the pillar, he did slip along its length easily
+enough. Travis shut his eyes in an involuntary protest against this
+weird form of capture, and a shiver ran through his body as he continued
+to descend.
+
+After the first shock had subsided the Apache realized that he was not
+truly falling at all. Had the pillar been horizontal instead of
+vertical, he would have gauged its speed that of a walk. He passed
+through two more room enclosures; he must already be below the level of
+the valley floor outside. And he was still a prisoner of the pillar, now
+in total darkness.
+
+His feet came down against a level surface, and he guessed he must have
+reached the end. Again he pulled back, arching his shoulders in a final
+desperate attempt at escape, and stumbled away as he was released.
+
+He came up sideways against a wall and stood there panting. The light,
+which might have come from the pillar but which seemed more a part of
+the very air, was bright enough to reveal that he was in a corridor
+running into greater dark both right and left.
+
+Travis took two strides back to the pillar, fitted his palms once again
+to its surface, with no result. This time his flesh did not adhere and
+there was no possible way for him to climb that slick pole. He could
+only hope that at some point the corridor would give him access to the
+surface. But which way to go--?
+
+At last he chose the right-hand path and started along it, pausing every
+few steps to listen. But there was no sound except the soft pad of his
+own feet. The air was fresh enough, and he thought he could detect a
+faint current coming toward him from some point ahead--perhaps an exit.
+
+Instead, he came into a room and a small gasp of astonishment was wrung
+out of him. The walls were blank, covered with the same ripples of
+blue-purple-green light which colored the pillar. Just before him was a
+table and behind it a bench, both carved from the native yellow-red
+mountain rock. And there was no exit except the doorway in which he now
+stood.
+
+Travis walked to the bench. Immovable, it was placed so that whoever sat
+there must face the opposite wall of the chamber with the table before
+him. And on the table was an object Travis recognized immediately from
+his voyage in the alien star ship, one of the reader-viewers through
+which the involuntary explorers had learned what little they knew of the
+older galactic civilization.
+
+A reader--and beside it a box of tapes. Travis touched the edge of that
+box gingerly, half expecting it to crumble into nothingness. This was a
+place long deserted. Stone table, bench, the towers could survive
+through centuries of abandonment, but these other objects....
+
+The substance of the reader was firm under the film of dust; there was
+less dust here than had been in the upper tower chamber. Hardly knowing
+why, Travis threw one leg over the bench and sat down behind the table,
+the reader before him, the box of tapes just beyond his hand.
+
+He surveyed the walls and then looked away hurriedly. The rippling
+colors caught at his eyes. He had a feeling that if he watched that ebb
+and flow too long, he would be captured in some subtle web of
+enchantment just as the Reds' machine had caught and held the Tatars. He
+turned his attention to the reader. It was, he believed, much like the
+one they had used on the ship.
+
+This room, table, bench, had all been designed with a set purpose. And
+that purpose--Travis' fingers rested on the box of tapes he could not
+yet bring himself to open--that purpose was to use the reader, he would
+swear to that. Tapes so left must have had a great importance for those
+who left them. It was as if the whole valley was a trap to channel a
+stranger into this underground chamber.
+
+Travis snapped open the box, fed the first disk into the reader, and
+applied his eyes to the vision tube at its apex.
+
+The rippling walls looked just the same when he looked up once more, but
+the cramp in his muscles told Travis that time had passed--perhaps hours
+instead of minutes--since he had taken out the first disk. He cupped his
+hands over his eyes and tried to think clearly. There had been sheets of
+meaningless symbol writing, but also there had been many clear,
+three-dimensional pictures, accompanied by a singsong commentary in an
+alien tongue, seemingly voiced out of thin air. He had been stuffed with
+ragged bits and patches of information, to be connected only by guesses,
+and some wild guesses, too. But this much he did know--these towers had
+been built by the bald spacemen, and they were highly important to that
+vanished stellar civilization. The information in this room, as
+disjointed as it had been for him, led to a treasure trove on Topaz
+greater than he had dreamed.
+
+Travis swayed on the bench. To know so much and yet so little! If Ashe
+were only here, or some other of the project technicians! A treasure
+such as Pandora's box had been, peril for one who opened it and did not
+understand. The Apache studied the three walls of blue-purple-green in
+turn and with new attention. There were ways through those walls; he was
+fairly sure he could unlock at least one of them. But not now--certainly
+not now!
+
+And there was another thing he knew: The Reds must _not_ find this. Such
+a discovery on their part would not only mean the end of his own people
+on Topaz, but the end of Terra as well. This could be a new and alien
+Black Death spread to destroy whole nations at a time!
+
+If he could--much as his archaeologist's training would argue against
+it--he would blot out this whole valley above and below ground. But
+while the Reds might possess a means of such destruction, the Apaches
+did not. No, he and his people must prevent its discovery by the enemy
+by doing what he had seen as necessary from the first--wiping out the
+Red leaders! And that must be done before they chanced upon the towers!
+
+Travis arose stiffly. His eyes ached, his head felt stuffed with
+pictures, hints, speculations. He wanted to get out, back into the open
+air where perhaps the clean winds of the heights would blow some of
+this frightening half knowledge from his benumbed mind. He lurched down
+the corridor, puzzled now by the problem of getting back to the window
+level.
+
+Here, before him, was the pillar. Without hope, but still obeying some
+buried instinct, Travis again set his hands to its surface. There was a
+tug at his cramped arms; once more his body was sucked to the pillar.
+This time he was rising!
+
+He held his breath past the first level and then relaxed. The principle
+of this weird form of transportation was entirely beyond his
+understanding, but as long as it worked in reverse he didn't care to
+find out. He reached the windowed chamber, but the sunlight had left it;
+instead, the clean cut of moon sweep lay on the dusty floor. He must
+have been hours in that underground place.
+
+Travis pulled away from the embrace of the pillar. The bar of his wooden
+lance was still across the window and he ran for it. To catch the
+scouting party at the pass he must hurry. The report they would make to
+the clan now had to be changed radically in the face of his new
+discoveries. The Apaches dared not retreat southward and withdraw from
+the fight, leaving the Reds to use what treasure lay here.
+
+As he hit the pavement below he looked about for the coyotes. Then he
+tried the mind call. But as mysteriously as they had met him in the
+valley, so now were they gone again. And Travis had no time to hunt for
+them. With a sigh, he began his race to the pass.
+
+In the old days, Travis remembered, Apache warriors had been able to
+cover forty-five or fifty miles a day on foot and over rough territory.
+But perhaps his modern breeding had slowed him. He had been so sure he
+could catch up before the others were through the pass. But he stood now
+in the hollow where they had camped, read the sign of overturned stone
+and bent twig left for him, and knew they would reach the rancheria and
+report the decision Deklay and the others wanted before he could head
+them off.
+
+Travis slogged on. He was so tired now that only the drug from the
+sustenance tablets he mouthed at intervals kept him going at a dogged
+pace, hardly more than a swift walk. And always his mind was haunted by
+fragments of pictures, pictures he had seen in the reader. The big bomb
+had been the nightmare of his own world for so long, and what was that
+against the forces the bald star rovers had been able to command?
+
+He fell beside a stream and slept. There was sunshine about him as he
+arose to stagger on. What day was this? How long had he sat in the tower
+chamber? He was not sure of time any more. He only knew that he must
+reach the rancheria, tell his story, somehow win over Deklay and the
+other reactionaries to prove the necessity for invading the north in
+force.
+
+A rocky point which was a familiar landmark came into focus. He padded
+on, his chest heaving, his breath whistling through parched, sun-cracked
+lips. He did not know that his face was now a mask of driven resolution.
+
+"Hahhhhhh--"
+
+The cry reached his dulled ears. Travis lifted his head, saw the men
+before him and tried to think what that show of weapons turned toward
+him could mean.
+
+A stone thudded to earth only inches before his feet, to be followed by
+another. He wavered to a stop.
+
+"_Ni'ilgac_--!"
+
+Witch? Where was a witch? Travis shook his head. There was no witch.
+
+"_Do ne'ilka da_'!"
+
+The old death threat, but why--for whom?
+
+Another stone, this one hitting him in the ribs with force enough to
+send him reeling back and down. He tried to get up again, saw Deklay
+grin widely and take aim--and at last Travis realized what was
+happening.
+
+Then there was a bursting pain in his head and he was falling--falling
+into a well of black, this time with no pillar of blue to guide him.
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+The rasp of something wet and rough, persistent against his cheek;
+Travis tried to turn his head to avoid the contact and was answered by a
+burst of pain which trailed off into a giddiness, making him fear
+another move, no matter how minor. He opened his eyes and saw the
+pointed ears, the outline of a coyote head between him and a dull gray
+sky, was able to recognize Nalik'ideyu.
+
+A wetness other than that from the coyote's tongue slid down his
+forehead now. The dull clouds overhead had released the first heavy rain
+Travis had experienced since their landing on Topaz. He shivered as the
+chill damp of his clothes made him aware that he must have been lying
+out in the full force of the downpour for some time.
+
+It was a struggle to get to his knees, but Nalik'ideyu mouthed a hold on
+his shirt, tugging and pulling so that somehow he crept into a hollow
+beneath the branches of a tree where the spouting water was lessened to
+a few pattering drops.
+
+There the Apache's strength deserted him again and he could only hunch
+over, his bent knees against his chest, trying to endure the throbbing
+misery in his head, the awful floating sensation which followed any
+movement. Fighting against that, he tried to remember just what had
+happened.
+
+The meeting with Deklay and at least four or five others ... then the
+Apache accusation of witchcraft, a serious thing in the old days. Old
+days! To Deklay and his fellows, these _were_ the old days! And the
+threat that Deklay or some other had shouted at him--"_Do ne'ilka
+da'_"--meant literally: "It won't dawn for you--death!"
+
+Stones, the last thing Travis remembered were the stones. Slowly his
+hands went out to explore his body. There was more than one bruised area
+on his shoulders and ribs, even on his thighs. He must still have been a
+target after he had fallen under the stone which had knocked him
+unconscious. Stoned ... outlawed! But why? Surely Deklay's hostility
+could not have swept Buck, Jil-Lee, Tsoay, even Nolan, into agreeing to
+that? Now he could not think straight.
+
+Travis became aware of warmth, not only of warmth and the soft touch of
+a furred body by his side, but a comforting communication of mind, a
+feeling he had no words to describe adequately. Nalik'ideyu was sitting
+crowded against him, her nose thrust up to rest on his shoulder. She
+breathed in soft puffs which stirred the loose locks of his rain-damp
+hair. And now he flung one arm about her, a gesture which brought a
+whisper of answering whine.
+
+He was past wondering about the actions of the coyotes, only supremely
+thankful for Nalik'ideyu's present companionship. And a moment later
+when her mate squeezed under the low loop of a branch and joined them
+in this natural wickiup, Travis held out his other hand, drew it
+lovingly across Naginlta's wet hide.
+
+"Now what?" he asked aloud. Deklay could only have taken such a drastic
+action with the majority of the clan solidly behind him. It could well
+be that this reactionary was the new chief, this act of Travis'
+expulsion merely adding to Deklay's growing prestige.
+
+The shivering which had begun when Travis recovered consciousness, still
+shook him at intervals. Back on Terra, like all the others in the team,
+he had had every inoculation known to the space physicians, including
+several experimental ones. But the cold virus could still practically
+immobilize a man, and this was no time to give body room to chills and
+fever.
+
+Catching his breath as his movements touched to life the pain in one
+bruise after another, Travis peeled off his soaked clothing, rubbed his
+body dry with handfuls of last year's leaves culled from the thick
+carpet under him, knowing there was nothing he could do until the
+whirling in his head disappeared. So he burrowed into the leaves until
+only his head was uncovered, and tried to sleep, the coyotes curling up
+one on either side of his nest.
+
+He dreamed but later could not remember any incident from those dreams,
+save a certain frustration and fear. When he awoke, again to the sound
+of steady rain, it was dark. He reached out--both coyotes were gone. His
+head was clearer and suddenly he knew what must be done. As soon as his
+body was strong enough, he, too, would return to instincts and customs
+of the past. This situation was desperate enough for him to challenge
+Deklay.
+
+In the dark Travis frowned. He was slightly taller, and three or four
+years younger than his enemy. But Deklay had the advantage in a stouter
+build and longer reach. However, Travis was sure that in his present
+life Deklay had never fought a duel--Apache fashion. And an Apache duel
+was not a meeting anyone entered into lightly. Travis had the right to
+enter the rancheria and deliver such a challenge. Then Deklay must meet
+him or admit himself in the wrong. That part of it was simple.
+
+But in the past such duels had just one end, a fatal one for at least
+one of the fighters. If Travis took this trail, he must be prepared to
+go the limit. And he didn't want to kill Deklay! There were too few of
+them here on Topaz to make any loss less than a real catastrophe. While
+he had no liking for Deklay, neither did he nurse any hatred. However,
+he must challenge the other or remain a tribal outcast; and Travis had
+no right to gamble with time and the future, not after what he had
+learned in the tower. It might be his life and skill, or Deklay's,
+against the blotting out of them all--and their home world into the
+bargain.
+
+First, he must locate the present camp of the clan. If Nolan's arguments
+had counted, they would be heading south away from the pass. And to
+follow would draw him farther from the tower valley. Travis' battered
+face ached as he grinned bitterly. This was another time when a man
+could wish he were two people, a scout on sentry duty at the valley, the
+fighter heading in the opposite direction to have it out with Deklay.
+But since he was merely one man he would have to gamble on time, one of
+the trickiest risks of all.
+
+Before dawn Nalik'ideyu returned, carrying with her a bird--or at least
+birds must have been somewhere in the creature's ancestry, but the
+present representative of its kind had only vestigial remnants of wings,
+its trailing feet and legs well developed and far more powerful.
+
+Travis skinned the corpse, automatically putting aside some spine quills
+to feather future arrows. Then he ate slivers of dusky meat raw,
+throwing the bones to Nalik'ideyu.
+
+Though he was still stiff and sore, Travis was determined to be on his
+way. He tried mind contact with the coyote, picturing the Apaches,
+notably Deklay, as sharply as he could by mental image. And her assent
+was clear in return. She and her mate were willing to lead him to the
+tribe. He gave a light sigh of relief.
+
+As he slogged on through the depressing drizzle, the Apache wondered
+again why the coyotes had left him before and waited in the tower
+valley. What link was there between the animals of Terra and the remains
+of the long-ago empire of the stars? For he was certain it was not by
+chance that Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta had lingered in that misty place.
+He longed to communicate with them directly, to ask questions and be
+answered.
+
+Without their aid, Travis would never have been able to track the clan.
+The drizzle alternated with slashing bursts of rain, torrential enough
+to drive the trackers to the nearest cover. Overhead the sky was either
+dull bronze or night black. Even the coyotes paced nose to ground, often
+making wide casts for the trail while Travis waited.
+
+The rain lasted for three days and nights, filling watercourses with
+rapidly rising streams. Travis could only hope that the others were
+having the same difficulty traveling that he was, perhaps the more so
+since they were burdened with packs. The fact that they kept on meant
+that they were determined to get as far from the northern mountains as
+they could.
+
+On the fourth morning the bronze of the clouds slowly thinned into the
+usual gold, and the sun struck across hills where mist curled like steam
+from a hundred bubbling pots. Travis relaxed in the welcome warmth,
+feeling his shirt dry on his shoulders. It was still a waterlogged
+terrain ahead which should continue to slow the clan. He had high
+expectations of catching up with them soon, and now the worst of his
+bruises had faded. His muscles were limber, and he had worked out his
+plan as best he could.
+
+Two hours later he sat in ambush, waiting for the scout who was walking
+into his hands. Under the direction of the coyotes, Travis had circled
+the line of march, come in ahead of the clan. Now he needed an emissary
+to state his challenge, and the fact that the scout he was about to jump
+was Manulito, one of Deklay's supporters, suited Travis' purpose
+perfectly. He gathered his feet under him as the other came opposite,
+and sprang.
+
+The rush carried Manulito off his feet and face down on the sod while
+Travis made the best of his advantage and pinned the wildly fighting man
+under him. Had it been one of the older braves he might not have been so
+successful, but Manulito was still a boy by Apache standards.
+
+"Lie still!" Travis ordered. "Listen well--so you can say to Deklay the
+words of the Fox!"
+
+The frenzied struggles ceased. Manulito managed to wrench his head to
+the left so he could see his captor. Travis loosened his grip, got to
+his feet. Manulito sat up, his face darkly sullen, but he did not reach
+for his knife.
+
+"You will say this to Deklay: The Fox says he is a man of little sense
+and less courage, preferring to throw stones rather than meet knife to
+knife as does a warrior. If he thinks as a warrior, let him prove
+it--his strength against my strength--after the ways of the People!"
+
+Some of the sullenness left Manulito's expression. He was eager,
+excited.
+
+"You would duel with Deklay after the old custom?"
+
+"I would. Say this to Deklay, openly so that all men may hear. Then
+Deklay must also give answer openly."
+
+Manulito flushed at that implication concerning his leader's courage,
+and Travis knew that he would deliver the challenge openly. To keep his
+hold on the clan the latter must accept it, and there would be an
+audience of his people to witness the success or defeat of their new
+chief and his policies.
+
+As Manulito disappeared Travis summoned the coyotes, putting full effort
+into getting across one message. Any tribe led by Deklay would be
+hostile to the mutant animals. They must go into hiding, run free in the
+wilderness if the gamble failed Travis. Now they withdrew into the
+bushes but not out of reach of his mind.
+
+He did not have too long to wait. First came Jil-Lee, Buck, Nolan,
+Tsoay, Lupe--those who had been with him on the northern scout. Then the
+others, the warriors first, the women making a half circle behind,
+leaving a free space in which Deklay walked.
+
+"I am the Fox," Travis stated. "And this one has named me witch and
+_natdahe_, outlaw of the mountains. Therefore do I come to name names in
+my turn. Hear me, People: This Deklay--he would walk among you as
+_'izesnantan_, a great chief--but he does not have the _go'ndi_, the
+holy power of a chief. For this Deklay is a fool, with a head filled by
+nothing but his own wishes, not caring for his clan brothers. He says he
+leads you into safety; I say he leads you into the worst danger any
+living man can imagine--even in peyote dreams! He is one twisted in his
+thoughts, and he would make you twisted also----"
+
+Buck cut in sharply, hushing the murmur of the massed clan.
+
+"These are bold words, Fox. Will you back them?"
+
+Travis' hands were already peeling off his shirt. "I will back them," he
+stated between set teeth. He had known since his awakening after the
+stoning that this next move was the only one left for him to make. But
+now that the testing of his action came, he could not be certain of the
+outcome, of anything save that the final decision of this battle might
+affect more than the fate of two men. He stripped, noting that Deklay
+was doing the same.
+
+Having stepped into the center of the glade, Nolan was using the point
+of his knife to score a deep-ridged circle there. Naked except for his
+moccasins, with only his knife in his hand, Travis took the two strides
+which put him in the circle facing Deklay. He surveyed his opponent's
+finely muscled body, realizing that his earlier estimate of Deklay's
+probable advantages were close to the mark. In sheer strength the other
+outmatched him. Whether Deklay was skillful with his knife was another
+question, one which Travis would soon be able to answer.
+
+They circled, eyes intent upon each move, striving to weigh and measure
+each other's strengths and weaknesses. Knife dueling among the
+Pinda-lick-o-yi, Travis remembered, had once been an art close to
+finished swordplay, with two evenly matched fighters able to engage for
+a long time without seriously marking each other. But this was a far
+rougher and more deadly game, with none of the niceties of such a
+meeting.
+
+He evaded a vicious thrust from Deklay.
+
+"The bull charges," he laughed. "And the Fox snaps!" By some incredible
+stroke of good fortune, the point of his weapon actually grazed Deklay's
+arm, drawing a thin, red inch-long line across the skin.
+
+"Charge again, bull. Feel once more the Fox's teeth!"
+
+He strove to goad Deklay into a crippling loss of temper, knowing how
+the other could explode into violent rage. It was dangerous, that rage,
+but it could also make a man blindly careless.
+
+There was an inarticulate sound from Deklay, a dusky swelling in the
+man's face. He spat, as might an enraged puma, and rushed at Travis who
+did not quite manage to avoid the lunge, falling back with a smarting
+slash across the ribs.
+
+"The bull gores!" Deklay bellowed. "Horns toss the Fox!"
+
+He rushed again, elated by the sight of the trickling wound on Travis'
+side. But the slighter man slipped away.
+
+Travis knew he must be careful in such evasions. One foot across the
+ridged circle and he was finished as much as if Deklay's blade had found
+its mark. Travis tried a thrust of his own, and his foot came down hard
+on a sharp pebble. Through the sole of his moccasin pain shot upward,
+caused him to stumble. Again the scarlet flame of a wound, down his
+shoulder and forearm this time.
+
+Well, there was one trick, he knew. Travis tossed the knife into the
+air, caught it with his left hand. Deklay was now facing a left-handed
+fighter and must adjust to that.
+
+"Paw, bull, rattle your horns!" Travis cried. "The Fox still shows his
+teeth!"
+
+Deklay recovered from his instant of surprise. With a cry which was
+indeed like the bellow of an old range bull, he rushed into grapple,
+sure of his superior strength against a younger and already wounded man.
+
+Travis ducked, one knee thumping the ground. He groped out with his
+right hand, caught up a handful of earth, and flung it into the dusky
+brown face. Again it seemed that luck was on his side. That handful
+could not be as blinding as sand, but some bit of the shower landed in
+Deklay's eye.
+
+For a space of seconds Deklay was wide open--open for a blow which would
+rip him up the middle, the blow Travis could not and would not deliver.
+
+Instead, he took the offensive recklessly, springing straight for his
+opponent. As the earth-grimed fingers of one hand clawed into Deklay's
+face, he struck with the other, not with the point of the knife but with
+its shaft. But Deklay, already only half conscious from the blow, had
+his own chance. He fell to the ground, leaving his knife behind, two
+inches of steel between Travis' ribs.
+
+Somehow--he didn't know from where he drew that strength--Travis kept
+his feet and took one step and then another, out of the circle until the
+comforting brace of a tree trunk was against his bare back. Was he
+finished--?
+
+He fought to nurse his rags of consciousness. Had he summoned Buck with
+his eyes? Or had the urgency of what he had to say reached somehow from
+mind to mind? The other was at his side, but Travis put out a hand to
+ward him off.
+
+"Towers--" He struggled to keep his wits through the pain and billowing
+weakness beginning to creep through him. "Reds mustn't get to the
+towers! Worse than the bomb ... end us all!"
+
+He had a hazy glimpse of Nolan and Jil-Lee closing in about him. The
+desire to cough tore at him, but they had to know, to believe....
+
+"Reds get to the towers--everything finished. Not only here ... maybe
+back home too...."
+
+Did he read comprehension on Buck's face? Would Nolan and Jil-Lee and
+the rest believe him? Travis could not suppress the cough any longer,
+and the ripping pain which followed was the worst he had ever
+experienced. But still he kept his feet, tried to make them understand.
+
+"Don't let them get to the towers. Find that storehouse!"
+
+Travis stood away from the tree, reached out to Buck his earth and
+bloodstained hand. "I swear ... truth ... this must be done!"
+
+He was going down, and he had a queer thought that once he reached the
+ground everything would end, not only for him but also for his mission.
+Trying to see the faces of the men about him was like attempting to
+identify the people in a dream.
+
+"Towers!" He had meant to shout it, but he could not even hear for
+himself that last word as he fell.
+
+
+
+
+14
+
+
+Travis' back was braced against blanketed packs as he steadied a piece
+of light-yellow bark against one bent knee scowling at the lines drawn
+on it in faint green.
+
+"We are here then ... and the ship there--" His thumb was set on one
+point of the crude map, forefinger on the other. Buck nodded.
+
+"That is so. Tsoay, Eskelta, Kawaykle, they watch the trails. There is
+the pass, two other ways men can come on foot. But who can watch the
+air?"
+
+"The Tatars say the Reds dare not bring the 'copter into the mountains.
+After they first landed they lost a flyer in a tricky air-current flow
+up there. They have only one left and won't risk it. If only they aren't
+reinforced before we can move!" There it was again, that constant
+gnawing fear of time, time shortening into a rope to strangle them all.
+
+"You think that the knowledge of our ship will bring them into the
+open?"
+
+"That--or information about the towers would be the only things
+important enough to pull out their experts. They could send a controlled
+Tatar party to explore the ship, sure. But that wouldn't give them the
+technical reports they need. No, I think if they knew a wrecked Western
+Confederation ship was here, it would bring them--or enough of them to
+lessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open. Otherwise, they can
+hole up forever in that ship-fort of theirs."
+
+"And just how do we let them know our ship is here? Send out another
+scouting party and let them be trailed back?"
+
+"That's our last resource." Travis continued to frown at the map. Yes,
+it would be possible to let the Reds sight and trail an Apache party.
+But there was none in the clan who were expendable. Surely there was
+some other way of laying the trap with the wrecked ship for bait.
+Capture one of the Reds, let him escape again, having seen what they
+wanted him to see? Again a time-wasting business. And how long would
+they have to wait and what risks would they take to pick up a Red
+prisoner?
+
+"If the Tatars were dependable...." Buck was thinking aloud.
+
+But that "if" was far too big. They could not trust the Tatars. No
+matter how much the Mongols wanted to aid in pulling down the Reds, as
+long as they could be controlled by the caller they were useless. Or
+were they?
+
+"Thought of something?" Buck must have caught Travis' change of
+expression.
+
+"Suppose a Tatar saw our ship and then was picked up by a Red hunting
+patrol and they got the information out of him?"
+
+"Do you think any outlaw would volunteer to let himself be picked up
+again? And if he did, wouldn't the Reds also be able to learn that he
+had been set up for the trap?"
+
+"An escaped prisoner?" Travis suggested.
+
+Now Buck was plainly considering the possibilities of such a scheme. And
+Travis' own spirits rose a little. The idea was full of holes, but it
+could be worked out. Suppose they capture, say, Menlik, bring him here
+as a prisoner, let him think they were about to kill him because of that
+attack back in the foothills. Then let him escape, pursue him northward
+to a point where he could be driven into the hands of the Reds? Very
+chancy, but it just might work. Travis was favoring a gamble now, since
+his desperate one with the duel had paid off.
+
+The risk he had accepted then had cost him two deep wounds, one of which
+might have been serious if Jil-Lee's project-sponsored medical training
+had not been to hand. But it had also made Travis one of the clan again,
+with his people willing to listen to his warning concerning the tower
+treasury.
+
+"The girl--the Tatar girl!"
+
+At first Travis did not understand Buck's ejaculation.
+
+"We get the girl," the other elaborated, "let her escape, then hunt her
+to where they'll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship to
+begin with."
+
+Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for the
+leading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck's
+choice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures.
+The Tatars themselves had found wives that way in the past, just as the
+Apache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wickiups. Yes,
+for raiders to steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as such
+by the Reds. For the same woman to endeavor to escape and be hunted by
+her captors also was reasonable. And for such a woman, cut off from her
+outlaw kin, to eventually head back toward the Red settlement as the
+only hope of evading her enemies--logical all the way!
+
+"She would have to be well frightened," Travis observed with reluctance.
+
+"That can be done for us--"
+
+Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certain
+games out of their common past to be played with Kaydessa. But Buck had
+something very different from old-time brutality in mind.
+
+"Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Deklay and I
+went back to the ship--"
+
+"Deklay?"
+
+"You beat him openly, so he must restore his honor in his own sight. And
+the council has forbidden another duel or challenge," Buck replied.
+"Therefore he will continue to push for recognition in another way. And
+now that he has heard your story and knows we must face the Reds, not
+run from them, he is eager to take the war trail--too eager. So we
+returned to the ship to make another search for weapons----"
+
+"There were none there before except those we had...."
+
+"Nor now either. But we discovered something else." Buck paused and
+Travis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by a
+note in the other's voice. It was as if Buck had come upon something he
+could not summon the right words to describe.
+
+"First," Buck continued, "there was this dead thing there, near where
+we found Dr. Ruthven. It was something like a man ... but all silvery
+hair----"
+
+"The ape-things! The ape-things from the other worlds! What else did you
+see?" Travis had dropped the map. His side gave him a painful twinge as
+he caught at Buck's sleeve. The bald space rovers--did they still exist
+here somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the pattern
+of their own but manned by Terrans?
+
+"Nothing except tracks, a lot of them, in every open cabin and hole. I
+think there must have been a sizable pack of the things."
+
+"What killed the dead one?"
+
+Buck wet his lips. "I think--fear...." His voice dropped a little,
+almost apologetically, and Travis stared.
+
+"The ship is changed. Inside, there is something wrong. When you walk
+the corridors your skin crawls, you think there is something behind you.
+You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes.... When you
+turn, there's nothing, nothing at all! And the higher you climb into the
+ship, the worse it is. I tell you, Travis, never have I felt anything
+like it before!"
+
+"It was a ship of many dead," Travis reminded him. Had the age-old
+Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute
+phobia--to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck?
+
+"No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it was
+worst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in the
+Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but running
+in a wrong way--so that it does not awaken old memories of our
+ancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have ever
+haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I came
+out of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were a
+child. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There
+is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl,
+were she only to stay there a very short time, would be well
+frightened--so frightened that any trained scientist examining her later
+would know there was a mystery to be explored."
+
+"The ape-things--could they have tried to run the Redax?" Travis
+wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure
+folly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old
+civilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent the
+degenerate remnants of a once intelligent species.
+
+"That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out and
+killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now."
+
+"But for us to use the girl...." Travis had seen the logic in Buck's
+first suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship was
+as terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, even
+temporarily, was still wrong.
+
+"She need not remain long. Suppose we should do this: We shall enter
+with her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. We
+could run, leave her alone. When she left the ship, we could then take
+up the chase, shepherding her back to the country she knows. Within the
+ship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long."
+
+Travis could see a good prospect in that plan. There was one thing he
+would insist on--if Kaydessa was to be in that ship, he himself would be
+one of the "captors." He said as much, and Buck accepted his
+determination as final.
+
+They dispatched a scouting party to infiltrate the territory to the
+north, to watch and wait their chance of capture. Travis strove to
+regain his feet, to be ready to move when the moment came.
+
+Five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay the
+wrecked ship. With him were Jil-Lee, Lupe, and Manulito. They satisfied
+themselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Deklay;
+there was no sign that the ape-things had returned.
+
+"From here," Travis said, "the ship doesn't look too bad, almost as if
+it might be able to take off again."
+
+"It might lift," Jil-Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve of
+the globe--"about that far. The tubes on this side are intact."
+
+"What would happen were the Reds to get inside and try to fly again?"
+Manulito wondered aloud.
+
+Travis was struck by a sudden idea, one perhaps just as wild as the
+other inspirations he had had since landing on Topaz, but one to be
+studied and explored--not dismissed without consideration. Suppose
+enough power remained to lift the ship partially and then blow it up?
+With the Red technicians on board at the time.... But he was no
+engineer, he had no idea whether any part of the globe might or might
+not work again.
+
+"They are not fools; a close look would tell them it is a wreck,"
+Jil-Lee countered.
+
+Travis walked on. Not too far ahead a yellow-brown shape moved out of
+the brush, stood stiff-legged in his path, facing the ship and growling
+in a harsh rumble of sound. Whatever moved or operated in that wreck was
+picked up by the acute sense of the coyote, even at this distance.
+
+"On!" Travis edged around the snarling animal. With one halting step and
+then another, it followed him. There was a sharp warning yelp from the
+brush, and a second coyote head appeared. Naginlta followed Travis, but
+Nalik'ideyu refused to approach the grounded globe.
+
+Travis surveyed the ship closely, trying to remember the layout of its
+interior. To turn the whole sphere into a trap--was it possible? How had
+Ashe said the Redax worked? Something about high-frequency waves
+stimulating certain brain and nerve centers.
+
+What if one were shielded from those rays? That tear in the side--he
+himself must have climbed through that the night they crashed. And the
+break was not too far from the space lock. Near the lock was a storage
+compartment. And if it had not been jammed, or its contents crushed,
+they might have something. He beckoned to Jil-Lee.
+
+"Give me a hand--up there."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I want to see if the space suits are intact."
+
+Jil-Lee regarded Travis with open bewilderment, but Manulito pushed
+forward. "We do not need those suits to walk here, Travis. This air we
+can breathe--"
+
+"Not for the air, and not in the open." Travis advanced at a deliberate
+pace. "Those suits may be insulated in more ways than one----"
+
+"Against a mixed-up Redax broadcast, you mean!" Jil-Lee exclaimed.
+"Yes, but you stay here, younger brother. This is a risky climb, and you
+are not yet strong."
+
+Travis was forced to accede to that, waiting as Manulito and Lupe
+climbed up to the tear and entered. At least Buck and Deklay's
+experience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weird
+ghosts haunting the interior.
+
+But when they returned, pulling between them the limp space suit, both
+men were pale, the shiny sheen of sweat on their foreheads, their hands
+shaking. Lupe sat down on the ground before Travis.
+
+"Evil spirits," he said, giving to this modern phenomenon the old name.
+"Truly ghosts and witches walk in there."
+
+Manulito had spread the suit on the ground and was examining it with a
+care which spoke of familiarity.
+
+"This is unharmed," he reported. "Ready to wear."
+
+The suits were all tailored for size, Travis knew. And this fitted a
+slender, medium-sized man. It would fit him, Travis Fox. But Manulito
+was already unbuckling the fastenings with practiced ease.
+
+"I shall try it out," he announced. And Travis, seeing the awkward climb
+to the entrance of the ship, had to agree that the first test should be
+carried out by someone more agile at the moment.
+
+Sealed into the suit, with the bubble helmet locked in place, the Apache
+climbed back into the globe. The only form of communication with him was
+the rope he had tied about him, and if he went above the first level, he
+would have to leave that behind.
+
+In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along the
+rope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, to
+find it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and was
+climbing to the control cabin.
+
+They continued to wait with what patience they could muster. Naginlta,
+pacing up and down a good distance from the ship, whined at intervals,
+the warning echoed each time by his mate upslope.
+
+"I don't like it--" Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared
+again at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulito
+reached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and then
+stood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.
+
+"Well?" Travis demanded.
+
+"I see no ghosts," Manulito said, grinning. "This is ghost-proof!" He
+slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. "There is
+also this--from what I know of these ships--some of the relays still
+work. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Reds
+in and then...." His hand moved in a quick upward flip.
+
+"But we don't know anything about the engines," Travis replied.
+
+"No? Listen--you, Fox, are not the only one to remember useful
+knowledge." Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. "Do you think we are
+just the savages those big brains back at the project wished us to be?
+They have played a trick on us with their Redax. So, we can play a few
+tricks, too. Me--? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you no
+longer remember, Fox?"
+
+Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until this
+very minute. From the beginning, the Apache team had been carefully
+selected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was their
+basic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Just
+as Travis' grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so had
+Manulito's technical training made a valuable, though different,
+contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smothered
+that training, perhaps the effects were now fading.
+
+"You can do something, then?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"I can try. There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least.
+And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be
+tough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?"
+
+"Not until after we use it on our captive," Jil-Lee decided. "Then there
+would be some time before the Reds come----"
+
+"You talk as if they _will_ come," cut in Lupe. "How can you be sure?"
+
+"We can't," Travis agreed. "But we can count on this much, judging from
+the past. Once they know that there is a wrecked ship here, they will be
+forced to explore it. They cannot afford an enemy settlement on this
+side of the mountains. That would be, according to their way of
+thinking, an eternal threat."
+
+Jil-Lee nodded. "That is true. This is a complicated plan, yes, and one
+in which many things may go wrong. But it is also one which covers all
+the loopholes we know of."
+
+With Lupe's aid Manulito crawled out of the suit. As he leaned it
+carefully against a supporting rock he said:
+
+"I have been thinking of this treasure house in the towers. Suppose we
+could find new weapons there...."
+
+Travis hesitated. He still shrank from the thought of opening the secret
+places behind those glowing walls, to loose a new peril.
+
+"If we took weapons from there and lost the fight...." He advanced his
+first objection and was glad to see the expression of comprehension on
+Jil-Lee's face.
+
+"It would be putting the weapons straight into Red hands," the other
+agreed.
+
+"We may have to chance it before we're through," Manulito warned.
+"Suppose we do get some of their technicians into this trap. That isn't
+going to open up their main defense for us. We may need a bigger
+nutcracker than we've ever seen."
+
+With a return of that queasy feeling he had known in the tower, Travis
+knew Manulito was speaking sense. They might have to open Pandora's box
+before the end of this campaign.
+
+
+
+
+15
+
+
+They camped another two days near the wrecked ship while Manulito
+prowled the haunted corridors and cabins in his space suit, planning his
+booby trap. At night he drew diagrams on pieces of bark and discussed
+the possibility of this or that device, sometimes lapsing into
+technicalities his companions could not follow. But Travis was well
+satisfied that Manulito knew what he was doing.
+
+On the morning of the third day Nolan slipped into their midst. He was
+dust-grimed, his face gaunt, the signs of hard travel plain to read.
+Travis handed him the nearest canteen, and they watched him drink
+sparingly in small sips before he spoke.
+
+"They come ... with the girl--"
+
+"You had trouble?" asked Jil-Lee.
+
+"The Tatars had moved their camp, which was only wise, since the Reds
+must have had a line on the other one. And they are now farther to the
+west. But--" he wiped his lips with the back of his hand--"also we saw
+your towers, Fox. And that is a place of power!"
+
+"No sign that the Reds are prowling there?"
+
+Nolan shook his head. "To my mind the mists there conceal the towers
+from aerial view. Only one coming on foot could tell them from the
+natural crags of the hills."
+
+Travis relaxed. Time still granted them a margin of grace. He glanced up
+to see Nolan smiling faintly.
+
+"This maiden, she is a kin to the puma of the mountains," he announced.
+"She has marked Tsoay with her claws until he looks like the ear-clipped
+yearling fresh from the branding chute----"
+
+"She is not hurt?" Travis demanded.
+
+This time Nolan chuckled openly. "Hurt? No, we had much to do to keep
+her from hurting us, younger brother. That one is truly as she claims, a
+daughter of wolves. And she is also keen-witted, marking a return trail
+all the way, though she does not know that is as we wish. Did we not
+pick the easiest way back for just that reason? Yes, she plans to
+escape."
+
+Travis stood up. "Let us finish this quickly!" His voice came out on a
+rough note. This plan had never had his full approval. Now he found it
+less and less easy to think about taking Kaydessa into the ship,
+allowing the emotional torment lurking there to work upon her. Yet he
+knew that the girl would not be hurt, and he had made sure he would be
+beside her within the globe, sharing with her the horror of the unseen.
+
+A rattling of gravel down the narrow valley opening gave warning to
+those by the campfire. Manulito had already stowed the space suit in
+hiding. To Kaydessa they must have seemed reverted entirely to savagery.
+
+Tsoay came first, an angry raking of four parallel scratches down his
+left cheek. And behind him Buck and Eskelta shoved the prisoner, urging
+her on with a show of roughness which did not descend to actual
+brutality. Her long braids had shaken loose, and a sleeve was torn,
+leaving one slender arm bare. But none of the fighting spirit had left
+her.
+
+They thrust her out into the circle of waiting men and she planted her
+feet firmly apart, glaring at them all indiscriminately until she
+sighted Travis. Then her anger became hotter and more deadly.
+
+"Pig! Rooter in the dirt! Diseased camel--" she shouted at him in
+English and then reverted to her own tongue, her voice riding up and
+down the scale. Her hands were tied behind her back, but there were no
+bonds on her tongue.
+
+"This is one who can speak thunders, and shoot lightnings from her
+mouth," Buck commented in Apache. "Put her well away from the wood, lest
+she set it aflame."
+
+Tsoay held his hands over his ears. "She can deafen a man when she
+cannot set her mark on him otherwise. Let us speedily get rid of her."
+
+Yet for all their jeering comments, their eyes held respect. Often in
+the past a defiant captive who stood up boldly to his captors had
+received more consideration than usual from Apache warriors; courage was
+a quality they prized. A Pinda-lick-o-yi such as Tom Jeffords, who rode
+into Cochise's camp and sat in the midst of his sworn enemies for a
+parley, won the friendship of the very chief he had been fighting.
+Kaydessa had more influence with her captors than she could dream of
+holding.
+
+Now it was time for Travis to play his part. He caught the girl's
+shoulder and pushed her before him toward the wreck.
+
+Some of the spirit seemed to have left her thin, tense body, and she
+went without any more fight. Only when they came into full view of the
+ship did she falter. Travis heard her breathe a gasp of surprise.
+
+As they had planned, four of the Apaches--Jil-Lee, Tsoay, Nolan, and
+Buck--fanned out toward the heights about the ship. Manulito had already
+gone to cover, to don the space suit and prepare for any accident.
+
+Resolutely Travis continued to propel Kaydessa ahead. At the moment he
+did not know which was worse, to enter the ship expecting the fear to
+strike, or to meet it unprepared. He was ready to refuse to enter, not
+to allow the girl, sullenly plodding on under his compulsion, to face
+that unseen but potent danger.
+
+Only the memory of the towers and the threat of the Reds finding and
+exploiting the treasure there kept him going. Eskelta went first,
+climbing to the tear. Travis cut the ropes binding Kaydessa's wrists and
+gave her a slight slap between the shoulders.
+
+"Climb, woman!" His anxiety made that a harsh order and she climbed.
+
+Eskelta was inside now, heading for the cabin which might reasonably be
+selected as a prison. They planned to get the girl as far as that point
+and then stage their act of being overcome by fear, allowing her to
+escape.
+
+Stage an act? Travis was not two feet along that corridor before he knew
+that there would be little acting needed on his part. The thing which
+pervaded the ship did not attack sharply, rather it seeped into his mind
+and body as if he drew in poison with every breath, sent it racing
+along his veins with every beat of a laboring heart. Yet he could not
+put any name to his feelings, except an awful, weakening fear which
+weighted him heavier with every step he took.
+
+Kaydessa screamed. Not this time in rage, but with such fervor that
+Travis lost his hold, staggered back to the wall. She whirled about, her
+face contorted, and sprang at him.
+
+It was indeed like trying to fight a wildcat and after the first second
+or two he was hard put to protect his eyes, his face, his side, without
+injuring her in return. She scrambled over him, running for the break in
+the wall, and disappeared. Travis gasped, and started to crawl for the
+break. Eskelta loomed over him, pulled him up in haste.
+
+They reached the opening but did not climb through. Travis was uncertain
+as to whether he could make that descent yet, and Eskelta was obeying
+orders in not venturing out too soon.
+
+Below, the ground was bare. There was no sign of the Apaches, though
+they were in hiding there--and none of Kaydessa. Travis was amazed that
+she had vanished so quickly.
+
+Still uneasy from the emanation within, they perched within the shadow
+of the break until Travis thought that the fugitive had a good
+five-minute start. Then he nodded a signal to Eskelta.
+
+By the time they reached ground level Travis felt a warm wetness
+spreading under his shielding palm and he knew the wound had opened. He
+spoke a word or two in hot protest against that mishap, knowing it would
+keep him from the trail. Kaydessa must be covered all the way back
+across the pass, not only to be shepherded away from her people and
+toward the plains where she could be picked up by a Red patrol, but also
+to keep her from danger. And he had planned from the first to be one of
+those shepherds.
+
+Now he was about as much use as a trail-lame pony. However, he could
+send deputies. He thought out his call, and Nalik'ideyu's head appeared
+in a frame of bush.
+
+"Go, both of you and run with her! Guard--!" He said the words in a
+whisper, thought them with a fierce intensity as he centered his gaze on
+the yellow eyes in the pointed coyote face. There was a feeling of
+assent, and then the animal was gone. Travis sighed.
+
+The Apache scouts were subtle and alert, but the coyotes could far outdo
+any man. With Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta flanking her flight, Kaydessa
+would be well guarded. She would probably never see her guards or know
+that they were running protection for her.
+
+"That was a good move," Jil-Lee said, coming out of concealment. "But
+what have you done to yourself?" He stepped closer, pulling Travis' hand
+away from his side. By the time Lupe came to report, Travis was again
+wound in a strapping bandage pulled tightly about his lower ribs, and
+reconciled to the fact that any trailing he would do must be well to the
+rear of the first party.
+
+"The towers," he said to Jil-Lee. "If our plan works, we can catch part
+of the Reds here. But we still have their ship to take, and for that we
+need help which we may find at the towers. Or at least we can be on
+guard there if they return with Kaydessa on that path."
+
+Lupe dropped down lightly from an upper ledge. He was grinning.
+
+"That woman is one who thinks. She runs from the ship first as a rabbit
+with a wolf at her heels. Then she begins to think. She climbs--" He
+lifted one finger to the slope behind them. "She goes behind a rock to
+watch under cover. When Fox comes from the ship with Eskelta, again she
+climbs. Buck lets himself be seen, so she moves east, as we wish--"
+
+"And now?" questioned Travis.
+
+"She is keeping to the high ways; almost she thinks like one of the
+People on the war trail. Nolan believes she will hole up for the night
+somewhere above. He will make sure."
+
+Travis licked his lips. "She has no food or water."
+
+Jil-Lee's lips shaped a smile. "They will see that she comes upon both
+as if by chance. We have planned all of this, as you know, younger
+brother."
+
+That was true. Travis knew that Kaydessa would be guided without her
+knowledge by the "accidental" appearance now and then of some
+pursuer--just enough to push her along.
+
+"Then, too, she is now armed," Jil-Lee added.
+
+"How?" demanded Travis.
+
+"Look to your own belt, younger brother. Where is your knife?"
+
+Startled, Travis glanced down. His sheath was empty, and he had not
+needed that blade since he had drawn it to cut meat at the morning meal.
+Lupe laughed.
+
+"She had steel in her hand when she came out of that ghost ship."
+
+"Took it from me while we struggled!" Travis was openly surprised. He
+had considered the frenzy displayed by the Tatar girl as an outburst of
+almost mindless terror. Yet Kaydessa had had wit enough to take his
+knife! Could this be another case where one race was less affected by a
+mind machine than the other? Just as the Apaches had not been governed
+by the Red caller, so the Tatars might not be as sensitive to the Redax.
+
+"She is a strong one, that woman--one worth many ponies." Eskelta
+reverted to the old measure of a wife's value.
+
+"That is true!" Travis agreed emphatically and then was annoyed at the
+broadening of Jil-Lee's smile. Abruptly he changed the subject.
+
+"Manulito is setting the booby trap in the ship."
+
+"That is well. He and Eskelta will remain here, and you with them."
+
+"Not so! We must go to the towers----" Travis protested.
+
+"I thought," Jil-Lee cut in, "that you believed the weapons of the old
+ones too dangerous for us to use."
+
+"Maybe they will be forced into our hands. But we must be sure the
+towers are not entered by the Reds on their way here."
+
+"That is reasonable. But for you, younger brother, no trailing today,
+perhaps not tomorrow. If that wound opens again, you might have much bad
+trouble."
+
+Travis was forced to accept that, in spite of his worry and impatience.
+And the next day when he did move on he had only the report that
+Kaydessa had sheltered beside a pool for the night and was doggedly
+moving back across the mountains.
+
+Three days later Travis, Jil-Lee, and Buck came into the tower valley.
+Kaydessa was in the northern foothills, twice turned back from the west
+and the freedom of the outlaws by the Apache scouts. And only half an
+hour before, Tsoay had reported by mirror what should have been welcome
+news: the Red helicopter was cruising as it had on the day they watched
+the hunters enter the uplands. There was an excellent chance of the
+fugitive's being sighted and picked up soon.
+
+Tsoay had also spotted a party of three Tatars watching the helicopter.
+But after one wide sweep of the flyer they had taken to their ponies and
+ridden away at the fastest pace their mounts could manage in this rough
+territory.
+
+On a stretch of smooth earth Buck scratched a trail, and they studied
+it. The Reds would have to follow this route to seek the wrecked ship--a
+route covered by Apache sentinels. And following the chain of
+communication the result of the trap would be reported to the party at
+the towers.
+
+The waiting was the most difficult; too many imponderables did not allow
+for unemotional thinking. Travis was down to the last shred of patience
+when word came on the second morning at the hidden valley that Kaydessa
+had been picked up by a Red patrol--drawn out to meet them by the
+caller.
+
+"Now--the tower weapons!" Buck answered the report with an imperative
+order to Travis. And the other knew he could no longer postpone the
+inevitable. And only by action could he blot out the haunting mental
+picture of Kaydessa once more drawn into the bondage she so hated.
+
+Flanked by Jil-Lee and Buck, he climbed back through the tower window
+and faced the glowing pillar.
+
+He crossed the room, put out both hands to the sleek pole, uncertain if
+the weird transport would work again. He heard the sharp gasp from the
+others as his body was sucked against the pillar and carried downward
+through the well. Buck followed him, and Jil-Lee came last. Then Travis
+led the way along the underground corridor to the room with the table
+and the reader.
+
+He sat down on the bench, fumbled with the pile of tape disks, knowing
+that the other two were watching him with almost hostile intentness. He
+snapped a disk into the reader, hoping he could correctly interpret the
+directions it gave.
+
+He looked up at the wall before him. Three ... four steps, the correct
+move--and then an unlocking....
+
+"You know?" Buck demanded.
+
+"I can guess----"
+
+"Well?" Jil-Lee moved to the table. "What do we do?"
+
+"This--" Travis came from behind the table, walked to the wall. He put
+out both hands, flattened his palms against the green-blue-purple
+surface and slid them slowly along. Under his touch, the material of the
+wall was cool and hard, unlike the live feel the pillar had. Cool
+until--
+
+One palm, held at arm's length had found the right spot. He slid the
+other hand along in the opposite direction until his arms were level
+with his shoulders. His fingers were able now to press on those points
+of warmth. Travis tensed and pushed hard with all ten fingers.
+
+
+
+
+16
+
+
+At first, as one second and then two passed and there was no response to
+the pressure, Travis thought he had mistaken the reading of the tape.
+Then, directly before his eyes, a dark line cut vertically down the
+wall. He applied more pressure until his fingers were half numb with
+effort. The line widened slowly. Finally he faced a slit some eight feet
+in height, a little more than two in width, and there the opening
+remained.
+
+Light beyond, a cold, gray gleam--like that of a cloudy winter day on
+Terra--and with it the chill of air out of some arctic wasteland.
+Favoring his still bandaged side, Travis scraped through the door ahead
+of the others, and came into the place of gray cold.
+
+"Wauggh!" Travis heard that exclamation from Jil-Lee, could have echoed
+it himself except that he was too astounded by what he had seen to say
+anything at all.
+
+The light came from a grid of bars set far above their heads into the
+native rock which roofed this storehouse, for storehouse it was. There
+were orderly lines of boxes, some large enough to contain a tank, others
+no bigger than a man's fist. Symbols in the same blue-green-purple
+lights of the outer wall shone from their sides.
+
+"What--?" Buck began one question and then changed it to another: "Where
+do we begin to look?"
+
+"Toward the far end." Travis started down the center aisle between rows
+of the massed spoils of another time and world--or worlds. The same tape
+which had given him the clue to the unlocking of the door, emphasized
+the importance of something stored at the far end, an object or objects
+which must be used first. He had wondered about that tape. A sensation
+of urgency, almost of despair, had come through the gabble of alien
+words, the quick sequence of diagrams and pictures. The message might
+have been taped under a threat of some great peril.
+
+There was no dust on the rows of boxes or on the floor underfoot. A
+current of cold, fresh air blew at intervals down the length of the huge
+chamber. They could not see the next aisle across the barriers of stored
+goods, but the only noise was a whisper and the faint sounds of their
+own feet. They came out into an open space backed by the wall, and
+Travis saw what had been so important.
+
+"No!" His protest was involuntary, but his denial loud enough to echo.
+
+Six--six of them--tall, narrow cases set upright against the wall; and
+from their depths, five pairs of dark eyes staring back at him in cold
+measurement. These were the men of the ships--the men Menlik had dreamed
+of--their bald white heads, their thin bodies with the skintight
+covering of the familiar blue-green-purple. Five of them were here,
+alive--watching ... waiting....
+
+Five men--and six boxes. That small fact broke the spell in which those
+eyes held Travis. He looked again at the sixth box to his right.
+Expecting to meet another pair of eyes this time, he was disconcerted to
+face only emptiness. Then, as his gaze traveled downward, he saw what
+lay on the floor there--a skull, a tangle of bones, tattered material
+cobwebbed into dusty rags by time. Whatever had preserved five of the
+star men intact, had failed the sixth of their company.
+
+"They are alive!" Jil-Lee whispered.
+
+"I do not think so," Buck answered. Travis took another step, reached
+out to touch the transparent front of the nearest coffin case. There was
+no change in the eyes of the alien who stood within, no indication that
+if the Apaches could see him, he would be able to return their interest.
+The five stares which had bemused the visitors at first, did not break
+to follow their movements.
+
+But Travis knew! Whether it was some message on the tape which the sight
+of the sleepers made clear, or whether some residue of the driving
+purpose which had set them there now reached his mind, was immaterial.
+He knew the purpose of this room and its contents, why it had been made
+and the reason its six guardians had been left as prisoners--and what
+they wanted from anyone coming after them.
+
+"They sleep," he said softly.
+
+"Sleep?" Buck caught him up.
+
+"They sleep in something like deep freeze."
+
+"Do you mean they can be brought to life again!" Jil-Lee cried.
+
+"Maybe not now--it must be too long--but they were meant to wait out a
+period and be restored."
+
+"How do you know that?" Buck asked.
+
+"I don't know for certain, but I think I understand a little. Something
+happened a long time ago. Maybe it was a war, a war between whole star
+systems, bigger and worse than anything we can imagine. I think this
+planet was an outpost, and when the supply ships didn't come any more,
+when they knew they might be cut off for some length of time, they
+closed down. Stacked their supplies and machines here and then went to
+sleep to wait for their rescuers...."
+
+"For rescuers who never came," Jil-Lee said softly. "And there is a
+chance they could be revived even now?"
+
+Travis shivered. "Not one I would want to take."
+
+"No," Buck's tone was somber, "that I agree to, younger brother. These
+are not men as we know them, and I do not think they would be good
+_dalaanbiyat'i_--allies. They had _go'ndi_ in plenty, these star men,
+but it is not the power of the People. No one but a madman or a fool
+would try to disturb this sleep of theirs."
+
+"The truth you speak," Jil-Lee agreed. "But where in this," he turned
+his shoulder to the sleeping star men and looked back at the filled
+chamber--"do we find anything which will serve us here and now?"
+
+Again Travis had only the scrappiest information to draw upon. "Spread
+out," he told them. "Look for the marking of a circle surrounding four
+dots set in a diamond pattern."
+
+They went, but Travis lingered for a moment to look once more into the
+bleak and bitter eyes of the star men. How many planet years ago had
+they sealed themselves into those boxes? A thousand, ten thousand? Their
+empire was long gone, yet here was an outpost still waiting to be
+revived to carry on its mysterious duties. It was as if in Saxon-invaded
+Britain long ago a Roman garrison had been frozen to await the return of
+the legions. Buck was right; there was no common ground today between
+Terran man and these unknowns. They must continue to sleep undisturbed.
+
+Yet when Travis also turned away and went back down the aisle, he was
+still aware of a persistent pull on him to return. It was as though
+those eyes had set locking cords to will him back to release the
+sleepers. He was glad to turn a corner, to know that they could no
+longer watch him plunder their treasury.
+
+"Here!" That was Buck's voice, but it echoed so oddly across the big
+chamber that Travis had difficulty in deciding what part of the
+warehouse it was coming from. And Buck had to call several times before
+Travis and Jil-Lee joined him.
+
+There was the circle-dot-diamond symbol shining on the side of a case.
+They worked it out of the pile, setting it in the open. Travis knelt to
+run his hands along the top. The container was an unknown alloy, tough,
+unmarked by the years--perhaps indestructible.
+
+Again his fingers located what his eyes could not detect--the
+impressions on the edge, oddly shaped impressions into which his finger
+tips did not fit too comfortably. He pressed, bearing down with the full
+strength of his arms and shoulders, and then lifted up the lid.
+
+The Apaches looked into a set of compartments, each holding an object
+with a barrel, a hand grip, a general resemblance to the sidearms of
+their own world and time, but sufficiently different to point up the
+essential strangeness. With infinite care Travis worked one out of the
+vise-support which held it. The weapon was light in weight, lighter than
+any automatic he had ever held. Its barrel was long, a good eighteen
+inches--the grip alien in shape so that it didn't fit comfortably into
+his hand, the trigger nonexistent, but in its place a button on the
+lower part of the barrel which could be covered by an outstretched
+finger.
+
+"What does it do?" asked Buck practically.
+
+"I'm not sure. But it is important enough to have a special mention on
+the tape." Travis passed the weapon along to Buck and worked another
+loose from its holder.
+
+"No way of loading I can see," Buck said, examining the weapon with care
+and caution.
+
+"I don't think it fires a solid projectile," Travis replied. "We'll have
+to test them outside to find out just what we do have."
+
+The Apaches took only three of the weapons, closing the box before they
+left. And as they wriggled back through the crack door, Travis was
+visited again by that odd flash of compelling, almost possessive power
+he had experienced when they had lain in ambush for the Red hunting
+party. He took a step or two forward until he was able to catch the edge
+of the reading table and steady himself against it.
+
+"What is the matter?" Both Buck and Jil-Lee were watching him;
+apparently neither had felt that sensation. Travis did not reply for a
+second. He was free of it now. But he was sure of its source; it had not
+been any backlash of the Red caller! It was rooted here--a compulsion
+triggered to make the original intentions of the outpost obeyed, a last
+drag from the sleepers. This place had been set up with a single
+purpose: to protect and preserve the ancient rulers of Topaz. And
+perhaps the very presence here of the intruding Terrans had released a
+force, started an unseen installation.
+
+Now Travis answered simply: "They want out...."
+
+Jil-Lee glanced back at the slit door, but Buck still watched Travis.
+
+"They call?" he asked.
+
+"In a way," Travis admitted. But the compulsion had already ebbed; he
+was free. "It is gone now."
+
+"This is not a good place," Buck observed somberly. "We touch that which
+should not be held by men of our earth." He held out the weapon.
+
+"Did not the People take up the rifles of the Pinda-lick-o-yi for their
+defense when it was necessary?" Jil-Lee demanded. "We do what we must.
+After seeing that," his chin indicated the slit and what lay behind
+it--"do you wish the Reds to forage here?"
+
+"Still," Buck's words came slowly, "this is a choice between two evils,
+rather than between an evil and a good--"
+
+"Then let us see how powerful this evil is!" Jil-Lee headed for the
+corridor leading to the pillar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late afternoon when they made their way through the swirling
+mists of the valley under the archway giving on the former site of the
+outlaw Tatar camp. Travis sighted the long barrel of the weapon at a
+small bush backed by a boulder, and he pressed the firing button. There
+was no way of knowing whether the weapon was loaded except to try it.
+
+The result of his action was quick--quick and terrifying. There was no
+sound, no sign of any projectile ... ray-gas ... or whatever might have
+issued in answer to his finger movement. But the bush--the bush was no
+more!
+
+A black smear made a ragged outline of the extinguished branches and
+leaves on the rock which had stood behind. The earth might still enclose
+roots under a thin coating of ash, but the bush was gone!
+
+"The breath of Naye'nezyani--powerful beyond belief!" Buck broke their
+horrified silence first. "In truth evil is here!"
+
+Jil-Lee raised his gun--if gun it could be called--aimed at the rock
+with the bush silhouette plain to see and fired.
+
+This time they were able to witness disintegration in progress, the
+crumble of the stone as if its substance was no more than sand lapped by
+river water. A pile of blackened rubble remained--nothing more.
+
+"To use this on a living thing?" Buck protested, horror basing the doubt
+in his voice.
+
+"We do not use it against living things," Travis promised, "but against
+the ship of the Reds--to cut that to pieces. This will open the shell of
+the turtle and let us at its meat."
+
+Jil-Lee nodded. "Those are true words. But now I agree with your fears
+of this place, Travis. This is a devil thing and must not be allowed to
+fall into the hands of those who--"
+
+"Will use it more freely than we plan to?" Buck wanted to know. "We
+reserve to ourselves that right because we hold our motives higher? To
+think that way is also a crooked trail. We will use this means because
+we must, but afterward...."
+
+Afterward that warehouse must be closed, the tapes giving the entrance
+clue destroyed. One part of Travis fought that decision, right though he
+knew it to be. The towers were the menace he had believed. And what was
+more discouraging than the risk they now ran, was the belief that the
+treasure was a poison which could not be destroyed but which might
+spread from Topaz to Terra.
+
+Suppose the Western Conference had discovered that storehouse and
+explored its riches, would they have been any less eager to exploit
+them? As Buck had pointed out, one's own ideals could well supply
+reasons for violence. In the past Terra had been racked by wars of
+religion, one fanatically held opinion opposed to another. There was no
+righteousness in such struggles, only fatal ends. The Reds had no right
+to this new knowledge--but neither did they. It must be locked against
+the meddling of fools and zealots.
+
+"Taboo--" Buck spoke that word with an emphasis they could appreciate.
+Knowledge must be set behind the invisible barriers of taboo, and that
+could work.
+
+"These three--no more--we found no other weapons!" Jil-Lee added a
+warning suggestion.
+
+"No others," Buck agreed and Travis echoed, adding:
+
+"We found tombs of the space people, and these were left with them.
+Because of our great need we borrowed them, but they must be returned to
+the dead or trouble will follow. And they may only be used against the
+fortress of the Reds by us, who first found them and have taken unto
+ourselves the wrath of disturbed spirits."
+
+"Well thought! That is an answer to give the People. The towers are the
+tombs of dead ones. When we return these they shall be taboo. We are
+agreed?" Buck asked.
+
+"We are agreed!"
+
+Buck tried his weapon on a sapling, saw it vanish into nothingness. None
+of the Apaches wanted to carry the strange guns against their bodies;
+the power made them objects of fear, rather than arms to delight a
+warrior. And when they returned to their temporary camp, they laid all
+three on a blanket and covered them up. But they could not cover up the
+memories of what had happened to bush, rock, and tree.
+
+"If such are their small weapons," Buck observed that evening, "then
+what kind of things did they have to balance our heavy armament? Perhaps
+they were able to burn up worlds!"
+
+"That may be what happened elsewhere," Travis replied. "We do not know
+what put an end to their empire. The capital-planet we found on the
+first voyage had not been destroyed, but it had been evacuated in haste.
+One building had not even been stripped of its furnishings." He
+remembered the battle he had fought there, he and Ross Murdock and the
+winged native, standing up to an attack of the ape-things while the
+winged warrior had used his physical advantage to fly above and bomb the
+enemies with boxes snatched from the piles....
+
+"And here they went to sleep in order to wait out some danger--time or
+disaster--they did not believe would be permanent," Buck mused.
+
+Travis thought he would flee from the eyes of the sleepers throughout
+his dreams that night, but on the contrary he slept heavily, finding it
+hard to rouse when Jil-Lee awakened him for his watch. But he was alert
+when he saw a four-footed shape flit out of the shadows, drink water
+from the stream, and shake itself vigorously in a spray of drops.
+
+"Naginlta!" he greeted the coyote. Trouble? He could have shouted that
+question, but he put a tight rein on his impatience and strove to
+communicate in the only method possible.
+
+No, what the coyote had come to report was not trouble but the fact that
+the one he had been set to guard was headed back into the mountains,
+though others came with her--four others. Nalik'ideyu still watched
+their camp. Her mate had come for further orders.
+
+Travis squatted before the animal, cupped the coyote's jowls between his
+palms. Naginlta suffered his touch with only a small whine of
+uneasiness. With all his power of mental suggestion, Travis strove to
+reach the keen brain he knew was served by the yellow eyes looking into
+his.
+
+The others with Kaydessa were to be led on, taken to the ship. But
+Kaydessa must not suffer harm. When they reached a spot near-by--Travis
+thought of a certain rock beyond the pass--then one of the coyotes was
+to go ahead to the ship. Let the Apaches there know....
+
+Manulito and Eskelta should also be warned by the sentry along the
+peaks, but additional alerting would not go amiss. Those four with
+Kaydessa--they must reach the trap!
+
+"What was that?" Buck rolled out of his blanket.
+
+"Naginlta--" The coyote sped back into the dark again. "The Reds have
+taken the bait, a party of at least four with Kaydessa are moving into
+the foothills, heading south."
+
+But the enemy party was not the only one on the move. In the light of
+day a sentry's mirror from a point in the peaks sent another warning
+down to their camp.
+
+Out in their mountain meadows the Tatar outlaws were on horseback,
+moving toward the entrance of the tower valley. Buck knelt by the
+blanket covering the alien weapons.
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"We'll have to stop them," Travis replied, but he had no idea of just
+how they would halt those determined Mongol horsemen.
+
+
+
+
+17
+
+
+There were ten of them riding on small, wiry steppe ponies--men and
+women both, and well armed. Travis recalled it was the custom of the
+Horde that the women fought as warriors when necessary. Menlik--there
+was no mistaking the flapping robe of their leader. And they were
+singing! The rider behind the shaman thumped with violent energy a drum
+fastened beside his saddle horn, its heavy boom, boom the same call the
+Apache had heard before. The Mongols were working themselves into the
+mood for some desperate effort, Travis deduced. And if they were too
+deeply under the Red spell, there would be no arguing with them. He
+could wait no longer.
+
+The Apache swung down from a ledge near the valley gate, moved into the
+open and stood waiting, the alien weapon resting across his forearm. If
+necessary, he intended to give a demonstration with it for an object
+lesson.
+
+"_Dar-u-gar_!" The war cry which had once awakened fear across a quarter
+of Terra. Thin here, and from only a few throats, but just as menacing.
+
+Two of the horsemen aimed lances, preparing to ride him down. Travis
+sighted a tree midway between them and pressed the firing button. This
+time there was a flash, a flicker of light, to mark the disappearance of
+a living thing.
+
+One of the lancers' ponies reared, squealed in fear. The other kept on
+his course.
+
+"Menlik!" Travis shouted. "Hold up your man! I do not want to kill!"
+
+The shaman called out, but the lancer was already level with the
+vanished tree, his head half turned on his shoulders to witness the
+blackened earth where it had stood. Then he dropped his lance, sawed on
+the reins. A rifle bullet might not have halted his charge, unless it
+killed or wounded, but what he had just seen was a thing beyond his
+understanding.
+
+The tribesmen sat their horses, facing Travis, watching him with the
+feral eyes of the wolves they claimed as forefathers, wolves that
+possessed the cunning of the wild, cunning enough not to rush breakneck
+into unknown danger.
+
+Travis walked forward. "Menlik, I would talk--"
+
+There was an outburst from the horsemen, protests from Hulagur and one
+or two of the others. But the shaman urged his mount into a walking pace
+toward the Apache until they stood only a few feet from each other--the
+warrior of the steppes and the Horde facing the warrior of the desert
+and the People.
+
+"You have taken a woman from our yurts," Menlik said, but his eyes were
+more on the alien gun than on the man who held it. "Brave are you to
+come again into our land. He who sets foot in the stirrup must mount
+into the saddle; he who draws blade free of the scabbard must be
+prepared to use it."
+
+"The Horde is not here--I see only a handful of people," Travis replied.
+"Does Menlik propose to go up against the Apaches so? Yet there are
+those who are his greater enemies."
+
+"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment under a
+general to face him."
+
+Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so
+little time.
+
+"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not your
+woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he pointed with
+his chin--"leading the Reds into a trap."
+
+Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him
+now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.
+
+"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.
+
+"_We_," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind
+in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.
+
+Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving,
+contemptuous appraisal.
+
+"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome
+machines?"
+
+"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis
+displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into
+shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not
+change, though his eyes narrowed.
+
+The shaman signaled his small company, and they dismounted. Travis was
+heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made
+a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in
+sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of
+knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen
+troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.
+
+"You would talk--then talk!" Menlik ordered.
+
+This time Travis outlined events with an absence of word embroidery.
+"Kaydessa leads the Reds into a trap we have set beyond the peaks--four
+of them ride with her. How many now remain in the ship near the
+settlement?"
+
+"There are at least two in the flyer, perhaps eight more in the ship.
+But there is no getting at them in there."
+
+"No?" Travis laughed softly, shifted the weapon on his arm. "Do you not
+think that this will crack the shell of that nut so that we can get at
+the meat?"
+
+Menlik's eyes flickered to the left, to the tree which was no longer a
+tree but a thin deposit of ash on seared ground.
+
+"They can control us with the caller as they did before. If we go up
+against them, then we are once more gathered into their net--before we
+reach their ship."
+
+"That is true for you of the Horde; it does not affect the People,"
+Travis returned. "And suppose we burn out their machines? Then will you
+not be free?"
+
+"To burn up a tree? Lightning from the skies can do that."
+
+"Can lightning," Buck asked softly, "also make rock as sand of the
+river?"
+
+Menlik's eyes turned to the second example of the alien weapon's power.
+
+"Give us proof that this will act against their machines!"
+
+"What proof, Shaman?" asked Jil-Lee. "Shall we burn down a mountain that
+you may believe? This is now a matter of time."
+
+Travis had a sudden inspiration. "You say that the 'copter is out.
+Suppose we use that as a target?"
+
+"That--that can sweep the flyer from the sky?" Menlik's disbelief was
+open.
+
+Travis wondered if he had gone too far. But they needed to rid
+themselves of that spying flyer before they dared to move out into the
+plain. And to use the destruction of the helicopter as an example, would
+be the best proof he could give of the invincibility of the new Apache
+arms.
+
+"Under the right conditions," he replied stoutly, "yes."
+
+"And those conditions?" Menlik demanded.
+
+"That it must be brought within range. Say, below the level of a
+neighboring peak where a man may lie in wait to fire."
+
+Silent Apaches faced silent Mongols, and Travis had a chance to taste
+what might be defeat. But the helicopter must be taken before they
+advanced toward the ship and the settlement.
+
+"And, maker of traps, how do you intend to bait this one?" Menlik's
+question was an open challenge.
+
+"You know these Reds better than we," Travis counterattacked. "How would
+you bait it, Son of the Blue Wolf?"
+
+"You say Kaydessa is leading the Reds south; we have but your word for
+that," Menlik replied. "Though how it would profit you to lie on such a
+matter--" He shrugged. "If you do speak the truth, then the 'copter will
+circle about the foothills where they entered."
+
+"And what would bring the pilot nosing farther in?" the Apache asked.
+
+Menlik shrugged again. "Any manner of things. The Reds have never
+ventured too far south; they are suspicious of the heights--with good
+cause." His fingers, near the hilt of his tulwar, twitched. "Anything
+which might suggest that their party is in difficulty would bring them
+in for a closer look--"
+
+"Say a fire, with much smoke?" Jil-Lee suggested.
+
+Menlik spoke over his shoulder to his own party. There was a babble of
+answer, two or three of the men raising their voices above those of
+their companions.
+
+"If set in the right direction, yes," the shaman conceded. "When do you
+plan to move, Apaches?"
+
+"At once!"
+
+But they did not have wings, and the cross-country march they had to
+make was a rough journey on foot. Travis' "at once" stretched into night
+hours filled with scrambling over rocks, and an early morning of
+preparations, with always the threat that the helicopter might not
+return to fly its circling mission over the scene of operations. All
+they had was Menlik's assurance that while any party of the Red
+overlords was away from their well-defended base, the flyer did just
+that.
+
+"Might be relaying messages on from a walkie-talkie or something like
+that," Buck commented.
+
+"They should reach our ship in two days ... three at the most ... if
+they are pushing," Travis said thoughtfully. "It would be a help--if
+that flyer is a link in any com unit--to destroy it before its crew
+picks up and relays any report of what happens back there."
+
+Jil-Lee grunted. He was surveying the heights above the pocket in which
+Menlik and two of the Mongols were piling brush. "There ... there ...
+and there...." The Apache's chin made three juts. "If the pilot swoops
+for a quick look, our cross fire will take out his blades."
+
+They held a last conference with Menlik and then climbed to the perches
+Jil-Lee had selected. Sentries on lookout reported by mirror flash that
+Tsoay, Deklay, Lupe, and Nolan were now on the move to join the other
+three Apaches. If and when Manulito's trap closed its jaws on the Reds
+at the western ship, the news would pass and the Apaches would move out
+to storm the enemy fort on the prairie. And should they blast any caller
+the helicopter might carry, Menlik and his riders would accompany them.
+
+There it was, just as Menlik had foretold: The wasp from the open
+country was flying into the hills. Menlik, on his knees, struck flint to
+steel, sparking the fire they hoped would draw the pilot to a closer
+investigation.
+
+The brush caught, and smoke, thick and white, came first in separate
+puffs and then gathered into a murky pillar to form a signal no one
+could overlook. In Travis' hands the grip of the gun was slippery. He
+rested the end of the barrel on the rock, curbing his rising tension as
+best he could.
+
+To escape any caller on the flyer, the Tatars had remained in the valley
+below the Apaches' lookout. And as the helicopter circled in, Travis
+sighted two men in its cockpit, one wearing a helmet identical to the
+one they had seen on the Red hunter days ago. The Reds' long undisputed
+sway over the Mongol forces would make them overconfident. Travis
+thought that even if they sighted one of the waiting Apaches, they would
+not take warning until too late.
+
+Menlik's bush fire was performing well and the flyer was heading
+straight for it. The machine buzzed the smoke once, too high for the
+Apaches to trust raying its blades. Then the pilot came back in a lower
+sweep which carried him only yards above the smoldering brush, on a
+level with the snipers.
+
+Travis pressed the button on the barrel, his target the fast-whirling
+blades. Momentum carried the helicopter on, but at least one of the
+marksmen, if not all three, had scored. The machine plowed through the
+smoke to crack up beyond.
+
+Was their caller working, bringing in the Mongols to aid the Reds
+trapped in the wreck?
+
+Travis watched Menlik make his way toward the machine, reach the cracked
+cover of the cockpit. But in the shaman's hand was a bare blade on which
+the sun glinted. The Mongol wrenched open the sprung door, thrust inward
+with the tulwar, and the howl of triumph he voiced was as worldless and
+wild as a wolf's.
+
+More Mongols flooding down ... Hulagur ... a woman ... centering on the
+helicopter. This time a spear plunged into the interior of the broken
+flyer. Payment was being extracted for long slavery.
+
+The Apaches dropped from the heights, waiting for Menlik to leave the
+wild scene. Hulagur had dragged out the body of the helmeted man and
+the Mongols were stripping off his equipment, smashing it with rocks,
+still howling their war cry. But the shaman came to the dying smudge
+fire to meet the Apaches.
+
+He was smiling, his upper lip raised in a curve suggesting the victory
+purr of a snow tiger. And he saluted with one hand.
+
+"There are two who will not trap men again! We believe you now, _andas_,
+comrades of battle, when you say you can go up against their fort and
+make it as nothing!"
+
+Hulagur came up behind the shaman, a modern automatic in his hand. He
+tossed the weapon into the air, caught it again, laughing--disclaiming
+something in his own language.
+
+"From the serpents we take two fangs," Menlik translated. "These weapons
+may not be as dangerous as yours, but they can bite deeper, quicker, and
+with more force than our arrows."
+
+It did not take the Mongols long to strip the helicopter and the Reds of
+what they could use, deliberately smashing all the other equipment which
+had survived the wreck. They had accomplished one important move: The
+link between the southbound exploring party and the Red headquarters--if
+that was the role the helicopter had played--was now gone. And the
+"eyes" operating over the open territory of the plains had ceased to
+exist. The attacking war party could move against the ship near the Red
+settlement, knowing they had only controlled Mongol scouts to watch for.
+And to penetrate enemy territory under those conditions was an old, old
+game the Apaches had played for centuries.
+
+While they waited for the signals from the peaks, a camp was established
+and a Mongol dispatched to bring up the rest of the outlaws and all
+extra mounts. Menlik carried to the Apaches a portion of the dried meat
+which had been transported Horde fashion--under the saddle to soften it
+for eating.
+
+"We do not skulk any longer like rats or city men in dark holes," he
+told them. "This time we ride, and we shall take an accounting from
+those out there--a fine accounting!"
+
+"They still have other controllers," Travis pointed out.
+
+"And you have that which is an answer to all their machines," blazed
+Menlik in return.
+
+"They will send against us your own people if they can," Buck warned.
+
+Menlik pulled at his upper lip. "That is also truth. But now they have
+no eyes in the sky, and with so many of their men away, they will not
+patrol too far from camp. I tell you, _andas_, with these weapons of
+yours a man could rule a world!"
+
+Travis looked at him bleakly. "Which is why they are taboo!"
+
+"Taboo?" Menlik repeated. "In what manner are these forbidden? Do you
+not carry them openly, use them as you wish? Are they not weapons of
+your own people?"
+
+Travis shook his head. "These are the weapons of dead men--if we can
+name them men at all. These we took from a tomb of the star race who
+held Topaz when our world was only a hunting ground of wild men wearing
+the skins of beasts and slaying mammoths with stone spears. They are
+from a tomb and are cursed, a curse we took upon ourselves with their
+use."
+
+There was a strange light deep in the shaman's eyes. Travis did not know
+who or what Menlik had been before the Red conditioner had returned him
+to the role of Horde shaman. He might have been a technician or
+scientist--and deep within him some remnants of that training could now
+be dismissing everything Travis said as fantastic superstition.
+
+Yet in another way the Apache spoke the exact truth. There was a curse
+on these weapons, on every bit of knowledge gathered in that warehouse
+of the towers. As Menlik had already noted, that curse was power, the
+power to control Topaz, and then perhaps to reach back across the stars
+to Terra.
+
+When the shaman spoke again his words were a half whisper. "It will take
+a powerful curse to keep these out of the hands of men."
+
+"With the Reds gone or powerless," Buck asked, "what need will anyone
+have for them?"
+
+"And if another ship comes from the skies--to begin all over again?"
+
+"To that we shall have an answer, also, if and when we must find it,"
+Travis replied. That could well be true ... other weapons in the
+warehouse powerful enough to pluck a spaceship out of the sky, but they
+did not have to worry about that now.
+
+"Arms from a tomb. Yes, this is truly dead men's magic. I shall say so
+to my people. When do we move out?"
+
+"When we know whether or not the trap to the south is sprung," Buck
+answered.
+
+The report came an hour after sunrise the next morning when Tsoay,
+Nolan, and Deklay padded into camp. The war chief made a slight gesture
+with one hand.
+
+"It is done?" Travis wanted confirmation in words.
+
+"It is done. The Pinda-lick-o-yi entered the ship eagerly. Then they
+blew it and themselves up. Manulito did his work well."
+
+"And Kaydessa?"
+
+"The woman is safe. When the Reds saw the ship, they left their machine
+outside to hold her captive. That mechanical caller was easily
+destroyed. She is now free and with the _mba'a_ she comes across the
+mountains, Manulito and Eskelta with her also. Now--" he looked from his
+own people to the Mongols, "why are you here with these?"
+
+"We wait, but the waiting is over," Jil-Lee said. "Now we go north!"
+
+
+
+
+18
+
+
+They lay along the rim of a vast basin, a scooping out of earth so wide
+they could not sight its other side. The bed of an ancient lake, Travis
+speculated, or perhaps even the arm of a long-dried sea. But now the
+hollow was filled with rolling waves of golden grass, tossing heavy
+heads under the flowing touch of a breeze with the exception of a space
+about a mile ahead where round domes--black, gray, brown--broke the
+yellow in an irregular oval around the globular silver bead of a spacer:
+a larger ship than that which had brought the Apaches, but of the same
+shape.
+
+"The horse herd ... to the west." Nolan evaluated the scene with the
+eyes of an experienced raider. "Tsoay, Deklay, you take the horses!"
+
+They nodded, and began the long crawl which would take them two miles or
+more from the party to stampede the horses.
+
+To the Mongols in those domelike yurts horses were wealth, life itself.
+They would come running to investigate any disturbance among the grazing
+ponies, thus clearing the path to the ship and the Reds there. Travis,
+Jil-Lee, and Buck, armed with the star guns, would spearhead that
+attack--cutting into the substance of the ship itself until it was a
+sieve through which they could shake out the enemy. Only when the
+installations it contained were destroyed, might the Apaches hope for
+any assistance from the Mongols, either the outlaw pack waiting well
+back on the prairie or the people in the yurts.
+
+The grass rippled and Naginlta poked out a nose, parting stems before
+Travis. The Apache beamed an order, sending the coyotes with the
+horse-raiding party. He had seen how the animals could drive hunted
+split-horns; they would do as well with the ponies.
+
+Kaydessa was safe, the coyotes had made that clear by the fact that they
+had joined the attacking party an hour earlier. With Eskelta and
+Manulito she was on her way back to the north.
+
+Travis supposed he should be well pleased that their reckless plan had
+succeeded as well as it had. But when he thought of the Tatar girl, all
+he could see was her convulsed face close to his in the ship corridor,
+her raking nails raised to tear his cheek. She had an excellent reason
+to hate him, yet he hoped....
+
+They continued to watch both horse herd and domes. There were people
+moving about the yurts, but no signs of life at the ship. Had the Reds
+shut themselves in there, warned in some way of the two disasters which
+had whittled down their forces?
+
+"Ah--!" Nolan breathed.
+
+One of the ponies had raised its head and was facing the direction of
+the camp, suspicion plain to read in its stance. The Apaches must have
+reached the point between the herd and the domes which had been their
+goal. And the Mongol guard, who had been sitting cross-legged, the
+reins of his mount dangling close to his hand, got to his feet.
+
+"Ahhhuuuuu!" The ancient Apache war cry that had sounded across deserts,
+canyons, and southwestern Terran plains to ice the blood, ripped just as
+freezingly through the honey-hued air of Topaz.
+
+The horses wheeled, racing upslope away from the settlement. A figure
+broke from the grass, flapped his arms at one of the mounts, grabbed at
+flying mane, and pulled himself up on the bare back. Only a master
+horseman would have done that, but the whooping rider now drove the herd
+on, assisted by the snapping and snarling coyotes.
+
+"Deklay--" Jil-Lee identified the reckless rider, "that was one of his
+rodeo tricks."
+
+Among the yurts it was as if someone had ripped up a rotten log to
+reveal an ants' nest and sent the alarmed insects into a frenzy. Men
+boiled out of the domes, the majority of them running for the horse
+pasture. One or two were mounted on ponies that must have been staked
+out in the settlement. The main war party of Apaches skimmed silently
+through the grass on their way to the ship.
+
+The three who were armed with the alien weapons had already tested their
+range by experimentation back in the hills, but the fear of exhausting
+whatever powered those barrels had curtailed their target practice. Now
+they snaked to the edge of the bare ground between them and the ladder
+hatch of the spacer. To cross that open space was to provide targets for
+lances and arrows--or the superior armament of the Reds.
+
+"A chance we can hit from here." Buck laid his weapon across his bent
+knee, steadied the long barrel of the burner, and pressed the firing
+button.
+
+The closed hatch of the ship shimmered, dissolved into a black hole.
+Behind Travis someone let out the yammer of a war whoop.
+
+"Fire--cut the walls to pieces!"
+
+Travis did not need that order from Jil-Lee. He was already beaming
+unseen destruction at the best target he could ask for--the side of the
+sphere. If the globe was armed, there was no weapon which could be
+depressed far enough to reach the marksmen at ground level.
+
+Holes appeared, irregular gaps and tears in the fabric of the ship. The
+Apaches were turning the side of the globe into lacework. How far those
+rays penetrated into the interior they could not guess.
+
+Movement at one of the holes, the chattering burst of machine-gun fire,
+spatters of soil and gravel into their faces; they could be cut to
+pieces by that! The hole enlarged, a scream ... cut off....
+
+"They will not be too quick to try that again," Nolan observed with cold
+calm from behind Travis' post.
+
+Methodically they continued to beam the ship. It would never be
+space-borne again; there were neither the skills nor materials here to
+repair such damage.
+
+"It is like laying a knife to fat," Lupe said as he crawled up beside
+Travis. "Slice, slice--!"
+
+"Move!" Travis reached to the left, pulled at Jil-Lee's shoulder.
+
+Travis did not know whether it was possible or not, but he had a heady
+vision of their combined fire power cutting the globe in half, slicing
+it crosswise with the ease Lupe admired.
+
+They scurried through cover just as someone behind yelled a warning.
+Travis threw himself down, rolled into a new firing position. An arrow
+sang over his head; the Reds were doing what the Apaches had known they
+would--calling in the controlled Mongols to fight. The attack on the
+ship must be stepped up, or the Amerindians would be forced to retreat.
+
+Already a new lacing of holes appeared under their concentrated efforts.
+With the gun held tight to his middle, Travis found his feet, zigzagged
+across the bare ground for the nearest of those openings. Another arrow
+clanged harmlessly against the fabric of the ship a foot from his goal.
+
+He made it in, over jagged metal shards which glowed faintly and reeked
+of ozone. The weapons' beams had penetrated well past both the outer
+shell and the wall of insulation webbing. He climbed a second and
+smaller break into a corridor enough like those of the western ship to
+be familiar. The Red spacer, based on the general plan of the alien
+derelict ship as his own had been, could not be very different.
+
+Travis tried to subdue his heavy breathing and listen. He heard a
+confused shouting and the burr of what might be an alarm system. The
+ship's brain was the control cabin. Even if the Reds dared not try to
+lift now, that was the core of their communication lines. He started
+along the corridor, trying to figure out its orientation in relation to
+that all-important nerve center.
+
+The Apache shoved open each door he passed with one shoulder, and twice
+he played a light beam on installations within cabins. He had no idea of
+their use, but the wholesale destruction of each and every machine was
+what good sense and logic dictated.
+
+There was a sound behind. Travis whirled, saw Jil-Lee and beyond him
+Buck.
+
+"Up?" Jil-Lee asked.
+
+"And down," Buck added. "The Tatars say they have hollowed a bunker
+beneath."
+
+"Separate and do as much damage as you can," Travis suggested.
+
+"Agreed!"
+
+Travis sped on. He passed another door and then backtracked hurriedly as
+he realized it had given on to an engine room. With the gun he blasted
+two long lines cutting the fittings into ragged lumps. Abruptly the
+lights went out; the burr of the alarms was silenced. Part of the ship,
+if not all, was dead. And now it might come to hunter and hunted in the
+dark. But that was an advantage as far as the Apaches were concerned.
+
+Back in the corridor again, Travis crept through a curiously lifeless
+atmosphere. The shouting was stilled as if the sudden failure of the
+machines had stunned the Reds.
+
+A tiny sound--perhaps the scrape of a boot on a ladder. Travis edged
+back into a compartment. A flash of light momentarily lighted the
+corridor; the approaching figure was using a torch. Travis drew his
+knife with one hand, reversed it so he could use the heavy hilt as a
+silencer. The other was hurrying now, on his way to investigate the
+burned-out engine cabin. Travis could hear the rasp of his fast
+breathing. Now!
+
+The Apache had put down the gun, his left arm closed about a shoulder,
+and the Red gasped as Travis struck with the knife hilt. Not clean--he
+had to hit a second time before the struggles of the man were over.
+Then, using his hands for eyes, he stripped the limp body on the floor
+of automatic and torch.
+
+With the Red's weapon in the front of his sash, the burner in one hand
+and the torch in the other, Travis prowled on. There was a good chance
+that those above might believe him to be their comrade returning. He
+found the ladder leading to the next level, began to climb, pausing now
+and then to listen.
+
+Shock preceded sound. Under him the ladder swayed and the globe itself
+rocked a little. A blast of some kind must have been set off at or under
+the level of the ground. The bunker Buck had mentioned?
+
+Travis clung to the ladder, waited for the vibrations to subside. There
+was a shouting above, a questioning.... Hurriedly he ascended to the
+next level, scrambled out and away from the ladder just in time to avoid
+the light from another torch flashed down the well. Again that call of
+inquiry, then a shot--the boom of the explosion loud in the confined
+space.
+
+To climb into the face of that light with a waiting marksman above was
+sheer folly. Could there be another way up? Travis retreated down one of
+the corridors raying out from the ladder well. A quick inspection of the
+cabins along that route told him he had reached a section of living
+quarters. The pattern was familiar; the control cabin would be on the
+next level.
+
+Suddenly the Apache remembered something: On each level there should be
+an emergency opening giving access to the insulation space between the
+inner and outer skins of the ship through which repairs could be made.
+If he could find that and climb up to the next level....
+
+The light shining down the well remained steady, and there was the
+echoing crack of another shot. But Travis was far enough away from the
+ladder now to dare use his own torch, seeking the door he needed on the
+wall surface. With a leap of heart he sighted the outline--his luck was
+in! The Russian and western ships were alike.
+
+Once the panel was open he flashed his torch up, finding the climbing
+rungs and, above, the shadow outline of the next level opening. Securing
+the alien gun in his sash beside the automatic and holding the torch in
+his mouth, Travis climbed, not daring to think of the deep drop below.
+Four ... five ... ten rungs, and he could reach the other door.
+
+His fingers slid over it, searching for the release catch. But there was
+no answering give. Balling his fist, he struck down at an awkward angle
+and almost lost his balance as the panel fell away beneath his blow. The
+door swung and he pulled through.
+
+Darkness! Travis snapped on the torch for an instant, saw about him the
+relays of a com system, and gave it a full spraying as he pivoted,
+destroying the eyes and ears of the ship--unless the burnout he had
+effected below had already done that. A flash of automatic fire from his
+left, a searing burn along his arm an inch or so below the shoulder--
+
+Travis' action was purely reflex. He swung the burner around, even as
+his mind gave a frantic No! To defend himself with automatic, knife,
+arrow--yes; but not this way. He huddled against the wall.
+
+An instant earlier there had been a man there, a living, breathing
+man--one of his own species, if not of his own beliefs. Then because his
+own muscles had unconsciously obeyed warrior training, there was this.
+So easy--to deal death without really meaning to. The weapon in his
+hands was truly the devil gift they were right to fear. Such weapons
+were not to be put into the hands of men--any men--no matter how well
+intentioned.
+
+Travis gulped in great mouthfuls of air. He wanted to throw the burner
+away, hurl it from him. But the task he could rightfully use it for was
+not yet done.
+
+Somehow he reeled on into the control cabin to render the ship truly a
+dead thing and free himself of the heavy burden of guilt and terror
+between his hands. That weight could be laid aside; memory could not.
+And no one of his kind must ever have to carry such memories again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The booming of the drums was like a pulse quickening the blood to a
+rhythm which bit at the brain, made a man's eyes shine, his muscles
+tense as if he held an arrow to bow cord or arched his fingers about a
+knife hilt. A fire blazed high and in its light men leaped and whirled
+in a mad dance with tulwar blades catching and reflecting the red gleam
+of flames. Mad, wild, the Mongols were drunk with victory and freedom.
+Beyond them, the silver globe of the ship showed the black holes of its
+death, which was also the death of the past--for all of them.
+
+"What now?" Menlik, the dangling of amulets and charms tinkling as he
+moved, came up to Travis. There was none of the wild fervor in the
+shaman's face; instead, it was as if he had taken several strides out of
+the life of the Horde, was emerging into another person, and the
+question he asked was one they all shared.
+
+Travis felt drained, flattened. They had achieved their purpose. The
+handful of Red overlords were dead, their machines burned out. There
+were no controls here any more; men were free in mind and body. What
+were they to do with that freedom?
+
+"First," the Apache spoke his own thoughts--"we must return these."
+
+The three alien weapons were lashed into a square of Mongol fabric,
+hidden from sight, although they could not be so easily shut out of
+mind. Only a few of the others, Apache or Mongol, had seen them; and
+they must be returned before their power was generally known.
+
+"I wonder if in days to come," Buck mused, "they will not say that we
+pulled lightning out of the sky, as did the Thunder Slayer, to aid us.
+But this is right. We must return them and make that valley and what it
+holds taboo."
+
+"And what if another ship comes--one of _yours_?" Menlik asked shrewdly.
+
+Travis stared beyond the Tatar shaman to the men about the fire. His
+nightmare dragged into the open.... What if a ship did come in, one with
+Ashe, Murdock, men he knew and liked, friends on board? What then of his
+guardianship of the towers and their knowledge? Could he be as sure of
+what to do then? He rubbed his hand across his forehead and said slowly:
+
+"We shall take steps when--or if--that happens--"
+
+But could they, would they? He began to hope fiercely that it would not
+happen, at least in his lifetime, and then felt the cold bleakness of
+the exile they must will themselves into.
+
+"Whether we like it or not," (was he talking to the others or trying to
+argue down his own rebellion?) "we cannot let what lies under the towers
+be known ... found ... used ... unless by men who are wiser and more
+controlled than we are in our time."
+
+Menlik drew his shaman's wand, twiddled it between his fingers, and
+beneath his drooping lids watched the three Apaches with a new kind of
+measurement.
+
+"Then I say to you this: Such a guardianship must be a double charge,
+shared by my people as well. For if they suspect that you alone control
+these powers and their secret, there will be envy, hatred, fear, a
+division between us from the first--war ... raids.... This is a large
+land and neither of our groups numbers many. Shall we split apart
+fatally from this day when there is room for all? If these ancient
+things are evil, then let us both guard them with a common taboo."
+
+He was right, of course. And they would have to face the truth squarely.
+To both Apache and Mongol any off-world ship, no matter from which side,
+would be a menace. Here was where they would remain and set roots. The
+sooner they began thinking of themselves as people with a common bond,
+the better it would be. And Menlik's suggestion provided a tie.
+
+"You speak well," Buck was saying. "This shall be a thing we share. We
+are three who know. Do you be three also, but choose well, Menlik!"
+
+"Be assured that I will!" the Tatar returned. "We start a new life here;
+there is no going back. But as I have said: The land is wide. We have no
+quarrel with one another, and perhaps our two peoples shall become one;
+after all, we do not differ too greatly...." He smiled and gestured to
+the fire and the dancers.
+
+Among the Mongols another man had gone into action, his head thrown back
+as he leaped and twirled, voicing a deep war cry. Travis recognized
+Deklay. Apache, Mongol--both raiders, horsemen, hunters, fighters when
+the need arose. No, there was no great difference. Both had been tricked
+into coming here, and they had no allegiance now for those who had sent
+them.
+
+Perhaps clan and Horde would combine or perhaps they would drift
+apart--time would tell. But there would be the bond of the guardianship,
+the determination that what slept in the towers would not be roused--in
+their lifetime or many lifetimes!
+
+Travis smiled a bit crookedly. A new religion of sorts, a priesthood
+with sacred and forbidden knowledge ... in time a whole new life and
+civilization stemming from this night. The bleak cold of his early
+thought cut less deep. There was a different kind of adventure here.
+
+He reached out and gathered up the bundle of the burners, glancing from
+Buck to Jil-Lee to Menlik. Then he stood up, the weight of the burden in
+his arms, the feeling of a greater weight inside him.
+
+"Shall we go?"
+
+To get the weapons back--that was of first importance. Maybe then he
+could sleep soundly, to dream of riding across the Arizona range at dawn
+under a blue sky with a wind in his face, a wind carrying the scent of
+piñon pine and sage, a wind which would never caress or hearten him
+again, a wind his sons and sons' sons would never know. To dream
+troubled dreams, and hope in time those dreams would fade and thin--that
+a new world would blanket out the old. Better so, Travis told himself
+with defiance and determination--better so!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Defiant Agents, by Andre Alice Norton
+
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Defiant Agents, by Andre Norton.
+    </title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Defiant Agents, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Defiant Agents
+
+Author: Andre Alice Norton
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2008 [EBook #25550]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEFIANT AGENTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Walker, Greg Weeks, Jason Isbell and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p class="blockquot">Transcriber's Notes:
+Obvious printer errors have been corrected (including switched lines).
+Ellipses have been standardised. Otherwise the text is as printed.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/frontpage.jpg" width="450" height="700" alt="The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton - Book Cover" title="The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton - Book Cover" />
+
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1>
+<i>THE
+DEFIANT
+AGENTS</i>
+</h1>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>By Andre Norton</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">
+RIDE PROUD, REBEL!<br />
+STORM OVER WARLOCK<br />
+GALACTIC DERELICT<br />
+THE TIME TRADERS<br />
+STAR BORN<br />
+YANKEE PRIVATEER<br />
+THE STARS ARE OURS!
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Edited by Andre Norton</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">
+SPACE PIONEERS<br />
+SPACE SERVICE
+</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1><i>THE
+DEFIANT
+AGENTS</i></h1>
+
+<h2><i>BY
+ANDRE
+NORTON</i></h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/wptree.png" width="100" height="93" alt="World Publishing Logo" title="World Publishing Logo" />
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+<i>Published by</i> The World Publishing Company
+2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Published simultaneously in Canada by</i>
+Nelson, Foster &amp; Scott Ltd.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-9063</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center">FIRST EDITION</p>
+
+<p class="center">WP262</p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright &copy; 1962 by Andre Norton
+All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
+in any form without written permission from the publisher,
+except for brief passages included in a review appearing in
+a newspaper or magazine. Printed in the United States of America.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<hr />
+<p class="center"><i>FOR P. SCHUYLER MILLER
+who expressed a wish
+for some Apache colonists,<br />
+and CHARLES F. KELLEY
+who has a liking
+for "time agent" tales.</i>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="short"/>
+<h1><i>THE DEFIANT AGENTS</i></h1>
+<hr />
+<h2>1</h2>
+
+
+<p>No windows broke any of the four plain walls of the office; there was no
+focus of outer-world sunlight on the desk there. Yet the five disks set
+out on its surface appeared to glow&mdash;perhaps the heat of the mischief
+they could cause ... had caused ... blazed in them.</p>
+
+<p>But fanciful imaginings did not cushion or veil cold, hard fact. Dr.
+Gordon Ashe, one of the four men peering unhappily at the display, shook
+his head slightly as if to free his mind of such cobwebs.</p>
+
+<p>His neighbor to the right, Colonel Kelgarries, leaned forward to ask
+harshly: "No chance of a mistake?"</p>
+
+<p>"You saw the detector." The thin gray string of a man behind the desk
+answered with chill precision. "No, no possible mistake. These five have
+definitely been snooped."</p>
+
+<p>"And two choices among them," Ashe murmured. That was the important
+point now.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought these were under maximum security," Kelgarries challenged the
+gray man.</p>
+
+<p>Florian Waldour's remote expression did not change. "Every possible
+precaution was in force. There was a sleeper&mdash;a hidden
+agent&mdash;planted&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who?" Kelgarries demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Ashe glanced around at his three companions&mdash;Kelgarries, colonel in
+command of one sector of Project Star, Florian Waldour, the security
+head on the station, Dr. James Ruthven....</p>
+
+<p>"Camdon!" he said, hardly able to believe this answer to which logic had
+led him.</p>
+
+<p>Waldour nodded.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since he had known and worked with Kelgarries Ashe
+saw him display open astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Camdon? But he was sent us by&mdash;" The colonel's eyes narrowed. "He must
+have been sent.... There were too many cross checks to fake that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he was sent, all right." For the first time there was a note of
+emotion in Waldour's voice. "He was a sleeper, a very deep sleeper. They
+must have planted him a full twenty-five or thirty years ago. He's been
+just what he claimed to be as long as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he certainly was worth their time and trouble, wasn't he?" James
+Ruthven's voice was a growling rumble. He sucked in thick lips,
+continuing to stare at the disks. "How long ago were these snooped?"</p>
+
+<p>Ashe's thoughts turned swiftly from the enormity of the betrayal to that
+important point. The time element&mdash;that was the primary concern now that
+the damage was done, and they knew it.</p>
+
+<p>"That's one thing we don't know." Waldour's reply came slowly as if he
+hated the admission.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be safer, then, if we presume the very earliest period."
+Ruthven's statement was as ruthless in its implications as the shock
+they had had when Waldour announced the disaster.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen months ago?" Ashe protested.</p>
+
+<p>But Ruthven was nodding. "Camdon was in on this from the very first.
+We've had the tapes in and out for study all that time, and the new
+detector against snooping was not put in service until two weeks ago.
+This case came up on the first checking round, didn't it?" he asked
+Waldour.</p>
+
+<p>"First check," the security man agreed. "Camdon left the base six days
+ago. But he has been in and out on his liaison duties from the first."</p>
+
+<p>"He had to go through those search points every time," Kelgarries
+protested. "Thought nothing could get through those." The colonel
+brightened. "Maybe he got his snooper films and then couldn't take them
+off base. Have his quarters been turned out?"</p>
+
+<p>Waldour's lips lifted in a grimace of exasperation. "Please, Colonel,"
+he said wearily, "this is not a kindergarten exercise. In confirmation
+of his success, listen...." He touched a button on his desk and out of
+the air came the emotionless chant of a newscaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Fears for the safety of Lassiter Camdon, space expediter for the
+Western Conference Space Council, have been confirmed by the discovery
+of burned wreckage in the mountains. Mr. Camdon was returning from a
+mission to the Star Laboratory when his plane lost contact with Ragnor
+Field. Reports of a storm in that vicinity immediately raised concern&mdash;"
+Waldour snapped off the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"True&mdash;or a cover for his escape?" Kelgarries wondered aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Could be either. They may have deliberately written him off when they
+had all they wanted," Waldour acknowledged. "But to get back to our
+troubles&mdash;Dr. Ruth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>ven is right to assume the worst. I believe we can
+only insure the recovery of our project by thinking that these tapes
+were snooped anywhere from eighteen months ago to last week. And we must
+work accordingly!"</p>
+
+<p>There was silence in the room as they all considered that. Ashe slipped
+down in his chair, his thoughts enmeshed in memories. First there had
+been Operation Retrograde, when specially trained "time agents" had
+shuttled back and forth in history, striving to locate and track down
+the mysterious source of alien knowledge which the eastern Communistic
+nations had suddenly begun to use.</p>
+
+<p>Ashe himself and a younger partner, Ross Murdock, had been part of the
+final action which had solved the mystery, having traced that source of
+knowledge not to an earlier and forgotten Terran civilization but to
+wrecked spaceships from an eon-old galactic empire&mdash;an empire which had
+flourished when glacial ice covered most of Europe and northern America
+and Terrans were cave-dwelling primitives. Murdock, trapped by the Reds
+in one of those wrecked ships, had inadvertently summoned its original
+owners, who had descended to trace&mdash;through the Russian time
+stations&mdash;the looters of their wrecks, destroying the whole Red
+time-travel system.</p>
+
+<p>But the aliens had not chanced on the parallel western system. And a
+year later that had been put into Project Folsom One. Again Ashe,
+Murdock, and a newcomer, the Apache Travis Fox, had gone back into time
+to the Arizona of the Folsom hunters, discovering what they wanted&mdash;two
+ships, one wrecked, the other intact. And when the full efforts of the
+project had been centered on bringing the intact ship back into the
+present, chance had trig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>gered controls set by the dead alien commander.
+A party of four, Ashe, Murdock, Fox, and a technician, had then made an
+involuntary voyage into space, touching three worlds on which the
+galactic civilization of the far past was now marked only by ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Voyage tape fed into the controls of the ship had taken the men, and,
+when rewound, had&mdash;by a miracle&mdash;returned them to Terra with a cargo of
+similar tapes found in a building on a world which might have been the
+central capital for a government comprised not of countries or of worlds
+but of solar systems. Tapes&mdash;each one the key to another planet.</p>
+
+<p>And that ancient galactic knowledge was treasure such as the Terrans had
+never dreamed of possessing, though there were the attendant fears that
+such discoveries could be weapons in enemy hands. There had been an
+enforced sharing with other nations of tapes chosen at random at a great
+drawing. And each nation secretly remained convinced that, in spite of
+the untold riches it might hold as a result of chance, its rivals had
+done better. Right at this moment, Ashe did not in the least doubt,
+there were agents of his own party intent on accomplishing at the Red
+project just what Camdon had done there. However, that did not help in
+solving their present dilemma concerning Operation Cochise, one part of
+their project, but perhaps the most important now.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the tapes were duds, either too damaged to be useful, or set for
+worlds hostile to Terrans lacking the equipment the earlier
+star-traveling race had had at its command. Of the five tapes they now
+knew had been snooped, three would be useless to the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>But one of the remaining two.... Ashe frowned. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> was the goal toward
+which they had been working feverishly for a full twelve months. To
+plant a colony across the gulf of space&mdash;a successful colony&mdash;later to
+be used as a steppingstone to other worlds....</p>
+
+<p>"So we have to move faster." Ruthven's comment reached Ashe through his
+stream of memories.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you required at least three more months to conclude personnel
+training," Waldour observed.</p>
+
+<p>Ruthven lifted a fat hand, running the nail of a broad thumb back and
+forth across his lower lip in a habitual gesture Ashe had learned to
+mistrust. As the latter stiffened, bracing for a battle of wills, he saw
+Kelgarries come alert too. At least the colonel more often than not was
+ready to counter Ruthven's demands.</p>
+
+<p>"We test and we test," said the fat man. "Always we test. We move like
+turtles when it would be better to race like greyhounds. There is such a
+thing as overcaution, as I have said from the first. One would
+think"&mdash;his accusing glance included Ashe and Kelgarries&mdash;"that there
+had never been any improvising in this project, that all had always been
+done by the book. I say that this is the time we must take the big
+gamble, or else we may find we have been outbid for space entirely. Let
+those others discover even one alien installation they can master and&mdash;"
+his thumb shifted from his lip, grinding down on the desk top as if it
+were crushing some venturesome but entirely unimportant insect&mdash;"and we
+are finished before we really begin."</p>
+
+<p>There were a number of men in the project who would agree with that,
+Ashe knew. And a greater number in the country and conference at large.
+The public was used to reckless gambles which paid off, and there had
+been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> enough of those in the past to give an impressive argument for
+that point of view. But Ashe, himself, could not agree to a speed-up. He
+had been out among the stars, shaved disaster too closely because the
+proper training had not been given.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall report that I advise a take-off within a week," Ruthven was
+continuing. "To the council I shall say that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I do not agree!" Ashe cut in. He glanced at Kelgarries for the
+quick backing he expected, but instead there was a lengthening moment of
+silence. Then the colonel spread out his hands and said sullenly:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't agree either, but I don't have the final say-so. Ashe, what
+would be needed to speed up any take-off?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Ruthven who replied. "We can use the Redax, as I have said from
+the start."</p>
+
+<p>Ashe straightened, his mouth tight, his eyes hard and angry.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll protest that ... to the council! Man, we're dealing with human
+beings&mdash;selected volunteers, men who trust us&mdash;not with laboratory
+animals!"</p>
+
+<p>Ruthven's thick lips pouted into what was close to a smile of derision.
+"Always the sentimentalists, you experts in the past! Tell me, Dr. Ashe,
+were you always so thoughtful of your men when you sent agents back into
+time? And certainly a voyage into space is less a risk than time travel.
+These volunteers know what they have signed for. They will be ready&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you propose telling them about the use of Redax&mdash;what it does to a
+man's mind?" countered Ashe.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. They will receive all necessary instructions."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ashe was not satisfied and he would have spoken again, but Kelgarries
+interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>"If it comes to that, none of us here has any right to make final
+decisions. Waldour has already sent in his report about the snoop. We'll
+have to await orders from the council."</p>
+
+<p>Ruthven levered himself out of his chair, his solid bulk stretching his
+uniform coveralls. "That is correct, Colonel. In the meantime I would
+suggest we all check to see what can be done to speed up each one's
+portion of labor." Without another word, he tramped to the door.</p>
+
+<p>Waldour eyed the other two with mounting impatience. It was plain he had
+work to do and wanted them to leave. But Ashe was reluctant. He had a
+feeling that matters were slipping out of his control, that he was about
+to face a crisis which was somehow worse than just a major security
+leak. Was the enemy always on the other side of the world? Or could he
+wear the same uniform, even share the same goals?</p>
+
+<p>In the outer corridor he still hesitated, and Kelgarries, a step or so
+in advance, looked back over his shoulder impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use fighting&mdash;our hands are tied." His words were slurred,
+almost as if he wanted to disown them.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll agree to use the Redax?" For the second time within the
+hour Ashe felt as if he had taken a step only to have firm earth turn
+into slippery, shifting sand underfoot.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a matter of my agreeing. It may be a matter of getting through
+or not getting through&mdash;now. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> they've had eighteen months, or even
+twelve...!" The colonel's fingers balled into a fist. "And <i>they</i> won't
+be delayed by any humanitarian reasoning&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you believe Ruthven will win the council's approval?"</p>
+
+<p>"When you are dealing with frightened men, you're talking to ears closed
+to anything but what they want to hear. After all, we can't prove that
+the Redax will be harmful."</p>
+
+<p>"But we've only used it under rigidly controlled conditions. To speed up
+the process would mean a total disregard of those controls. Snapping a
+party of men and women back into their racial past and holding them
+there for too long a period...." Ashe shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been in Operation Retrograde from the start, and we've been
+remarkably successful&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Operating in a different way, educating picked men to return to certain
+points in history where their particular temperaments and
+characteristics fitted the roles they were selected to play, yes. And
+even then we had our percentage of failures. But to try this&mdash;returning
+people not physically into time, but <i>mentally and emotionally</i> into
+prototypes of their ancestors&mdash;that's something else again. The Apaches
+have volunteered, and they've been passed by the psychologists and the
+testers. But they're Americans of today, not tribal nomads of two or
+three hundred years ago. If you break down some barriers, you might just
+end up breaking them all."</p>
+
+<p>Kelgarries was scowling. "You mean&mdash;they might revert utterly, have no
+contact with the present at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I do mean. Education and training, yes, but full
+awakening of racial memories, no. The two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> branches of conditioning
+should go slowly and hand in hand, otherwise&mdash;real trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>"Only we no longer have the time to go slow. I'm certain Ruthven will be
+able to push this through&mdash;with Waldour's report to back him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll have to warn Fox and the rest. They must be given a choice
+in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Ruthven said that would be done." The colonel did not sound convinced
+of that.</p>
+
+<p>Ashe snorted. "If I hear him telling them, I'll believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder whether we can...."</p>
+
+<p>Ashe half turned and frowned at the colonel. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You said yourself that we had our failures in time travel. We expected
+those, accepted them, even when they hurt. When we asked for volunteers
+for this project we had to make them understand that there was a heavy
+element of risk involved. Three teams of recruits&mdash;the Eskimos from
+Point Barren, the Apaches, and the Islanders&mdash;all picked because their
+people had a high survival rating in the past, to be colonists on widely
+different types of planets. Well, the Eskimos and the Islanders aren't
+matched to any of the worlds on those snooped tapes, but Topaz is
+waiting for the Apaches. And we may have to move them in there in a
+hurry. It's a rotten gamble any way you see it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll appeal directly to the council."</p>
+
+<p>Kelgarries shrugged. "All right. You have my backing."</p>
+
+<p>"But you believe such an effort hopeless?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know the red-tape merchants. You'll have to move fast if you want
+to beat Ruthven. He's probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> on a straight line now to Stanton,
+Reese, and Margate. This is what he has been waiting for!"</p>
+
+<p>"There are the news syndicates; public opinion would back us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean that, of course." Kelgarries was suddenly coldly remote.</p>
+
+<p>Ashe flushed under the heavy brown which overlay his regular features.
+To threaten a silence break was near blasphemy here. He ran both hands
+down the fabric covering his thighs as if to rub away some soil on his
+palms.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied heavily, his voice dull. "I guess I don't. I'll contact
+Hough and hope for the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile," Kelgarries spoke briskly, "we'll do what we can to speed up
+the program as it now stands. I suggest you take off for New York within
+the hour&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Why?" Ashe asked with a trace of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I can't leave without acting directly against orders, and that
+would put us wrong immediately. You see Hough and talk to him
+personally&mdash;put it to him straight. He'll have to have all the facts if
+he's going to counter any move from Stanton before the council. You know
+every argument we can use and all the proof on our side, and you're
+authority enough to make it count."</p>
+
+<p>"If I can do all that, I will." Ashe was alert and eager. The colonel,
+seeing his change of expression, felt easier.</p>
+
+<p>But Kelgarries stood a moment watching Ashe as he hurried down a side
+corridor, before he moved on slowly to his own box of office. Once
+inside he sat for a long unhappy time staring at the wall and seeing
+nothing but the pictures produced by his thoughts. Then he pressed a
+button and read off the symbols which flashed on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> small visa-screen
+set in his desk. Another button pushed, and he picked up a hand mike to
+relay an order which might postpone trouble for a while. Ashe was far
+too valuable a man to lose, and his emotions could boil him straight
+into disaster over this.</p>
+
+<p>"Bidwell&mdash;reschedule Team A. They are to go to the Hypno-Lab instead of
+the reserve in ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Releasing the mike, he again stared at the wall. No one dared interrupt
+a hypno-training period, and this one would last three hours. Ashe could
+not possibly see the trainees before he left for New York. And that
+would remove one temptation from his path&mdash;he would not talk at the
+wrong time.</p>
+
+<p>Kelgarries' mouth twisted sourly. He had no pride in what he was doing.
+And he was perfectly certain that Ruthven would win and that Ashe's
+fears of Redax were well founded. It all came back to the old basic
+tenet of the service: the end justified the means. They must use every
+method and man under their control to make sure that Topaz would remain
+a western possession, even though that strange planet now swung far
+beyond the sky which covered both the western and eastern alliances on
+Terra. Time had run out too fast; they were being forced to play what
+cards they held, even though those might be very low ones. Ashe would be
+back, but not, Kelgarries hoped, until this had been decided one way or
+another. Not until this was finished.</p>
+
+<p>Finished! Kelgarries blinked at the wall. Perhaps <i>they</i> were finished,
+too. No one would know until the transport ship landed on that other
+world which appeared on the direction tape symbolized by a jewellike
+disk of gold-brown which had given it the code name of Topaz.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>2</h2>
+
+
+<p>There were an even dozen of the air-borne guardians, each following the
+swing of its own orbital path just within the atmospheric envelope of
+the planet which glowed as a great bronze-golden gem in the four-world
+system of a yellow star. The globes had been launched to form a web of
+protection around Topaz six months earlier, and the highest skill had
+gone into their production. Just as contact mines sown in a harbor could
+close that landfall to ships not knowing the secret channel, so was this
+world supposedly closed to any spaceship not equipped with the signal to
+ward off the sphere missiles.</p>
+
+<p>That was the theory of the new off-world settlers whose protection they
+were to be, already tested as well as possible, but as yet not put to
+the ultimate proof. The small bright globes spun undisturbed across a
+two-mooned sky at night and made reassuring blips on an installation
+screen by day.</p>
+
+<p>Then a thirteenth object winked into being, began the encircling,
+closing spiral of descent. A sphere resembling the warden-globes, it was
+a hundred times their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> size, and its orbit was purposefully controlled
+by instruments under the eye and hand of a human pilot.</p>
+
+<p>Four men were strapped down on cushioned sling-seats in the control
+cabin of the Western Alliance ship, two hanging where their fingers
+might reach buttons and levers, the others merely passengers, their own
+labor waiting for the time when they would set down on the alien soil of
+Topaz. The planet hung there in their visa-screen, richly beautiful in
+its amber gold, growing larger, nearer, so that they could pick out
+features of seas, continents, mountain ranges, which had been studied on
+tape until they were familiar, yet now were strangely unfamiliar too.</p>
+
+<p>One of the warden-globes alerted, oscillated in its set path, whirled
+faster as its delicate interior mechanisms responded to the awakening
+spark which would send it on its mission of destruction. A relay
+clicked, but for the smallest fraction of a millimeter failed to set the
+proper course. On the instrument, far below, which checked the globe's
+new course the mistake was not noted.</p>
+
+<p>The screen of the ship spiraling toward Topaz registered a path which
+would bring it into violent contact with the globe. They were still some
+hundreds of miles apart when the alarm rang. The pilot's hand clawed out
+at the bank of controls; under the almost intolerable pressure of their
+descent, there was so little he could do. His crooked fingers fell back
+powerlessly from the buttons and levers; his mouth was a twisted grimace
+of bleak acceptance as the beat of the signal increased.</p>
+
+<p>One of the passengers forced his head around on the padded rest, fought
+to form words, to speak to his companion. The other was staring ahead at
+the screen, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> thick lips wide and flat against his teeth in a snarl
+of rage.</p>
+
+<p>"They ... are ... here...."</p>
+
+<p>Ruthven paid no attention to the obvious as stated by his fellow
+scientist. His fury was a red, pulsing thing inside him, fed by his own
+helplessness. To be pinned here so near his goal, fastened up as a
+target for an inanimate but cunningly fashioned weapon, ate into him
+like a stream of deadly acid. His big gamble would puff out in a blast
+of fire to light up Topaz's sky, with nothing left&mdash;nothing. On the
+armrest of his sling-seat his nails scratched deep.</p>
+
+<p>The four men in the control cabin could only sit and watch, waiting for
+the rendezvous which would blot them out. Ruthven's flaming anger was a
+futile blaze. His companion in the passenger seat had closed his eyes,
+his lips moving soundlessly in an expression of his own scattered
+thoughts. The pilot and his assistant divided their attention between
+the screen, with its appalling message, and the controls they could not
+effectively use, feverishly seeking a way out in these last moments.</p>
+
+<p>Below them in the bowl of the ship were those who would not know the end
+consciously&mdash;save in one compartment. In a padded cage a prick-eared
+head stirred where it rested on forepaws, slitted eyes blinked, aware
+not only of familiar surroundings, but also of the tension and fear
+generated by human minds and emotions levels above. A pointed nose
+raised, and there was a growling deep in a throat covered with thick
+buff-gray hair.</p>
+
+<p>The growl aroused another similar captive. Knowing yellow eyes met
+yellow eyes. An intelligence, which was certainly not that of the animal
+body which contained it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> fought down instinct raging to send both those
+bodies hurtling at the fastenings of the twin cages. Curiosity and the
+ability to adapt had been bred into both from time immemorial. Then
+something else had been added to sly and cunning brains. A step up had
+been taken&mdash;to weld intelligence to cunning, connect thought to
+instinct.</p>
+
+<p>More than a generation earlier mankind had chosen barren desert&mdash;the
+"white sands" of New Mexico&mdash;as a testing ground for atomic experiments.
+Humankind could be barred, warded out of the radiation limits; the
+natural desert dwellers, four-footed and winged, could not be so
+controlled.</p>
+
+<p>For thousands of years, since the first southward roving Amerindian
+tribes had met with their kind, there had been a hunter of the open
+country, a smaller cousin of the wolf, whose natural abilities had made
+an undeniable impression on the human mind. He was in countless Indian
+legends as the Shaper or the Trickster, sometimes friend, sometimes
+enemy. Godling for some tribes, father of all evil for others. In the
+wealth of tales the coyote, above all other animals, had a firm place.</p>
+
+<p>Driven by the press of civilization into the badlands and deserts,
+fought with poison, gun, and trap, the coyote had survived, adapting to
+new ways with all his legendary cunning. Those who had reviled him as
+vermin had unwillingly added to the folklore which surrounded him,
+telling their own tales of robbed traps, skillful escapes. He continued
+to be a trickster, laughing on moonlit nights from the tops of ridges at
+those who would hunt him down.</p>
+
+<p>Then, close to the end of the twentieth century, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> myths were
+scoffed at, the stories of the coyote's slyness began once more on a
+fantastic scale. And finally scientists were sufficiently intrigued to
+seek out this creature that seemed to display in truth all the abilities
+credited to his immortal namesake by pre-Columbian tribes.</p>
+
+<p>What they discovered was indeed shattering to certain closed minds. For
+the coyote had not only adapted to the country of the white sands; he
+had evolved into something which could not be dismissed as an animal,
+clever and cunning, but limited to beast range. Six cubs had been
+brought back on the first expedition, coyote in body, their developing
+minds different. The grandchildren of those cubs were now in the ship's
+cages, their mutated senses alert, ready for the slightest chance of
+escape. Sent to Topaz as eyes and ears for less keenly endowed humans,
+they were not completely under the domination of man. The range of their
+mental powers was still uncomprehended by those who had bred, trained,
+and worked with them from the days their eyes had opened and they had
+taken their first wobbly steps away from their dams.</p>
+
+<p>The male growled again, his lips wrinkling back in a snarl as the
+emanations of fear from the men he could not see reached panic peak. He
+still crouched, belly flat, on the protecting pads of his cage; but he
+strove now to wriggle closer to the door, just as his mate made the same
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>Between the animals and those in the control cabin lay the others&mdash;forty
+of them. Their bodies were cushioned and protected with every ingenious
+device known to those who had placed them there so many weeks ear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>lier.
+Their minds were free of the ship, roving into places where men had not
+trod before, a territory potentially more dangerous than any solid earth
+could ever be.</p>
+
+<p>Operation Retrograde had returned men bodily into the past, sending
+agents to hunt mammoths, follow the roads of the Bronze Age traders,
+ride with Attila and Genghis Khan, pull bows among the archers of
+ancient Egypt. But Redax returned men in mind to the paths of their
+ancestors, or this was the theory. And those who slept here and now in
+their narrow boxes, lay under its government, while the men who had
+arbitrarily set them so could only assume they were actually reliving
+the lives of Apache nomads in the wide southwestern wastes of the late
+eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.</p>
+
+<p>Above, the pilot's hand pushed out again, fighting the pressure to reach
+one particular button. That, too, had been a last-minute addition, an
+experiment which had only had partial testing. To use it was the final
+move he could make, and he was already half convinced of its
+uselessness.</p>
+
+<p>With no faith and only a very wan hope, he sent that round of metal
+flush with the board. What followed no one ever lived to explain.</p>
+
+<p>On the planet the installation which tracked the missiles flashed on a
+screen bright enough to blind momentarily the duty man on watch, and its
+tracker was shaken off course. When it jiggled back into line it was no
+longer the efficient eye-in-the-sky it had been, though its tenders were
+not to realize that for an important minute or two.</p>
+
+<p>While the ship, now out of control, sped in dizzy whirls toward Topaz,
+engines fought blindly to stabilize, to re-establish their functions.
+Some succeeded, some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> wobbled in and out of the danger zone, two failed.
+And in the control cabin three dead men spun in prisoning seats.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. James Ruthven, blood bubbling from his lips with every shallow
+breath he could draw, fought the stealthy tide of blackness which crept
+up his brain, his stubborn will holding to rags of consciousness,
+refusing to acknowledge the pain of his fatally injured body.</p>
+
+<p>The orbiting ship was on an erratic path. Slowly the machines were
+correcting, relays clicking, striving to bring it to a landing under
+auto-pilot. All the ingenuity built into a mechanical brain was now
+centered in landing the globe.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a good landing, in fact a very bad one, for the sphere
+touched a mountain side, scraped down rocks, shearing away a portion of
+its outer bulk. But the mountain barrier was now between it and the base
+from which the missiles had been launched, and the crash had not been
+recorded on that tracking instrument. So far as the watchers several
+hundred miles away knew, the warden in the sky had performed as
+promised. Their first line of defense had proven satisfactory, and there
+had been no unauthorized landing on Topaz.</p>
+
+<p>In the wreckage of the control cabin Ruthven pawed at the fastenings of
+his sling-chair. He no longer tried to suppress the moans every effort
+tore out of him. Time held the whip, drove him. He rolled from his seat
+to the floor, lay there gasping, as again he fought doggedly to remain
+above the waves&mdash;those frightening, fast-coming waves of dark faintness.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow he was crawling, crawling along a tilted surface until he gained
+the well where the ladder to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> lower section hung, now at an acute
+angle. It was that angle which helped him to the next level.</p>
+
+<p>He was too dazed to realize the meaning of the crumpled bulkheads. There
+was a spur of bare rock under his hands as he edged over and around
+twisted metal. The moans were now a gobbling, burbling, almost
+continuous cry as he reached his goal&mdash;a small cabin still intact.</p>
+
+<p>For long moments of anguish he paused by the chair there, afraid that he
+could not make the last effort, raise his almost inert bulk up to the
+point where he could reach the Redax release. For a second of unusual
+clarity he wondered if there was any reason for this supreme ordeal,
+whether any of the sleepers could be aroused. This might now be a ship
+of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>His right hand, his arm, and finally his bulk over the seat, he braced
+himself and brought his left hand up. He could not use any of the
+fingers; it was like lifting numb, heavy weights. But he lurched
+forward, swept the unfeeling lump of cold flesh down against the release
+in a gesture which he knew must be his final move. And, as he fell back
+to the floor, Dr. Ruthven could not be certain whether he had succeeded
+or failed. He tried to screw his head around, to focus his eyes upward
+at that switch. Was it down or still stubbornly up, locking the sleepers
+into confinement? But there was a fog between; he could not see it&mdash;or
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>The light in the cabin flickered, was gone as another circuit in the
+broken ship failed. It was dark, too, in the small cubby below which
+housed the two cages. Chance, which had snuffed out nineteen lives in
+the space globe, had missed ripping open that cabin on the mountain
+side. Five yards down the corridor the outside fabric of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the ship was
+split wide open, the crisp air native to Topaz entering, sending a
+message to two keen noses through the combination of odors now pervading
+the wreckage.</p>
+
+<p>And the male coyote went into action. Days ago he had managed to work
+loose the lower end of the mesh which fronted his cage, but his mind had
+told him that a sortie inside the ship was valueless. The odd rapport
+he'd had with the human brains, unknown to them, had operated to keep
+him to the old role of cunning deception, which in the past had saved
+countless of his species from sudden and violent death. Now with teeth
+and paws he went diligently to work, urged on by the whines of his mate,
+that tantalizing smell of an outside world tickling their nostrils&mdash;a
+wild world, lacking the taint of man-places.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped under the loosened mesh and stood up to paw at the front of
+the female's cage. One forepaw caught in the latch and pressed it down,
+and the weight of the door swung against him. Together they were free
+now to reach the corridor and see ahead the subdued light of a strange
+moon beckoning them on into the open.</p>
+
+<p>The female, always more cautious than her mate, lingered behind as he
+trotted forward, his ears a-prick with curiosity. Their training had
+been the same since cubhood&mdash;to range and explore, but always in the
+company and at the order of man. This was not according to the pattern
+she knew, and she was suspicious. But to her sensitive nose the smell of
+the ship was an offense, and the puffs of breeze from without enticing.
+Her mate had already slipped through the break; now he barked with
+excitement and wonder, and she trotted on to join him.</p>
+
+<p>Above, the Redax, which had never been intended to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> stand rough usage,
+proved to be a better survivor of the crash than most of the other
+installations. Power purred along a network of lines, activated beams,
+turned off and on a series of fixtures in those coffin-beds. For five of
+the sleepers&mdash;nothing. The cabin which had held them was a flattened
+smear against the mountain side. Three more half aroused, choked, fought
+for life and breath in a darkness which was a mercifully short
+nightmare, and succumbed.</p>
+
+<p>But in the cabin nearest the rent through which the coyotes had escaped,
+a young man sat up abruptly, looking into the dark with wide-open,
+terror-haunted eyes. He clawed for purchase against the smooth edge of
+the box in which he had lain, somehow got to his knees, weaving weakly
+back and forth, and half fell, half pushed to the floor where he could
+stand only by keeping his hold on the box.</p>
+
+<p>Dazed, sick, weak, he swayed there, aware only of himself and his own
+sensations. There were small sounds in the dark, a stilled moan, a
+gasping sigh. But that meant nothing. Within him grew a compulsion to be
+out of this place, his terror making him lurch forward.</p>
+
+<p>His flailing hand rapped painfully against an upright surface which his
+questing fingers identified hazily as an exit. Unconsciously he fumbled
+along the surface of the door until it gave under that weak pressure.
+Then he was out, his head swimming, drawn by the light behind the wall
+rent.</p>
+
+<p>He progressed toward that in a scrambling crawl, making his way over the
+splintered skin of the globe. Then he dropped with a jarring thud onto
+the mound of earth the ship had pushed before it during its downward
+slide.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> Limply he tumbled on in a small cascade of clods and sand,
+hitting against a less movable rock with force enough to roll him over
+on his back and stun him again.</p>
+
+<p>The second and smaller moon of Topaz swung brightly through the sky, its
+weird green rays making the blood-streaked face of the explorer an alien
+mask. It had passed well on to the horizon, and its large yellow
+companion had risen when a yapping broke the small sounds of the night.</p>
+
+<p>As the <i>yipp, yipp, yipp</i> arose in a crescendo, the man stirred, putting
+one hand to his head. His eyes opened, he looked vaguely about him and
+sat up. Behind him was the torn and ripped ship, but he did not look
+back at it.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, he got to his feet and staggered out into the direct path of
+the moonlight. Inside his brain there was a whirl of thoughts, memories,
+emotions. Perhaps Ruthven or one of his assistants could have explained
+that chaotic mixture for what it was. But for all practical purposes
+Travis Fox&mdash;Amerindian Time Agent, member of Team A, Operation
+Cochise&mdash;was far less of a thinking animal now than the two coyotes
+paying their ritual addresses to a moon which was not the one of their
+vanished homeland.</p>
+
+<p>Travis wavered on, drawn somehow by that howling. It was familiar, a
+thread of something real through all the broken clutter in his head. He
+stumbled, fell, crawled up again, but he kept on.</p>
+
+<p>Above, the female coyote lowered her head, drew a test sniff of a new
+scent. She recognized that as part of the proper way of life. She yapped
+once at her mate, but he was absorbed in his night song, his muzzle
+pointed moonward as he voiced a fine wailing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Travis tripped, pitched forward on his hands and knees, and felt the jar
+of such a landing shoot up his stiffened forearms. He tried to get up,
+but his body only twisted, so he landed on his back and lay looking up
+at the moon.</p>
+
+<p>A strong, familiar odor ... then a shadow looming above him. Hot breath
+against his cheek, and the swift sweep of an animal tongue on his face.
+He flung up his hand, gripped thick fur, and held on as if he had found
+one anchor of sanity in a world gone completely mad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>3</h2>
+
+
+<p>Travis, one knee braced against the red earth, blinked as he parted a
+screen of tall rust-brown grass with cautious fingers to look out into a
+valley where golden mist clouded most of the landscape. His head ached
+with dull persistence, the pain fostered in some way by his own
+bewilderment. To study the land ahead was like trying to see through one
+picture interposed over another and far different one. He knew what
+ought to be there, but what was before him was very dissimilar.</p>
+
+<p>A buff-gray shape flitted through the tall cover grass, and Travis
+tensed. <i>Mba'a</i>&mdash;coyote? Or were these companions of his actually
+<i>ga-n</i>, spirits who could choose their shape at will and had, oddly,
+this time assumed the bodies of man's tricky enemy? Were they
+<i>ndendai</i>&mdash;enemies&mdash;or <i>dalaanbiyat'i</i>, allies? In this mad world he did
+not know.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ei'dik'e?</i> His mind formed a word he did not speak: Friend?</p>
+
+<p>Yellow eyes met his directly. Dimly he had been aware, ever since
+awaking in this strange wilderness with the coming of morning light,
+that the four-footed ones trot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>ting with him as he walked aimlessly had
+unbeastlike traits. Not only did they face him eye-to-eye, but in some
+ways they appeared able to read his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>He had longed for water to ease the burning in his throat, the
+ever-present pain in his head, and the creatures had nudged him in
+another direction, bringing him to a pool where he had mouthed liquid
+with a strange sweet, but not unpleasant taste.</p>
+
+<p>Now he had given them names, names which had come out of the welter of
+dreams which shadowed his stumbling journey across this weird country.</p>
+
+<p>Nalik'ideyu (Maiden-Who-Walks-Ridges) was the female who continued to
+shepherd him along, never venturing too far from his side. Naginlta
+(He-Who-Scouts-Ahead) was the male who did just that, disappearing at
+long intervals and then returning to face the man and his mate as if
+conveying some report necessary to their journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was Nalik'ideyu who sought out Travis now, her red tongue lolling
+from her mouth as she panted. Not from exertion, he was certain of that.
+No, she was excited and eager ... on the hunt! That was it&mdash;a hunt!</p>
+
+<p>Travis' own tongue ran across his lips as an impression hit him with
+feral force. There was meat&mdash;rich, fresh&mdash;just ahead. Meat that lived,
+waiting to be killed. Inside him his own avid hunger roused, shaking him
+farther out of the crusting dream.</p>
+
+<p>His hands went to his waist, but the groping fingers did not find what
+vague memory told him should be there&mdash;a belt, heavy with knife in
+sheath.</p>
+
+<p>He examined his own body with attention to find he was adequately
+covered by breeches of a smooth, dull<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> brown material which blended well
+with the vegetation about him. He wore a loose shirt, belted in at the
+narrow waist by a folded strip of cloth, the ends of which fluttered
+free. On his feet were tall moccasins, the leg pieces extending some
+distance up his calves, the toes turned up in rounded points.</p>
+
+<p>Some of this he found familiar, but these were fragments of memory;
+again his mind fitted one picture above another. One thing he did know
+for sure&mdash;he had no weapons. And that realization struck home with a
+thrust of real and terrible fear which tore away more of the
+bewilderment cloaking his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Nalik'ideyu was impatient. Having advanced a step or two, she now looked
+back at him over her shoulder, yellow eyes slitted, her demand on him as
+instant and real as if she had voiced understandable words. Meat was
+waiting, and she was hungry. Also she expected Travis to aid in the
+hunt&mdash;at once.</p>
+
+<p>Though he could not match her fluid grace in moving through the grass,
+Travis followed her, keeping to cover. He shook his head vigorously, in
+spite of the stab of pain the motion cost him, and paid more attention
+to his surroundings. It was apparent that the earth under him, the grass
+around, the valley of the golden haze, were all real, not part of a
+dream. Therefore that other countryside which he kept seeing in a
+ghostly fashion was a hallucination.</p>
+
+<p>Even the air which he drew into his lungs and expelled again, had a
+strange smell, or was it taste? He could not be sure which. He knew that
+hypno-training could produce queer side effects, but ... this....</p>
+
+<p>Travis paused, staring unseeingly before him at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> grass still waving
+from the coyote's passage. Hypno-training! What was that? Now three
+pictures fought to focus in his mind: the two landscapes which did not
+match and a shadowy third. He shook his head again, his hands to his
+temples. This&mdash;this only was real: the ground, the grass, the valley,
+the hunger in him, the hunt waiting....</p>
+
+<p>He forced himself to concentrate on the immediate present and the
+portion of world he could see, feel, scent, which lay here and now about
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The grass grew shorter as he proceeded in Nalik'ideyu's wake. But the
+haze was not thinning. It seemed to hang in patches, and when he
+ventured through the edge of a patch it was like creeping through a fog
+of golden, dancing motes with here and there a glittering speck whirling
+and darting like a living thing. Masked by the stuff, Travis reached a
+line of brush and sniffed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a warm scent, a heavy odor he could not identify and yet one he
+associated with a living creature. Flat to earth, he pushed head and
+shoulders under the low limbs of the bush to look ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a space where the fog did not hold, a pocket of earth clear
+under the morning sun. And grazing there were three animals. Again shock
+cleared a portion of Travis' bemused brain.</p>
+
+<p>They were about the size, he thought, of antelopes, and they had a
+general resemblance to those beasts in that they had four slender legs,
+a rounded body, and a head. But they had alien features, so alien as to
+hold him in open-mouthed amazement.</p>
+
+<p>The bodies had bare spots here and there, and patches of creamy&mdash;fur? Or
+was it hair which hung in strips, as if the creatures had been partially
+plucked in a careless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> fashion? The necks were long and moved about in a
+serpentine motion, as though their spines were as limber as reptiles'.
+On the end of those long and twisting necks were heads which also
+appeared more suitable to another species&mdash;broad, rather flat, with a
+singular toadlike look&mdash;but furnished with horns set halfway down the
+nose, horns which began in a single root and then branched into two
+sharp points.</p>
+
+<p>They were unearthly! Again Travis blinked, brought his hand up to his
+head as he continued to view the browsers. There were three of them: two
+larger and with horns, the other a smaller beast with less of the ragged
+fur and only the beginning button of a protuberance on the nose; it was
+probably a calf.</p>
+
+<p>One of those mental alerts from the coyotes broke his absorption.
+Nalik'ideyu was not interested in the odd appearance of the grazing
+creatures; she was intent upon their usefulness in another way&mdash;as a
+full and satisfying meal&mdash;and she was again impatient with him for his
+dull response.</p>
+
+<p>His examination took a more practical turn. An antelope's defense was
+speed, though it could be tricked into hunting range through its
+inordinate curiosity. The slender legs of these beasts suggested a like
+degree of speed, and Travis had no weapons at all.</p>
+
+<p>Those nose horns had an ugly look; this thing might be a fighter rather
+than a runner. But the suggestion which had flashed from coyote to him
+had taken root. Travis was hungry, he was a hunter, and here was meat on
+the hoof, queer as it looked.</p>
+
+<p>Again he received a message. Naginlta was on the opposite side of the
+clearing. If the creatures depended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> on speed, then Travis believed they
+could probably outrun not only him but the coyotes as well&mdash;which left
+cunning and some sort of plan.</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced at the cover where he knew Nalik'ideyu crouched and from
+which had come that flash of agreement. He shivered. These were truly no
+animals, but <i>ga-n</i>, <i>ga-n</i> of power! And as <i>ga-n</i> he must treat them,
+accede to their will. Spurred by that, the Apache gave only flicks of
+attention to the browsers while at the same time he studied the part of
+the landscape uncovered by mist.</p>
+
+<p>Without weapons or speed, they must conceive a trap. Again Travis sensed
+that agreement which was <i>ga-n</i> magic, and with it the strong impression
+urging him to the right. He was making progress with skill he did not
+even recognize and which he had never been conscious of learning.</p>
+
+<p>The bushes and small, droop-limbed trees, their branches not clothed
+with leaves from proper twigs but with a reddish bristly growth
+protruding directly from their surfaces, made a partial wall for the
+pocket-sized meadow. That screen reached a rocky cleft where the mist
+curled in a long tongue through a wall twice Travis' height. If the
+browsers could be maneuvered into taking the path through that cleft....</p>
+
+<p>Travis searched about him, and his hands closed upon the oldest weapon
+of his species, a stone pulled from an earth pocket and balanced neatly
+in the palm of his hand. It was a long chance but his best one.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache took the first step on a new and fearsome road. These <i>ga-n</i>
+had put their thoughts&mdash;or their desires&mdash;into his mind. Could he so
+contact them in return?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With the stone clenched in his fist, his shoulders back against the wall
+not too far from the cleft opening, Travis strove to think out, clearly
+and simply, this poor plan of his. He did not know that he was reacting
+the way scientists deep space away had hoped he might. Nor did Travis
+guess that at this point he had already traveled far beyond the
+expectations of the men who had bred and trained the two mutant coyotes.
+He only believed that this might be the one way he could obey the wishes
+of the two spirits he thought far more powerful than any man. So he
+pictured in his mind the cleft, the running creatures, and the part the
+<i>ga-n</i> could play if they so willed.</p>
+
+<p>Assent&mdash;in its way as loud and clear as if shouted. The man fingered the
+stone, weighed it. There would probably be just one moment when he could
+use it to effect, and he must be ready.</p>
+
+<p>From this point he could no longer see the small meadow where the
+grazers were. But Travis knew, as well as if he watched the scene, that
+the coyotes were creeping in, belly flat to earth, adding a feline
+stealth and patience to their own cunning.</p>
+
+<p>There! Travis' head jerked, the alert had come, the drive was beginning.
+He tensed, gripping his stone.</p>
+
+<p>A yapping bark was answered by a sound he could not describe, a noise
+which was neither cough nor grunt but a combination of both. Again a
+yap-yap....</p>
+
+<p>A toad-head burst through the screen of brush, the double horn on its
+nose festooned with a length of grass torn up by the roots. Wide
+eyes&mdash;milky and seeming to be without pupils&mdash;fastened on Travis, but he
+could not be sure the thing saw him, for it kept on, picking up speed
+as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> it approached the cleft. Behind it ran the calf, and that guttural
+cry was bubbling from its broad flat lips.</p>
+
+<p>The long neck of the adult writhed, the frog-head swung closer to the
+ground so that the twin points of the horn were at a slant&mdash;aimed now at
+Travis. He had been right in his guess at their deadliness, but he had
+only a fleeting chance to recognize that fact as the thing bore down,
+its whole attitude expressing the firm intention of goring him.</p>
+
+<p>He hurled his stone and then flung his body to one side, stumbling and
+rolling into the brush where he fought madly to regain his feet,
+expecting at any moment to feel trampling hoofs and thrusting horns.
+There was a crash to his right, and the bushes and grass were wildly
+shaken.</p>
+
+<p>On his hands and knees the Apache retreated, his head turned to watch
+behind him. He saw the flirt of a triangular flap-tail in the mouth of
+the cleft. The calf had escaped. And now the threshing in the bushes
+stilled.</p>
+
+<p>Was the thing stalking him? He got to his feet, for the first time
+hearing clearly the continued yapping, as if a battle was in progress.
+Then the second of the adult beasts came into view, backing and turning,
+trying to keep lowered head with menacing double horn always pointed to
+the coyotes dancing a teasing, worrying circle about it.</p>
+
+<p>One of the coyotes flung up its head, looked upslope, and barked. Then,
+as one, both rushed the fighting beast, but for the first time from the
+same side, leaving it a clear path to retreat. It made a rush before
+which they fled easily, and then it whirled with a speed and grace,
+which did not fit its ungainly, ill-proportioned body, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> jumped
+toward the cleft, the coyotes making no effort to hinder its escape.</p>
+
+<p>Travis came out of cover, approaching the brush which had concealed the
+crash of the other animal. The actions of the coyotes had convinced him
+that there was no danger now; they would never have allowed the escape
+of their prey had the first beast not been in difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>His shot with the stone, the Apache decided as he stood moments later
+surveying the twitching crumpled body, must have hit the thing in the
+head, stunning it. Then the momentum of its charge had carried it full
+force against the rock to kill it. Blind luck&mdash;or the power of the
+<i>ga-n</i>? He pulled back as the coyotes came padding up shoulder to
+shoulder to inspect the kill. It was truly more theirs than his.</p>
+
+<p>Their prey yielded not only food but a weapon for Travis. Instead of the
+belt knife he had remembered having, he was now equipped with two. The
+double horn had been easy to free from the shattered skull, and some
+careful work with stones had broken off one prong at just the angle he
+wanted. So now he had a short and a longer tool, defense. At least they
+were better than the stone with which he had entered the hunt.</p>
+
+<p>Nalik'ideyu pushed past him to lap daintily at the water. Then she sat
+up on her haunches, watching Travis as he smoothed the horn with a
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>"A knife," he said to her, "this will be a knife. And&mdash;" he glanced up,
+measuring the value of the wood represented by trees and bushes&mdash;"then a
+bow. With a bow we shall hunt better."</p>
+
+<p>The coyote yawned, her yellow eyes half closed, her whole pose one of
+satisfaction and contentment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A knife," Travis repeated, "and a bow." He needed weapons; he had to
+have them!</p>
+
+<p>Why? His hand stopped scraping. Why? The toad-faced double horn had been
+quick to attack, but Travis could have avoided it, and it had not hunted
+him first. Why was he ridden by this fear that he must not be unarmed?</p>
+
+<p>He dipped his hand into the pool of the spring and lifted the water to
+cool his sweating face. The coyote moved, turned around in the grass,
+crushing down the growth into a nest in which she curled up, head on
+paws. But Travis sat back on his heels, his now idle hands hanging down
+between his knees, and forced himself to the task of sorting out jumbled
+memories.</p>
+
+<p>This landscape was wrong&mdash;totally unlike what it should be&mdash;but it was
+real. He had helped kill this alien creature. He had eaten its meat,
+raw. Its horn lay within touch now. All that was real and unchangeable.
+Which meant that the rest of it, that other desert world in which he had
+wandered with his kind, ridden horses, raided invading men of another
+race, that was not real&mdash;or else far, far removed from where he now sat.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there had been no dividing line between those two worlds. One moment
+he had been in the desert place, returning from a successful foray
+against the Mexicans. Mexicans! Travis caught at that identification,
+tried to use it as a thread to draw closer to the beginning of his
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Mexicans.... And he was an Apache, one of the Eagle people, one who rode
+with Cochise. No!</p>
+
+<p>Sweat again beaded his face where the water had cooled it. He was not of
+that past. He was Travis Fox, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> the very late twentieth century, not a
+nomad of the middle nineteenth! He was of Team A of the project!</p>
+
+<p>The Arizona desert and then this! From one to the other in an instant.
+He looked about him in rising fear. Wait! He had been in the dark when
+he got out of the desert, lying in a box. Getting out, he had crawled
+down a passage to reach moonlight, strange moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>A box in which he had lain, a passage with smooth metallic walls, and an
+alien world at the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>The coyote's ears twitched, her head came up, she was staring at the
+man's drawn face, at his eyes with their core of fear. She whined.</p>
+
+<p>Travis caught up the two pieces of horn, thrust them into his sash belt,
+and got to his feet. Nalik'ideyu sat up, her head cocked a little to one
+side. As the man turned to seek his own back trail she padded along in
+his wake and whined for Naginlta. But Travis was more intent now on what
+he must prove to himself than he was on the actions of the two animals.</p>
+
+<p>It was a wandering trail, and now he did not question his skill in being
+able to follow it so unerringly. The sun was hot. Winged things buzzed
+from the bushes, small scuttling things fled from him through the tall
+grass. Once Naginlta growled a warning which led them all to a detour,
+and Travis might not have picked up the proper trace again had not the
+coyote scout led him to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" he asked once, and then guessed it would have better been
+said, "What are you?" These were not animals, or rather they were more
+than the animals he had always known. And one part of him, the part
+which remembered the desert rancherias where Cochise had ruled, said
+they were spirits. Yet that other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> part of him.... Travis shook his
+head, accepting them now for what they were&mdash;welcome company in an alien
+place.</p>
+
+<p>The day wore on close to sunset, and still Travis followed that
+wandering trail. The need which drove him kept him going through the
+rough country of hills and ravines. Now the mist lifted above towering
+walls of mountains very near him, yet not the mountains of his memory.
+These were dull brown, with a forbidding look, like sun-dried skulls
+baring teeth in warning against all comers.</p>
+
+<p>With great difficulty, Travis topped a rise. Ahead against the skyline
+stood both coyotes. And, as the man joined them, first one and then the
+other flung back its head and sounded the sobbing, shattering cry which
+had been a part of that other life.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache looked down. His puzzle was answered in part. The wreckage
+crumpled on the mountain side was identifiable&mdash;a spaceship! Cold fear
+gripped him and his own head went back; from between his tight lips came
+a cry as desolate and despairing as the one the animals had voiced.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>4</h2>
+
+
+<p>Fire, mankind's oldest ally, weapon, tool, leaped high before the naked
+stone of the mountain side. Men sat cross-legged about it, fifteen of
+them. And behind, guarded by the flames and that somber circle, were the
+women. There was a uniformity in this gathering. The members were
+plainly all of the same racial stock, of medium height, stocky yet fined
+down to the peak of stamina and endurance, their skin brown, their
+shoulder-length hair black. And they were all young&mdash;none over thirty,
+some still in their late teens. Alike, too, was a certain drawn look in
+their faces, a tenseness of the eyes and mouth as they listened to
+Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"So we must be on Topaz. Do any of you remember boarding the ship?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Only that we awoke within it." Across the fire one chin lifted; the
+eyes which caught Travis' held a deep, smoldering anger. "This is more
+trickery of the Pinda-lick-o-yi, the White Eyes. Between us there has
+never been fair dealing. They have broken their promise as a man breaks
+a rotten stick, for their words are as rotten. And it was you, Fox, who
+brought us to listen to them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A stir about the circle, a murmur from the women.</p>
+
+<p>"And do I not also sit here with you in this strange wilderness?" he
+countered.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand," another of the men held out his hand, palm up, in
+a gesture of asking&mdash;"what has happened to us. We were in the old Apache
+world.... I, Jil-Lee, was riding with Cuchillo Negro as we went down to
+the taking of Ramos. And then I was here, in a broken ship and beside me
+a dead man who was once my brother. How did I come out of the past of
+our people into another world across the stars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pinda-lick-o-yi tricks!" The first speaker spat into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the Redax, I think," Travis replied. "I heard Dr. Ashe discuss
+this. A new machine which could make a man remember not his own past,
+but the past of his ancestors. While we were on that ship we must have
+been under its influence, so we lived as our people lived a hundred
+years or more ago&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And the purpose of such a thing?" Jil-Lee asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To make us more like our ancestors perhaps. It is part of what they
+told us at the project. To venture into these new worlds requires a
+different type of man than lives on Terra today. Traits we have
+forgotten are needed to face the dangers of wild places."</p>
+
+<p>"You, Fox, have been beyond the stars before, and you found there were
+such dangers to face?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true. You have heard of the three worlds I saw when the ship from
+the old days took us off, unwilling, to the stars. Did you not all
+volunteer to pioneer in this manner so you could also see strange and
+new things?"</p>
+
+<p>"But we did not agree to be returned to the past in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> medicine dreams and
+be sent unknowingly into space!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis nodded. "Deklay is right. But I know no more than you why we were
+so sent, or why the ship crashed. We have found Dr. Ruthven's body in
+the cabin with that new installation. Only we have discovered nothing
+else which tells us why we were brought here. With the ship broken, we
+must stay."</p>
+
+<p>They were silent now, men and women alike. Behind them lay several days
+of activity, nights of exhausted slumber. Against the cliff wall lay the
+packs of supplies they had salvaged from the wreck. By mutual consent
+they had left the vicinity of the broken globe, following their old
+custom of speedily withdrawing from a place of death.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a world empty of men?" Jil-Lee wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"So far we have found only animal signs, and the <i>ga-n</i> have not warned
+us of anything else&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Those devil ones!" Again Deklay spat into the fire. "I say we should
+have no dealings with them. The <i>mba'a</i> is no friend to the People."</p>
+
+<p>Again a murmur which seemed one of agreement answered that outburst.
+Travis stiffened. Just how much influence had the Redax had over them?
+He knew from his own experience that sometimes he had an odd double
+reaction&mdash;two different feelings which almost sickened him when they
+struck simultaneously. And he was beginning to suspect that with some of
+the others the return to the past had been far more deep and lasting.
+Now Jil-Lee was actually to reason out what had happened. While Deklay
+had reverted to an ancestor who had ridden with Victorio or Magnus
+Colorado! Travis had a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> flash of premonition, a chill which made him
+half foresee a time when the past and the present might well split them
+apart&mdash;fatally.</p>
+
+<p>"Devil or <i>ga-n</i>." A man with a quiet face, rather deeply sunken eyes,
+spoke for the first time. "We are in two minds because of this Redax, so
+let us not do anything in haste. Back in the desert world of the People
+I have seen the <i>mba'a</i>, and he was very clever. With the badger he went
+hunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the
+<i>mba'a</i> wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those who
+would escape that way. Between him and the badger there was no war.
+These two who sit over yonder now&mdash;they are also hunters and they seem
+friendly to us. In a strange place a man needs all the help he can find.
+Let us not call names out of old tales, which may mean nothing in fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Buck speaks straightly," Jil-Lee agreed. "We seek a camp which can be
+defended. For perhaps there are men here whose hunting territory we have
+invaded, though we have not yet seen them. We are a people small in
+number and alone. Let us walk softly on trails which are strange to our
+feet."</p>
+
+<p>Inwardly Travis sighed in relief. Buck, Jil-Lee ... for the moment their
+sensible words appeared to swing the opinions of the party. If either of
+them could be established as <i>haldzil</i>, or clan leader, they would all
+be safer. He himself had no aspirations in that direction and dared not
+push too hard. It had been his initial urging which had brought them as
+volunteers into the project. Now he was doubly suspect, and especially
+by those who thought as Deklay, he was considered too alien to their old
+ways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So far their protests had been fewer than he anticipated. Although
+brothers and sisters had followed each other into the team after the
+immemorial desire of Apaches to cling to family ties, they were not a
+true clan with solidity of that to back them, but representatives of
+half a dozen.</p>
+
+<p>Basically, back on Terra, they had all been among the most progressive
+of their people&mdash;progressive, that is, in the white man's sense of the
+word. Travis had a fleeting recognition of his now oblique way of
+thinking. He, too, had been marked by the Redax. They had all been
+educated in the modern fashion and all possessed a spirit of adventure
+which marked them over their fellows. They had volunteered for the team
+and successfully passed the tests to weed out the temperamentally unfit
+or fainthearted. But all that was before Redax....</p>
+
+<p>Why had they been submitted to that? And why this flight? What had
+pushed Dr. Ashe and Murdock and Colonel Kelgarries, time agents he knew
+and trusted, into dispatching them without warning to Topaz? Something
+had happened, something which had given Dr. Ruthven ascendancy over
+those others and had started them on this wild trip.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was conscious of a stir about the firelit circle. The men were
+rising, moving back into the shadows, stretching out on the blankets
+they had found among other stores on the ship. They had discovered
+weapons there&mdash;knives, bows, quivers of arrows, all of which they had
+been trained to use in the intensive schooling of the project and which
+needed no more repair than they themselves could give. And the rations
+they carried were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> field supplies, few of them. Tomorrow they must begin
+hunting in earnest....</p>
+
+<p>"Why has this thing been done to us?" Buck was beside Travis, those
+quiet eyes sliding past him to seek the fire once more. "I do not think
+you were told when the rest of us were not&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Travis seized upon that. "There are those who say that I knew, agreed?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is so. Once we stood at the same place in time&mdash;in our thoughts,
+our desires. Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway,
+each at his own speed&mdash;a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon.
+Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a series
+of step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing of
+this, that I climb with you on these stairs."</p>
+
+<p>"So I believe. But there comes a time when it is best not to be a woman
+stirring a pot of boiling stew but rather one who stands quietly at a
+distance&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean?" Travis pressed.</p>
+
+<p>"I say that alone among us you have crossed the stars before, therefore
+new things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout. Also the
+coyotes run in your footsteps, and you do not fear them."</p>
+
+<p>It made good sense. Let him scout ahead of the party, taking the coyotes
+with him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak small&mdash;until the
+people on Buck's stairway were more closely united.</p>
+
+<p>"I go in the morning," Travis agreed. He could slip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> away tonight, but
+just now he could not force himself away from the fire, from the
+companionship.</p>
+
+<p>"You might take Tsoay with you," Buck continued.</p>
+
+<p>Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one of
+the youngest of their group, Buck's own cross-cousin and near-brother.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well," Buck explained, "that we learn this land, and it has
+always been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of the
+older. Also, not only should trails be learned, but also men."</p>
+
+<p>Travis caught the thought behind that. Perhaps by taking the younger men
+as scouts, one after another, he could build up among them a following
+of sorts. Among the Apaches, leadership was wholly a matter of
+personality. Until the reservation days, chieftains had gained their
+position by force of character alone, though they might come
+successively from one family clan over several generations.</p>
+
+<p>He did not want the chieftainship here. No, but neither did he want
+growing whispers working about him to cut him off from his people. To
+every Apache severance from the clan was a little death. He must have
+those who would back him if Deklay, or those who thought like Deklay,
+turned grumbling into open hostility.</p>
+
+<p>"Tsoay is one quick to learn," Travis agreed. "We go at dawn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Along the mountain range?" Buck inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"If we seek a protected place for the rancheria, yes. The mountains have
+always provided good strongholds for the People."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think there is need for a fort?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis shrugged. "I have been one day's journey out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> into this world. I
+saw nothing but animals. But that is no promise that elsewhere there are
+no enemies. The planet was on the tapes we brought back from that other
+world, and so it was known to the others who once rode between star and
+star as we rode between ranch and town. If they had this world set on a
+journey tape, it was for a reason; that reason may still be in force."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet it was long ago that these star people rode so...." Buck mused.
+"Would the reason last so long?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis remembered two other worlds, one of weird desert inhabited by
+beast things&mdash;or had they once been human, human to the point of
+possessing intelligence?&mdash;that had come out of sand burrows at night to
+attack a spaceship. And the second world where the ruins of a giant city
+had stood choked with jungle vegetation, where he had made a blowgun
+from tubes of rustless metal as a weapon gift for small winged men&mdash;but
+were they men? Both had been remnants of that ancient galactic empire.</p>
+
+<p>"Some things could so remain," he answered soberly. "If we find them, we
+must be careful. But first a good site for the rancheria."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no return to home for us," Buck stated flatly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that? There could be a rescue ship later&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The other raised his eyes again to Travis. "When you slept under the
+Redax how did you ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"As a warrior&mdash;raiding ... living...."</p>
+
+<p>"And I&mdash;I was one with <i>go'ndi</i>," Buck returned simply.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But the white man has assured us that such power&mdash;the power of a
+chief&mdash;does not exist? Yes, the Pinda-lick-o-yi has told us so many
+things. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. And
+those who think in another fashion cannot be measured by his rules, so
+they are foolish dreamers. Not all white men think so. There was Dr.
+Ashe&mdash;he was beginning to understand a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I, too, am standing still, halfway up the stairway of the past.
+But of this I am very sure: For us, there will be no return to our own
+place. And the time will come when something new shall grow from the
+seed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders of
+that growth. So I urge you, take Tsoay, and the next time, Lupe. For the
+young who may be swayed this way and that by words&mdash;as the wind shakes a
+small tree&mdash;must be given firm roots."</p>
+
+<p>In Travis education warred with instinct, just as the picture Redax had
+planted in his mind had warred with his awaking to this alien landscape.
+Yet now he believed he must be guided by what he felt. And he knew that
+no man of his race would claim <i>go'ndi</i>, the power of spirit known only
+to a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. It
+might have been fostered by hallucination in the past, but the aura of
+it carried into the here and now. And Travis had no doubts that Buck
+believed implicitly in what he said, and that belief carried credulity
+to others.</p>
+
+<p>"This is wisdom, <i>Nantan</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Buck shook his head. "I am no <i>nantan</i>, no chief. But of some things I
+am sure. You also be sure of what lies within you, younger brother!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the third day, ranging eastward along the base of the mountain range,
+Travis found what he believed would be an acceptable camp site. There
+was a canyon with a good spring of water cut round by well-marked game
+trails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrub
+wood could be used to build the wickiups. Water and food lay within
+reach, and the ledge approach was easy to defend. Even Deklay and his
+fellow malcontents were forced to concede the value of the site.</p>
+
+<p>His duty to the clan accomplished, Travis returned to his own concern,
+one which had haunted him for days. Topaz had been taped by men of the
+vanished star empire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? As
+yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence
+level of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed by
+the certainty that there <i>was</i> something here, waiting.... And the
+desire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come to
+follow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis was
+content to scout with only the coyotes for company, and he did not find
+the loneliness of the unknown planet as intimidating as most of the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>He was checking his small trail pack on the fourth day after they had
+settled on the plateau when Buck and Jil-Lee hunkered down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"You go to hunt&mdash;?" Buck broke the silence first.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for meat."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you fear? That <i>ndendai</i>&mdash;enemy people&mdash;have marked this as
+their land?" Jil-Lee questioned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That may be true, but now I hunt for what this world was at one time,
+the reason why the ancient star men marked it as their own."</p>
+
+<p>"And this knowledge may be of value to us?" Jil-Lee asked slowly. "Will
+it bring food to our mouths, shelter for our bodies&mdash;mean life for us?"</p>
+
+<p>"All that is possible. It is the unknowing which is bad."</p>
+
+<p>"True. Unknowing is always bad," Buck agreed. "But the bow which is
+fitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to another.
+Remember that, younger brother. Also, do you go alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu I am not alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Take Tsoay with you also. The four-footed ones are indeed <i>ga-n</i> for
+the service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alone
+from his kind."</p>
+
+<p>There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did not
+always share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. On
+other scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the country and a
+liking for experimentation which was not a universal attribute even
+among those of his own age.</p>
+
+<p>"I would go to find a path through the mountains; it may be a long
+trail," Travis half protested.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe what you seek may lie to the north?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis shrugged. "I do not know. How can I? But it will be another way
+of seeking."</p>
+
+<p>"Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper for
+the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours," Buck replied. "It
+is in him also, this need to see new places."</p>
+
+<p>"There is this," Jil-Lee got to his feet, "&mdash;do not go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> so far, brother,
+that you may not easily find a way to return. This is a wide land, and
+within it we are but a handful of men alone&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That, too, I know." Travis thought he could read more than one kind of
+warning in Jil-Lee's words.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>They were the second day away from the plateau camp, and climbing, when
+they chanced upon the pass Travis had hoped might exist. Before them lay
+an abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked in
+a dusky amber Travis now knew was the thick grass found in the southern
+valleys. Tsoay pointed with his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"Wide land&mdash;good for horses, cattle, ranches...."</p>
+
+<p>But all those lay far beyond the black space surrounding them. Travis
+wondered if there was any native animal which could serve man in place
+of the horse.</p>
+
+<p>"Do we go down?" Tsoay asked.</p>
+
+<p>From this point Travis could sight no break far out on the amber plain,
+no sign of any building or any disturbance of its smooth emptiness. Yet
+it drew him. "We go," he decided.</p>
+
+<p>Close as it had looked from the pass, the plain was yet a day and a
+night, spent in careful watching by turns, ahead of them. It was
+midmorning of the second day that they left the foothill breaks, and the
+grass of the open country was waist high about them. Travis could see it
+rippling where the coyotes threaded ahead. Then he was conscious of a
+persistent buzzing, a noise which irritated faintly until he was
+compelled to trace it to its source.</p>
+
+<p>The grass had been trampled flat for an irregular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> patch, with a trail
+of broken stalks out of the heart of the plain. At one side was a
+buzzing, seething mass of glitter-winged insects which Travis already
+knew as carrion eaters. They arose reluctantly from their feast as he
+approached.</p>
+
+<p>He drew a short breath which was close to a grunt of astounded
+recognition. What lay there was so impossible that he could not believe
+the evidence of his eyes. Tsoay gave a sharp exclamation, went down on
+one knee for a closer examination, then looked at Travis over his
+shoulder, his eyes wide, more than a trace of excitement in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Horse dung&mdash;and fresh!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>5</h2>
+
+
+<p>"There was one horse, unshod but ridden. It came here from the plains
+and it had been ridden hard, going lame. There was a rest here, maybe
+shortly after dawn." Travis sorted out what they had learned by a
+careful examination of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta, Tsoay, watched and listened as if the coyotes
+as well as the boy could understand every word.</p>
+
+<p>"There is that also&mdash;" Tsoay indicated the one trace left by the unknown
+rider, an impression blurred as if some attempt had been made to conceal
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Small and light, the rider is both. Also in fear, I think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We follow?" Tsoay asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We follow," Travis assented. He looked to the coyotes, and as he had
+learned to do, thought out his message. This trail was the one to be
+followed. When the rider was sighted they were to report back if the
+Apaches had not yet caught up.</p>
+
+<p>There was no visible agreement; the coyotes simply vanished through the
+wall of grass.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then there are others here," Tsoay said as he and Travis began their
+return to the foothills. "Perhaps there was a second ship&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That horse," Travis said, shaking his head. "There was no provision in
+the project for the shipping of horses."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they have always been here."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so. To each world its own species of beasts. But we shall know the
+truth when we look upon that horse&mdash;and its rider."</p>
+
+<p>It was warmer this side of the mountains, and the heat of the plains
+beat at them. Travis thought that the horse might well be seeking water
+if allowed his head. Where did he come from? And why had his rider gone
+in haste and fear?</p>
+
+<p>This was rough, broken country and the tired, limping horse seemed to
+have picked the easiest way through it, without any hindrance from the
+man with him. Travis spotted a soft patch of ground with a deep-set
+impression. This time there had been no attempt at erasure; the boot
+track was plain. The rider had dismounted and was leading the horse&mdash;yet
+he was moving swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>They followed the tracks around the bend of a shallow cut and found
+Nalik'ideyu waiting for them. Between her forefeet was a bundle still
+covered with smears of soft earth, and behind her were drag marks from a
+hole under the overhang of a bush. The coyote had plainly just
+disinterred her find. Travis squatted down to examine it, using his eyes
+before his hands.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bag made of hide, probably the hide of one of the split horns
+by its color and the scraps of long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> hair which had been left in a
+simple decorative fringe along the bottom. The sides had been laced
+together neatly by someone used to working in leather, the closing flap
+lashed down tightly with braided thong loops.</p>
+
+<p>As the Apache leaned closer to it he could smell a mixture of odors&mdash;the
+hide itself, horse, wood smoke, and other scents&mdash;strange to him. He
+undid the fastenings and pulled out the contents.</p>
+
+<p>There was a shirt, with long full sleeves, of a gray wool undyed from
+the sheep. Then a very bulky short jacket which, after fingering it
+doubtfully, Travis decided was made of felt. It was elaborately
+decorated with highly colorful embroidery, and there was no mistaking
+the design&mdash;a heavy antlered Terran deer in mortal combat with what
+might be a puma. It was bordered with a geometric pattern of beautiful,
+oddly familiar work. Travis smoothed it flat over his knee and tried to
+remember where he had seen its like before ... a book! An illustration
+in a book! But which book, when? Not recently, and it was not a pattern
+known to his own people.</p>
+
+<p>Twisted into the interior of the jacket was a silklike scarf, clear,
+light blue&mdash;the blue of Terra's cloudless skies on certain days, so
+different from the yellow shield now hanging above them. A small case of
+leather, with silhouetted designs cut from hide and affixed to it,
+designs as intricate and complex as the embroidery on the jacket&mdash;art of
+a high standard. In the case a knife and spoon, the bowl and blade of
+dull metal, the handles of horn carved with horse heads, the tiny
+wide-open eyes set with glittering stones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Personal possessions dear to the owner, so that when they must be
+abandoned for flight they were hidden with some hope of recovery. Travis
+slowly repacked them, trying to fold the garments into their original
+creases. He was still puzzled by those designs.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" Tsoay touched the edge of the jacket with one finger, his
+admiration for it plain to read.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But it is of our own world."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a deer, though the horns are wrong," Tsoay agreed. "And the
+puma is very well done. The one who made this knows animals well."</p>
+
+<p>Travis pushed the jacket back into the bag and laced it shut. But he did
+not return it to the hiding place. Instead, he made it a part of his own
+pack. If they did not succeed in running down the fugitive, he wanted an
+opportunity for closer study, a chance to remember just where he had
+seen that picture before.</p>
+
+<p>The narrow valley where they had discovered the bag sloped upward, and
+there were signs that their quarry found the ground harder to cover. The
+second discard lay in open sight&mdash;again a leather bag which Nalik'ideyu
+sniffed and then began to lick eagerly, thrusting her nose into its
+flaccid interior.</p>
+
+<p>Travis picked it up, finding it damp to the touch. It had an odd smell,
+like that of sour milk. He ran a finger around inside, brought it out
+wet; yet this was neither water bag nor canteen. And he was completely
+mystified when he turned it inside out, for though the inner surface was
+wet, the bag was empty. He offered it to the coyote, and she took it
+promptly.</p>
+
+<p>Holding it firmly to the earth with her forepaws, she licked the
+surface, though Travis could see no deposit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> which might attract her. It
+was clear that the bag had once held some sort of food.</p>
+
+<p>"Here they rested," Tsoay said. "Not too far ahead now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But now they were in the kind of country where a man could hide in order
+to check on his back trail. Travis studied the terrain and then made his
+own plans. They would leave the plainly marked trace of the fugitive,
+strike out upslope to the east and try to parallel the other's route. In
+that maze of rock outcrops and wood copses there was tricky going.</p>
+
+<p>Nalik'ideyu gave a last lick to the bag as Travis signaled her. She
+regarded him, then turned her head to survey the country before them. At
+last she trotted on, her buff coat melting into the vegetation. With
+Naginlta she would scout the quarry and keep watch, leaving the men to
+take the longer way around.</p>
+
+<p>Travis pulled off his shirt, folding it into a packet and tucking it
+beneath the folds of his sash-belt, just as his ancestors had always
+done before a fight. Then he cached his pack and Tsoay's. As they began
+the stiff climb they carried only their bows, the quivers slung on their
+shoulders, and the long-bladed knives. But they flitted like shadows
+and, like the coyotes, their red-brown bodies became indistinguishable
+against the bronze of the land.</p>
+
+<p>They should be, Travis judged, not more than an hour away from sundown.
+And they had to locate the stranger before the dark closed in. His
+respect for their quarry had grown. The unknown might have been driven
+by fear, but he held to a good pace and headed intelligently for just
+the kind of country which would serve him best. If Travis could only
+remember where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> he had seen the like of that embroidery! It had a
+meaning which might be important now....</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay slipped behind a wind-gnarled tree and disappeared. Travis stooped
+under a line of bush limbs. Both were working their way south, using the
+peak ahead as an agreed landmark, pausing at intervals to examine the
+landscape for any hint of a man and horse.</p>
+
+<p>Travis squirmed snake fashion into an opening between two rock pillars
+and lay there, the westering sun hot on his bare shoulders and back, his
+chin propped on his forearm. In the band holding back his hair he had
+inserted some concealing tufts of wiry mountain grass, the ends of which
+drooped over his rugged features.</p>
+
+<p>Only seconds earlier he had caught that fragmentary warning from one of
+the coyotes. What they sought was very close, it was right down there.
+Both animals were in ambush, awaiting orders. And what they found was
+familiar, another confirmation that the fugitive was Terran, not native
+to Topaz.</p>
+
+<p>With searching eyes, Travis examined the site indicated by the coyotes.
+His respect for the stranger was raised another notch. In time either he
+or Tsoay might have sighted that hideaway without the aid of the animal
+scouts; on the other hand, they might have failed. For the fugitive had
+truly gone to earth, using some pocket or crevice in the mountain wall.</p>
+
+<p>There was no sign of the horse, but a branch here and there had been
+pulled out of place, the scars of their removal readable when one knew
+where to look. Odd, Travis began to puzzle over what he saw. It was
+almost as if whatever pursuit the stranger feared would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> come not at
+ground level but from above; the precautions the stranger had taken were
+to veil his retreat to the reaches of the mountain side.</p>
+
+<p>Had he expected any trailer to make a flanking move from up that slope
+where the Apaches now lay? Travis' teeth nipped the weathered skin of
+his forearm. Could it be that at some time during the day's journeying
+the fugitive had doubled back, having seen his trackers? But there had
+been no traces of any such scouting, and the coyotes would surely have
+warned them. Human eyes and ears could be tricked, but Travis trusted
+the senses of Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu far above his own.</p>
+
+<p>No, he did not believe that the rider expected the Apaches. But the man
+did expect someone or something which would come upon him from the
+heights. The heights.... Travis rolled his head slightly to look at the
+upper reaches of the hills about him&mdash;with suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>In their own journey across the mountains and through the pass they had
+found nothing threatening. Dangerous animals might roam there. There had
+been some paw marks, one such trail the coyotes had warned against. But
+the type of precautions the stranger had taken were against intelligent,
+thinking beings, not against animals more likely to track by scent than
+by sight.</p>
+
+<p>And if the stranger expected an attack from above, then Travis and Tsoay
+must be alert. Travis analyzed each feature of the hillside, setting in
+his mind a picture of every inch of ground they must cross. Just as he
+had wanted daylight as an ally before, so now was he willing to wait for
+the shadows of twilight.</p>
+
+<p>He closed his eyes in a final check, able to recall the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> details of the
+hiding place, knowing that he could reach it when the conditions
+favored, without mistake. Then he edged back from his vantage point, and
+raising his fingers to his lips, made a small angry chittering, three
+times repeated. One of the species inhabiting these heights, as they had
+noted earlier, was a creature about as big as the palm of a man's hand,
+resembling nothing so much as a round ball of ruffled feathers, though
+its covering might actually have been a silky, fluffy fur. Its short
+legs could cover ground at an amazing speed, and it had the bold
+impudence of a creature with few natural enemies. This was its usual
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay's hand waved Travis on to where the younger man had taken position
+behind the bleached trunk of a fallen tree.</p>
+
+<p>"He hides," Tsoay whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Against trouble from above." Travis added his own observation.</p>
+
+<p>"But not us, I think."</p>
+
+<p>So Tsoay had come to that conclusion too? Travis tried to gauge the
+nearness of twilight. There was a period after the passing of Topaz' sun
+when the dusky light played odd tricks with shadows. That would be the
+first time for their move. He said as much, and Tsoay nodded eagerly.
+They sat with their backs to a boulder, the tree trunk serving as a
+screen, and chewed methodically on ration tablets. There was energy and
+sustenance in the tasteless squares which would support men, even though
+their stomachs continued to demand the satisfaction of fresh meat.</p>
+
+<p>Taking turns, they dozed a little. But the last banners of Topaz' sun
+were still in the sky when Travis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> judged the shadows cover enough. He
+had no way of knowing how the stranger was armed. Though he used a horse
+for transportation, he might well carry a rifle and the most modern
+Terran sidearms.</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches' bows were little use for infighting, but they had their
+knives. However, Travis wanted to take the fugitive unharmed if he
+could. There was information he must have. So he did not even draw his
+knife as he started downhill.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached a pool of violet dusk at the bottom of the small ravine
+Naginlta's eyes regarded him knowingly. Travis signaled with his hand
+and thought out what would be the coyotes' part in this surprise attack.
+The prick-eared silhouette vanished. Uphill the chitter of a fluff-fur
+sounded twice&mdash;Tsoay was in position.</p>
+
+<p>A howl ... wailing ... sobbing ... was heard, one of the keening songs
+of the <i>mba'a</i>. Travis darted forward. He heard the nicker of a
+frightened horse, a clicking which could have marked the pawing of hoof
+on gravel, saw the brush hiding the stranger's hole tremble, a portion
+of it fall away.</p>
+
+<p>Travis sped on, his moccasins making no sound on the ground. One of the
+coyotes gave tongue for the second time, the eerie wailing rising to a
+yapping which echoed from the rocks about them. Travis poised for a
+dive.</p>
+
+<p>Another section of those artfully heaped branches had given way and a
+horse reared, its upflung head plainly marked against the sky. A blurred
+figure weaved back and forth before it, trying to control the mount. The
+stranger had his hands full, certainly no weapon drawn&mdash;this was it!</p>
+
+<p>Travis leaped. His hands found their mark, the shoul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>ders of the
+stranger. There was a shrill cry from the other as he tried to turn in
+the Apache's hold, to face his attacker. But Travis bore them both on,
+rolling almost under the feet of the horse, sliding downhill, the
+unknown's writhing body pinned down by the Apache's weight and his
+clasp, tight as an iron grip, about the other's chest and upper arms.</p>
+
+<p>He felt his opponent go limp, but was suspicious enough not to release
+that hold, for the heavy breathing of the stranger was not that of an
+unconscious man. They lay so, the unknown still tight in Travis' hold
+but no longer fighting. The Apache could hear Tsoay soothing the horse
+with the purring words of a practiced horseman.</p>
+
+<p>Still the stranger did not resume the struggle. They could not lie in
+this position all night, Travis thought with a wry twist of amusement.
+He shifted his hold, and got the lightning-quick response he had
+expected. But it was not quite quick enough, for Travis had the other's
+hands behind his back, cupping slender, almost delicate wrists together.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw me a cord!" he called to Tsoay.</p>
+
+<p>The younger man ran up with an extra bow cord, and in a moment they had
+bonds on the struggling captive. Travis rolled their catch over,
+reaching down for a fistful of hair to pull the head into a patch of
+clearer light.</p>
+
+<p>In his grasp that hair came loose, a braid unwinding. He grunted as he
+looked down into the stranger's face. Dust marks were streaked now with
+tear runnels, but the gray eyes which turned fiercely on him said that
+their owner cried more in rage than fear.</p>
+
+<p>His captive might be wearing long trousers tucked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> into curved, toed
+boots, and a loose overblouse, but she was certainly not only a woman,
+but a very young and attractive one. Also, at the present moment, an
+exceedingly angry one. And behind that anger was fear, the fear of one
+fighting hopelessly against insurmountable odds. But as she eyed Travis
+now her expression changed.</p>
+
+<p>He felt she had expected another captor altogether and was astounded at
+the sight of him. Her tongue touched her lips, moistening them, and now
+the fear in her was another kind&mdash;the wary fear of one facing a totally
+new and perhaps dangerous thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" Travis spoke in English, for he had no doubts that she
+was Terran.</p>
+
+<p>Now she sucked in her breath with a gasp of pure astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are <i>you</i>?" she parroted his question in a marked accent. English
+was not her native tongue, he was sure.</p>
+
+<p>Travis reached out, and again his hands closed on her shoulders. She
+started to twist and then realized he was merely pulling her up to a
+sitting position. Some of the fear had left her eyes, an intent interest
+taking its place.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not Sons of the Blue Wolf," she stated in her heavily accented
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled. "I am the Fox, not the Wolf," he returned. "And the
+Coyote is my brother." He snapped his fingers at the shadows, and the
+two animals came noiselessly into sight. Her gaze widened even more at
+Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu, and she deduced the bond which must exist
+between her captor and the beasts.</p>
+
+<p>"This woman is also of our world." Tsoay spoke in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> Apache, looking over
+their prisoner with frank interest. "Only she is not of the People."</p>
+
+<p>Sons of the Blue Wolf? Travis thought again of the embroidery designs on
+the jacket. Who had called themselves by that picturesque
+title&mdash;where&mdash;and when in time?</p>
+
+<p>"What do you fear, Daughter of the Blue Wolf?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>And with that question he seemed to touch some button activating terror.
+She flung back her head so that she could see the darkening sky.</p>
+
+<p>"The flyer!" Her voice was muted as if more than a whisper would carry
+to the stars just coming into brilliance above them. "They will come ...
+tracking. I did not reach the inner mountains in time."</p>
+
+<p>There was a despairing note in that which cut through to Travis, who
+found that he, too, was searching the sky, not knowing what he looked
+for or what kind of menace it promised, only that it was real danger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>6</h2>
+
+
+<p>"The night comes," Tsoay spoke slowly in English. "Do these you fear
+hunt in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head to free her forehead from a coil of braid, pulled
+loose in her struggle with Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"They do not need eyes or such noses as those four-footed hunters of
+yours. They have a machine to track&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then what purpose is this brush pile of yours?" Travis raised his chin
+at the disturbed hiding place.</p>
+
+<p>"They do not constantly use the machine, and one can hope. But at night
+they can ride on its beam. We are not far enough into the hills to lose
+them. Bahatur went lame, and so I was slowed...."</p>
+
+<p>"And what lies in these mountains that those you fear dare not invade
+them?" Travis continued.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, save if one can climb far enough inside, one is safe
+from pursuit."</p>
+
+<p>"I ask it again: Who are you?" The Apache leaned forward, his face in
+the fast-fading light now only inches away from hers. She did not shrink
+from his close scrutiny but met him eye to eye. This was a woman of
+proud independence, truly a chief's daughter, Travis decided.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am of the People of the Blue Wolf. We were brought across the star
+lanes to make this world safe for ... for ... the...." She hesitated,
+and now there was a shade of puzzlement on her face. "There is a
+reason&mdash;a dream. No, there is the dream and there is reality. I am
+Kaydessa of the Golden Horde, but sometimes I remember other
+things&mdash;like this speech of strange words I am mouthing now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Golden Horde!" Travis knew now. The embroidery, Sons of the Blue
+Wolf, all fitted into a special pattern. But what a pattern! Scythian
+art, the ornament that the warriors of Genghis Khan bore so proudly.
+Tatars, Mongols&mdash;the barbarians who had swept from the fastness of the
+steppes to change the course of history, not only in Asia but across the
+plains of middle Europe. The men of the Emperor Khans who had ridden
+behind the yak-tailed standards of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan,
+Tamerlane&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>"The Golden Horde," Travis repeated once again. "That lies far back in
+the history of another world, Wolf Daughter."</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him, a queer, lost expression on her dust-grimed face.</p>
+
+<p>"I know." Her voice was so muted he could hardly distinguish the words.
+"My people live in two times, and many do not realize that."</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay had crouched down beside them to listen. Now he put out his hand,
+touching Travis' shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Redax?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or its like." For Travis was sure of one point. The project, which had
+been training three teams for space colonization&mdash;one of Eskimos, one of
+Pacific Islanders,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> and one of his own Apaches&mdash;had no reason or chance
+to select Mongols from the wild past of the raiding Hordes. There was
+only one nation on Terra which could have picked such colonists.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Russian." He studied her carefully, intent on noting the effect
+of his words.</p>
+
+<p>But she did not lose that lost look. "Russian ... Russian ..." she
+repeated, as if the very word was strange.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was alarmed. Any Russian colony planted here could well possess
+technicians with machines capable of tracking a fugitive, and if
+mountain heights were protection against such a hunt, he intended to
+gain them, even by night traveling. He said this to Tsoay, and the other
+emphatically agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"The horse is too lame to go on," the younger man reported.</p>
+
+<p>Travis hesitated for a long second. Since the time they had stolen their
+first mounts from the encroaching Spanish, horses had always been wealth
+to his people. To leave an animal which could well serve the clan was
+not right. But they dared not waste time with a lame beast.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave it here, free," he ordered.</p>
+
+<p>"And the woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"She goes with us. We must learn all we can of these people and what
+they do here. Listen, Wolf Daughter," again Travis leaned close to make
+sure she was listening to him as he spoke with emphasis&mdash;"you will
+travel with us into these high places, and there will be no trouble from
+you." He drew his knife and held the blade warningly before her eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It was already in my mind to go to the mountains," she told him evenly.
+"Untie my hands, brave warrior, you have surely nothing to fear from a
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>His hand made a swift sweep and plucked a knife as long and keen as his
+from the folds of the sash beneath her loose outer garment.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, Wolf Daughter, since I have drawn your fangs."</p>
+
+<p>He helped her to her feet and slashed the cord about her wrists with her
+knife, which he then fastened to his own belt. Alerting the coyotes, he
+dispatched them ahead; and the three started on, the Mongol girl between
+the two Apaches. The abandoned horse nickered lonesomely and then began
+to graze on tufts of grass, moving slowly to favor his foot.</p>
+
+<p>The two moons rode the sky as the hours advanced, their beams fighting
+the shadows. Travis felt reasonably safe from any attack at ground
+level, depending upon the coyotes for warning. But he held them all to a
+steady pace. And he did not question the girl again until all three of
+them hunkered down at a small mountain spring, to dash icy water over
+their faces and drink from cupped hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you flee your own people, Wolf Daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Kaydessa," she corrected him.</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled with laughter at the prim tone of her voice. "And you see
+here Tsoay of the People&mdash;the Apaches&mdash;while I am Fox." He was giving
+her the English equivalent of his tribal name.</p>
+
+<p>"Apaches." She tried to repeat the word with the same accent he had
+used. "And what are Apaches?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indians&mdash;Amerindians," he explained. "But you have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> not answered my
+question, Kaydessa. Why do you run from your own people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not from my people," she said, shaking her head determinedly. "From
+those others. It is like this&mdash;Oh, how can I make you understand
+rightly?" She spread her wet hands out before her in the moonlight, the
+damp patches on her sleeves clinging to her arms. "There are my people
+of the Golden Horde, though once we were different and we can remember
+bits of that previous life. Then there are also the men who live in the
+sky ship and use the machine so that we think only the thoughts they
+would have us think. Now why," she looked at Travis intently&mdash;"do I wish
+to tell you all this? It is strange. You say you are
+Indian&mdash;American&mdash;are we then enemies? There is a part memory which says
+that we are ... were...."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us rather say," he corrected her, "that the Apaches and the Horde
+are not enemies here and now, no matter what was before." That was the
+truth, Travis recognized. By all accounts his people had come out of
+Asia in the very dim beginnings of migrating peoples. For all her
+dark-red hair and gray eyes, this girl who had been arbitrarily returned
+to a past just as they had been by Redax, could well be a distant
+clan-cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;" Kaydessa's fingers rested for a moment on his wrist&mdash;"you, too,
+were sent here from across the stars. Is this not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is so."</p>
+
+<p>"And there are those here who govern you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. We are free."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you become free?" she demanded fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>Travis hesitated. He did not want to tell of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> wrecked ship, the fact
+that his people possessed no real defenses against the
+Russian-controlled colony.</p>
+
+<p>"We went to the mountains," he replied evasively.</p>
+
+<p>"Your governing machine failed?" Kaydessa laughed. "Ah, they are so
+great, those men of the machines. But they are smaller and weaker when
+their machines cannot obey them."</p>
+
+<p>"It is so with your camp?" Travis probed gently. He was not quite sure
+of her meaning, but he dared not ask more detailed questions without
+dangerously revealing his own ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"In some manner their control machine&mdash;it can only work upon those
+within a certain distance. They discovered that in the days of the first
+landing, when hunters went out freely and many of them did not return.
+After that when hunters were sent out to learn how lay this land, they
+went along in the flyer with a machine so that there would be no more
+escapes. But we knew!" Kaydessa's fingers curled into small fists. "Yes,
+we knew that if we could get beyond the machines, there was freedom for
+us. And we planned&mdash;many of us&mdash;planned. Then nine or ten sleeps ago
+those others were very excited. They gathered in their ship, watching
+their machines. And something happened. For a while all those machines
+went dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Jagatai, Kuchar, my brother Hulagur, Menlik...." She was counting the
+names off on her fingers. "They raided the horse herd, rode out...."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I, too, should have ridden. But there was Aljar, my sister&mdash;Kuchar's
+wife. She was very near her time and to ride thus, fleeing and fast,
+might kill her and the child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> So I did not go. Her son was born that
+night, but the others had the machine at work once more. We might long
+to go here," she brought her fist up to her breast, and then raised it
+to her head&mdash;"but there was that <i>here</i> which kept us to the camp and
+their will. We only knew that if we could reach the mountains, we might
+find our people who had already gained their freedom."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are here. How did you escape?" Tsoay wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"They knew that I would have gone had it not been for Aljar. So they
+said they would make her ride out with them unless I played guide to
+lead them to my brother and the others. Then I knew I must take up the
+sword of duty and hunt with them. But I prayed that the spirits of the
+upper air look with favor upon me, and they granted aid...." Her eyes
+held a look of wonder. "For when we were out on the plains and well away
+from the settlement, a grass devil attacked the leader of the searching
+party, and he dropped the mind control and so it was broken. Then I
+rode. Blue Sky Above knows how I rode. And those others are not with
+their horses as are the people of the Wolf."</p>
+
+<p>"When did this happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three suns ago."</p>
+
+<p>Travis counted back in his mind. Her date for the failure of the machine
+in the Russian camp seemed to coincide with the crash landing of the
+American ship. Had one thing any connection with the other? It was very
+possible. The planeting spacer might have fought some kind of weird duel
+with the other colony before it plunged to earth on the other side of
+the mountain range.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where in these mountains your people hide?"</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa shook her head. "Only that I must head south, and when I reach
+the highest peak make a signal fire on the north slope. But that I
+cannot do now, for those in the flyer may see it. I know they are on my
+trail, for twice I have seen it. Listen, Fox, I ask this of you&mdash;I,
+Kaydessa, who am eldest daughter to the Khan&mdash;for you are like unto us,
+a warrior and a brave man, that I believe. It may be that you cannot be
+governed by their machine, for you have not rested under their spell,
+nor are of our blood. Therefore, if they come close enough to send forth
+the call, the call I must obey as if I were a slave dragged upon a horse
+rope, then do you bind my hands and feet and hold me here, no matter how
+much I struggle to follow that command. For that which is truly me does
+not want to go. Will you swear this by the fires which expel demons?"</p>
+
+<p>The utter sincerity of her tone convinced Travis that she was pleading
+for aid against a danger she firmly believed in. Whether she was right
+about his immunity to the Russian mental control was another matter, and
+one he would rather not put to the test.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not swear by your fires, Blue Wolf Maiden, but by the Path of the
+Lightning." His fingers moved as if to curl about the sacred charred
+wood his people had once carried as "medicine." "So do I promise!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded in satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>They left the pool and pushed on toward the mountain slopes, working
+their way back to the pass. A low growl out of the dark brought them to
+an instant halt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> Naginlta's warning was sharp; there was danger ahead,
+acute danger.</p>
+
+<p>The moonlight from the moons made a weird pattern of light and dark on
+the stretch ahead. Anything from a slinking four-footed hunter to a war
+party of intelligent beings might have been lying in wait there.</p>
+
+<p>A flitting shadow out of shadows. Nalik'ideyu pressed against Travis'
+legs, making a barrier of her warm body, attracting his attention to a
+spot at the left perhaps a hundred yards on. There was a great splotch
+of dark there, large enough to hide a really formidable opponent; that
+wordless communication between animal and man told Travis that such an
+opponent was just what was lurking there.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever lay in ambush beside the upper track was growing impatient as
+its destined prey ceased to advance, the coyotes reported.</p>
+
+<p>"Your left&mdash;beyond that pointed rock&mdash;in the big shadow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see it?" Tsoay demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"No. But the <i>mba'a</i> do."</p>
+
+<p>The men had their bows ready, arrows set to the cords. But in this light
+such weapons were practically useless unless the enemy moved into the
+path of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" Kaydessa asked in a half whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Something waits for us ahead."</p>
+
+<p>Before he could stop her, she set her fingers to her lips and gave a
+piercing whistle.</p>
+
+<p>There was answering movement in the shadow. Travis shot at that, his
+arrow followed instantly by one from Tsoay. There was a cry, scaling up
+in a throat-scalding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> scream which made Travis flinch. Not because of
+the sound, but because of the hint which lay behind it&mdash;could it have
+been a human cry?</p>
+
+<p>The thing flopped out into a patch of moonlight. It was four-limbed, its
+body silvery&mdash;and it was large. But the worst was that it had been
+groveling on all fours when it fell, and now it was rising on its hind
+feet, one forepaw striking madly at the two arrows dancing head-deep in
+its upper shoulder. Man? No! But something sufficiently manlike to chill
+the three downtrail.</p>
+
+<p>A whirling four-footed hunter dashed in, snapped at the creature's legs,
+and it squalled again, aiming a blow with a forepaw; but the attacking
+coyote was already gone. Together Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu were
+harassing the creature, just as they had fought the split horn, giving
+the hunters time to shoot. Travis, although he again felt that touch of
+horror and disgust he could not account for, shot again.</p>
+
+<p>Between them the Apaches must have sent a dozen arrows into the raving
+beast before it went to its knees and Naginlta sprang for its throat.
+Even then the coyote yelped and flinched, a bleeding gash across its
+head from the raking talons of the dying thing. When it no longer moved,
+Travis approached to see more closely what they had brought down. That
+smell....</p>
+
+<p>Just as the embroidery on Kaydessa's jacket had awakened memories from
+his Terran past, so did this stench remind him of something.
+Where&mdash;when&mdash;had he smelled it before? Travis connected it with dark,
+dark and danger. Then he gasped in a half exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>Not on this world, no, but on two others: two worlds of that broken
+stellar empire where he had been an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> involuntary explorer two planet
+years ago! The beast things which had lived in the dark of the desert
+world the Terrans' wandering galactic derelict had landed upon. Yes, the
+beast things whose nature they had never been able to deduce. Were they
+the degenerate dregs of a once intelligent species? Or were they
+animals, akin to man, but still animals?</p>
+
+<p>The ape-things had controlled the night of the desert world. And they
+had been met again&mdash;also in the dark&mdash;in the ruins of the city which had
+been the final goal of the ship's taped voyage. So they were a part of
+the vanished civilization. And Travis' own vague surmise concerning
+Topaz was proven correct. This had not been an empty world for the
+long-gone space people. This planet had a purpose and a use, or else
+this beast would not have been here.</p>
+
+<p>"Devil!" Kaydessa made a face of disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"You know it?" Tsoay asked Travis. "What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I do not know, but it is a thing left over from the star people's
+time. And I have seen it on two other of their worlds."</p>
+
+<p>"A man?" Tsoay surveyed the body critically. "It wears no clothes, has
+no weapons, but it walks erect. It looks like an ape, a very big ape. It
+is not a good thing, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"If it runs with a pack&mdash;as they do elsewhere&mdash;this could be a very bad
+thing." Travis, remembering how these creatures had attacked in force on
+the other worlds, looked about him apprehensively. Even with the coyotes
+on guard, they could not stand up to such a pack closing in through the
+dark. They had better hole up in some defendable place and wait out the
+rest of the night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Naginlta brought them to a cliff overhang where they could set their
+backs to the hard rock of the mountain, face outward to a space they
+could cover with arrow flight if the need arose. And the coyotes, lying
+before them with their noses resting on paws, would, Travis knew, alert
+them long before the enemy could close in.</p>
+
+<p>They huddled against the rock, Kaydessa between them, alert at first to
+every sound of the night, their hearts beating faster at a small scrape
+of gravel, the rustle of a bush. Slowly, they began to relax.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well that two sleep while one guards," Travis observed. "By
+morning we must push on, out of this country."</p>
+
+<p>So the two Apaches shared the watch in turn, the Tatar girl at first
+protesting, and then falling exhausted into a slumber which left her
+breathing heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Travis, on the dawn watch, began to speculate about the ape-thing they
+had killed. The two previous times he had met this creature it had been
+in ruins of the old empire. Were there ruins somewhere here? He wanted
+to make sure about that. On the other hand, there was the problem of the
+Tatar-Mongol settlement controlled by the Reds. There was no doubt in
+his mind that, were the Reds to suspect the existence of the Apache
+camp, they would make every attempt to hunt down and kill or capture the
+survivors from the American ship. A warning must be carried to the
+rancheria as quickly as they could make the return trip.</p>
+
+<p>Beside him the girl stirred, raising her head. Travis glanced at her and
+then watched with attention. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes as
+fixed as if she were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> in a trance. Now she inched forward from the
+mountain wall, wriggling out of its shelter.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;?" Tsoay had awakened again. But Travis was already moving. He
+pushed on, rushing up to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Where do you go?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She made no answer, did not even seem aware of his voice. He caught at
+her arm and she pulled to free herself. When he tightened his grip she
+did not fight him actively as during their first encounter, but merely
+pulled and twisted as if she were being compelled to go ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Compulsion! He remembered her plea the night before, asking his help
+against recapture by the machine. Now he deliberately tripped her,
+twisted her hands behind her back. She swayed in his hold, trying to win
+to her feet, paying no attention to him save as a hindrance against her
+answering that demanding call he could not hear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>7</h2>
+
+
+<p>"What happened?" Tsoay took a swift stride, stood over the writhing girl
+whose strength was now such that Travis had to exert all his efforts to
+control her.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that the machine she spoke about is holding her. She is being
+drawn to it out of hiding as one draws a calf on a rope."</p>
+
+<p>Both coyotes had arisen and were watching the struggle with interest,
+but there was no warning from them. Whatever called Kaydessa into such
+mindless and will-less answer did not touch the animals. And neither
+Apache felt it. So perhaps only Kaydessa's people were subject to it, as
+she had thought. How far away was that machine? Not too near, for
+otherwise the coyotes would have traced the man or men operating it.</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot move her," Tsoay brought the problem into the open&mdash;"unless
+we bind and carry her. She is one of their kind. Why not let her go to
+them, unless you fear she will talk." His hand went to the knife in his
+belt, and Travis knew what primitive impulse moved in the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days a captive who was likely to give trou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>ble was
+efficiently eliminated. In Tsoay that memory was awake now. Travis shook
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>"She has said that others of her kin are in these hills. We must not set
+two wolf packs hunting us," Travis said, giving the more practical
+reason which might better appeal to that savage instinct for
+self-preservation. "But you are right, since she has tried to answer
+this summons, we cannot force her with us. Therefore, do you take the
+back trail. Tell Buck what we have discovered and have him make the
+necessary precautions against either these Mongol outlaws or a Red
+thrust over the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I stay to discover where the outlaws hide and learn all I can of this
+settlement. We may have reason to need friends&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Friends!" Tsoay spat. "The People need no friends! If we have warning,
+we can hold our own country! As the Pinda-lick-o-yi have discovered
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"Bows and arrows against guns and machines?" Travis inquired bitingly.
+"We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future.
+Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before,"
+Travis calculated&mdash;"ten suns. If I do not, send no search party; the
+clan is too small to risk more lives for one."</p>
+
+<p>"And if these Reds take you&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis grinned, not pleasantly. "They shall learn nothing! Can their
+machines sort out the thoughts of a dead man?" He did not intend his
+future to end as abruptly as that, but also he would not be easy meat
+for any Red hunting party.</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay took a share of their rations and refused the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> company of the
+coyotes. Travis realized that for all his seeming ease with the animals,
+the younger scout had little more liking for them than Deklay and the
+others back at the rancheria. Tsoay went at dawn, aiming at the pass.</p>
+
+<p>Travis sat down beside Kaydessa. They had bound her to a small tree, and
+she strove incessantly to free herself, turning her head at an acute and
+painful angle, only to face the same direction in which she had been
+tied. There was no breaking the spell which held her. And she would soon
+wear herself out with that struggling. Then he struck an expert blow.</p>
+
+<p>The girl sagged limply, and he untied her. It all depended now on the
+range of the beam or broadcast of that diabolical machine. From the
+attitude of the coyotes, he assumed that those using the machine had not
+made any attempt to come close. They might not even know where their
+quarry was; they would simply sit and wait in the foothills for the
+caller to reel in a helpless captive.</p>
+
+<p>Travis thought that if he moved Kaydessa farther away from that point,
+sooner or later they would be out of range and she would awake from the
+knockout, free again. Although she was not light, he could manage to
+carry her for a while. So burdened, Travis started on, with the coyotes
+scouting ahead.</p>
+
+<p>He speedily discovered that he had set himself an ambitious task. The
+going was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to a
+snail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to make careful plans.</p>
+
+<p>As long as the Reds held the balance of power on this side of the
+mountain range, the rancheria was in danger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Bows and knives against
+modern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter of
+time before exploration on the part of the northern settlement&mdash;or some
+tracking down of Tatar fugitives&mdash;would bring the enemy across the pass.</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches could move farther south into the unknown continent below
+the wrecked ship, thus prolonging the time before they were discovered.
+But that would only postpone the inevitable showdown. Whether Travis
+could make his clan believe that, was also a matter of concern.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, if the Red overlords could be met in some practical
+way.... Travis' mind fastened on that more attractive idea, worrying it
+as Naginlta worried a prey, tearing out and devouring the more delicate
+portions. Every bit of sense and prudence argued against such an
+approach, whose success could rest only between improbability and
+impossibility; yet that was the direction in which he longed to move.</p>
+
+<p>Across his shoulder Kaydessa stirred and moaned. The Apache doubled his
+efforts to reach the outcrop of rock he could see ahead, chiseled into
+high relief by the winds. In its lee they would have protection from any
+sighting from below. Panting, he made it, lowering the girl into the
+guarded cup of space, and waited.</p>
+
+<p>She moaned again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open,
+and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and her
+surroundings intelligently or not.</p>
+
+<p>"Kaydessa!"</p>
+
+<p>Her heavy eyelids lifted, and he had no doubt she could see him. But
+there was no recognition of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> identity in her gaze, only surprise and
+fear&mdash;the same expression she had worn during their first meeting in the
+foothills.</p>
+
+<p>"Daughter of the Wolf," he spoke slowly. "Remember!" Travis made that an
+order, an emphatic appeal to the mind under the influence of the caller.</p>
+
+<p>She frowned, the struggle she was making naked on her face. Then she
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;Fox&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Travis grunted with relief, his alarm subsiding. Then she <i>could</i>
+remember.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he responded eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>But she was gazing about, her puzzlement growing. "Where is this&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are higher in the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>Now fear was pushing out bewilderment. "How did I come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I brought you." Swiftly he outlined what had happened at their night
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>The hand which had been at her head was now pressed tight across her
+lips as if she were biting furiously into its flesh to still some panic
+of her own, and her gray eyes were round and haunted.</p>
+
+<p>"You are free now," Travis said.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa nodded, and then dropped her hand to speak. "You brought me
+away from the hunters. You did not have to obey them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I heard nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not hear&mdash;you feel!" She shuddered. "Please." She clawed at the
+stone beside her, pulling up to her feet. "Let us go&mdash;let us go quickly!
+They will try again&mdash;move farther in&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Listen," Travis had to be sure of one thing&mdash;"have they any way of
+knowing that they had you under control and that you have again
+escaped?"</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa shook her head, some of the panic again shadowing her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll just go on&mdash;" his chin lifted to the wastelands before
+them&mdash;"try to keep out of their reach."</p>
+
+<p>And away from the pass to the south, he told himself silently. He dared
+not lead the enemy to that secret, so he must travel west or hole up
+somewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessa
+was no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyond
+its beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin,
+just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things.
+Before dark they must discover a protected camp site.</p>
+
+<p>They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration tablets. But
+the coyotes could locate water.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of him
+so that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once again
+to the influence of the enemy. But his burdened early morning flight had
+told on Travis more than he thought, and he discovered he could not spur
+himself on to a pace better than a walk. Now and again one of the
+coyotes, usually Nalik'ideyu, would come into view, express impatience
+in both stance and mental signal, and then be gone again. The Apache was
+increasingly aware that the animals were disturbed, yet to his tentative
+gropings at contact they did not reply. Since they gave no warning of
+hostile animal or man, he could only be on constant guard, watching the
+countryside about him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They had been following a ledge for several minutes before Travis was
+aware of some strange features of that path. Perhaps he had actually
+noted them with a trained eye before his archaeological studies of the
+recent past gave him a reason for the faint marks. This crack in the
+mountain's skin might have begun as a natural fault, but afterward it
+had been worked with tools, smoothed, widened to serve the purpose of
+some form of intelligence!</p>
+
+<p>Travis caught at Kaydessa's shoulder to slow her pace. He could not have
+told why he did not want to speak aloud here, but he felt the need for
+silence. She glanced around, perplexed, more so when he went down on his
+knees and ran his fingers along one of those ancient tool marks. He was
+certain it was very old. Inside of him anticipation bubbled. A road made
+with such labor could only lead to something of importance. He was going
+to make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into these
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge.</p>
+
+<p>"This was cut by someone, a long time ago," Travis half whispered and
+then wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers could
+hear him when perhaps a thousand years or more lay between the chipping
+of that stone and this day.</p>
+
+<p>The Tatar girl looked over her shoulder. Perhaps she too was troubled by
+the sense that here time was subtly telescoped, that past and present
+might be meeting. Or was that feeling with them both because of their
+enforced conditioning?</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" Now her voice sank in turn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Listen&mdash;" he regarded her intently&mdash;"did your people or the Reds ever
+find any traces of the old civilization here&mdash;ruins?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." She leaned forward, tracing with her own finger the same
+almost-obliterated marks which had intrigued Travis. "But I think they
+have looked. Before they discovered that we could be free, they sent out
+parties&mdash;to hunt, they said&mdash;but afterward they always asked many
+questions about the country. Only they never asked about ruins. Is that
+what they wished us to find? But why? Of what value are old stones piled
+on one another?"</p>
+
+<p>"In themselves, little, save for the knowledge they may give us of the
+people who piled them. But for what the stones might contain&mdash;much
+value!"</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you know what they might contain, Fox?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I have seen such treasure houses of the star men," he returned
+absently. To him the marks on the ledge were a pledge of greater
+discoveries to come. He must find where that carefully constructed road
+ran&mdash;to what it led. "Let us see where this will take us."</p>
+
+<p>But first he gave the chittering signal in four sharp bursts. And the
+tawny-gray bodies came out of the tangled brush, bounding up to the
+ledge. Together the coyotes faced him, their attention all for his
+halting communication.</p>
+
+<p>Ruins might lie ahead; he hoped that they did. But on another planet
+such ruins had twice proved to be deadly traps, and only good fortune
+had prevented their closing on Terran explorers. If the ape-things or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+any other dangerous form of life had taken up residence before them, he
+wanted good warning.</p>
+
+<p>Together the coyotes turned and loped along the now level way of the
+ledge, disappearing around a curve fitted to the mountain side while
+Travis and Kaydessa followed.</p>
+
+<p>They heard it before they saw its source&mdash;a waterfall. Probably not a
+large one, but high. Rounding the curve, they came into a fine mist of
+spray where sunlight made rainbows of color across a filmy veil of
+water.</p>
+
+<p>For a long moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry,
+held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lips
+again to suck the gathered moisture.</p>
+
+<p>Water slicked the surface of the ledge, and Travis pushed her back
+against the wall of the cliff. As far as he could discern, their road
+continued behind the out-flung curtain of water, and footing on the wet
+stone was treacherous. With their backs to the solid security of the
+wall, facing outward into the solid drape of water, they edged behind it
+and came out into rainbowed sunlight again.</p>
+
+<p>Here either provident nature or ancient art had hollowed a pocket in the
+stone which was filled with water. They drank. Then Travis filled his
+canteen while Kaydessa washed her face, holding the cold freshness of
+the moisture to her cheeks with both palms.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke, but he could not hear her through the roar. She leaned closer
+and raised her voice to a half shout:</p>
+
+<p>"This is a place of spirits! Do you not also feel their power, Fox?"</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps for a space out of time he did feel something.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> This was a
+watering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place&mdash;and to his
+desert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be taken
+for granted. The rainbow&mdash;the Spirit People's sacred sign&mdash;old beliefs
+stirred in Travis, moving him. "I feel," he said, nodding in emphasis to
+his agreement.</p>
+
+<p>They followed the ledge road to a section where a landslide of an
+earlier season had choked it. Travis worked a careful way across the
+debris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn. Then they were on a
+sloping downward way which led to a staircase&mdash;the treads weather-worn
+and crumbling, the angle so steep Travis wondered if it had ever been
+intended for beings with a physique approximating the Terrans'.</p>
+
+<p>They came to a cleft where an arch of stone was chiseled out as a
+roofing. Travis thought he could make out a trace of carving on the
+capstone, so worn by years and weather that it was now only a faint
+shadow of design.</p>
+
+<p>The cleft was a door into another valley. Here, too, golden mist swirled
+in tendrils to disguise and cloak what stood there. Travis had found his
+ruins. Only the structures were intact, not breached by time.</p>
+
+<p>Mist flowed in lapping tongues back and forth, confusing outlines, now
+shuttering, now baring oval windows which were spaced in diamonds of
+four on round tower surfaces. There were no visible cracks, no cloaking
+of climbing vegetation, nothing to suggest age and long roots in the
+valley. Nor did the architecture he could view match any he had seen on
+those other worlds.</p>
+
+<p>Travis strode away from the cleft doorway. Under his moccasins was a
+block pavement, yellow and green stone set in a simple pattern of
+checks. This, too, was level,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> unchipped and undisturbed, save for a
+drift or two of soil driven in by the wind. And nowhere could he see any
+vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>The towers were of the same green stone as half the pavement blocks, a
+glassy green which made him think of jade&mdash;if jade could be mined in
+such quantities as these five-story towers demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Nalik'ideyu padded to him, and he could hear the faint click of her
+claws on the pavement. There was a deep silence in this place, as if the
+air itself swallowed and digested all sound. The wind which had been
+with them all the day of their journeying was left beyond the cleft.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there was life here. The coyote told him that in her own way. She
+had not made up her mind concerning that life&mdash;wariness and curiosity
+warred in her now as her pointed muzzle lifted toward the windows
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p>The windows were all well above ground level, but there was no opening
+in the first stories as far as Travis could see. He debated moving into
+the range of those windows to investigate the far side of the towers for
+doorways. The mist and the message from Nalik'ideyu nourished his
+suspicions. Out in the open he would be too good a target for whatever
+or whoever might be standing within the deep-welled frames.</p>
+
+<p>The silence was shattered by a boom. Travis jumped, slewed half around,
+knife in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Boom-boom ... a second heavy beat-beat ... then a clangor with a
+swelling echo.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa flung back her head and called, her voice rising up as if
+tunneled by the valley walls. She then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> whistled as she had done when
+they fronted the ape-thing and ran on to catch at Travis' sleeve, her
+face eager.</p>
+
+<p>"My people! Come&mdash;it is my people!"</p>
+
+<p>She tugged him on before breaking into a run, weaving fearlessly around
+the base of one of the towers. Travis ran after her, afraid he might
+lose her in the mist.</p>
+
+<p>Three towers, another stretch of open pavement, and then the mist lifted
+to show them a second carved doorway not two hundred yards ahead. The
+boom-boom seemed to pull Kaydessa, and Travis could do nothing but trail
+her, the coyotes now trotting beside him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>8</h2>
+
+
+<p>They burst through a last wide band of mist into a wilderness of tall
+grass and shrubs. Travis heard the coyotes give tongue, but it was too
+late. Out of nowhere whirled a leather loop, settling about his chest,
+snapping his arms tight to his body, taking him off his feet with a jerk
+to be dragged helplessly along the ground behind a galloping horse.</p>
+
+<p>A tawny fury sprang in the air to snap at the horse's head. Travis
+kicked fruitlessly, trying to regain his feet as the horse reared, and
+fought against the control of his shouting rider. All through the melee
+the Apache heard Kaydessa shrilly screaming words he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was on his knees, coughing in the dust, exerting the muscles in
+his chest and shoulders to loosen the lariat. On either side of him the
+coyotes wove a snarling pattern of defiance, dashing back and forth to
+present no target for the enemy, yet keeping the excited horses so
+stirred up that their riders could use neither ropes nor blades.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then Kaydessa ran between two of the ringing horses to Travis and jerked
+at the loop about him. The tough, braided leather eased its hold, and he
+was able to gasp in full lungfuls of air. She was still shouting, but
+the tone had changed from one of recognition to a definite scolding.</p>
+
+<p>Travis won to his feet just as the rider who had lassoed him finally got
+his horse under rein and dismounted. Holding the rope, the man walked
+hand over hand toward them, as Travis back on the Arizona range would
+have approached a nervous, unschooled pony.</p>
+
+<p>The Mongol was an inch or so shorter than the Apache, and his face was
+young, though he had a drooping mustache bracketing his mouth with
+slender spear points of black hair. His breeches were tucked into high
+red boots, and he wore a loose felt jacket patterned with the same
+elaborate embroidery Travis had seen on Kaydessa's. On his head was a
+hat with a wide fur border&mdash;in spite of the heat&mdash;and that too bore
+touches of scarlet and gold design.</p>
+
+<p>Still holding his lariat, the Mongol reached Kaydessa and stood for a
+moment, eying her up and down before he asked a question. She gave an
+impatient twitch to the rope. The coyotes snarled, but the Apache
+thought the animals no longer considered the danger immediate.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my brother Hulagur." Kaydessa made the introduction over her
+shoulder. "He does not have your speech."</p>
+
+<p>Hulagur not only did not understand, he was also impatient. He jerked at
+the rope with such sudden force that Travis was almost thrown. Then
+Kaydessa dragged as fiercely on the lariat in the other direction and
+burst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> into a soaring harangue which drew the rest of the men closer.</p>
+
+<p>Travis flexed his upper arms, and the slack gained by Kaydessa's action
+made the lariat give again. He studied the Tatar outlaws. There were
+five of them beside Hulagur, lean men, hard-faced, narrow-eyed, the
+ragged clothing of three pieced out with scraps of hide. Besides the
+swords with the curved blades, they were armed with bows, two to each
+man, one long, one shorter. One of the riders carried a lance, long
+tassels of woolly hair streaming from below its head. Travis saw in them
+a formidable array of barbaric fighting men, but he thought that man for
+man the Apaches could not only take on the Mongols with confidence, but
+might well defeat them.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache had never been a hot-headed, ride-for-glory fighter like the
+Cheyenne, the Sioux, and the Comanche of the open plains. He estimated
+the odds against him, used ambush, trick, and every feature of the
+countryside as weapon and defense. Fifteen Apache fighting men under
+Chief Geronimo had kept five thousand American and Mexican troops in the
+field for a year and had come off victorious for the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Travis knew the tales of Genghis Khan and his formidable generals who
+swept over Asia into Europe, unbeaten and seemingly undefeatable. But
+they had been a wild wave, fed by a reservoir of manpower from the
+steppes of their homeland, utilizing driven walls of captives to protect
+their own men in city assaults and attacks. He doubted if even that
+endless sea of men could have won the Arizona desert defended by Apaches
+under Cochise, Victorio, or Magnus Colorado. The white man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> had done
+it&mdash;by superior arms and attrition; but bow against bow, knife against
+sword, craft and cunning against craft and cunning&mdash;he did not think
+so....</p>
+
+<p>Hulagur dropped the end of the lariat, and Kaydessa swung around,
+loosening the loop so that the rope fell to Travis' feet. The Apache
+stepped free of it, turned and passed between two of the horsemen to
+gather up the bow he had dropped. The coyotes had gone with him and when
+he turned again to face the company of Tatars, both animals crowded past
+him to the entrance of the valley, plainly urging him to retire there.</p>
+
+<p>The horsemen had faced about also, and the warrior with the lance
+balanced the shaft of the weapon in his hand as if considering the
+possibility of trying to spear Travis. But just then Kaydessa came up,
+towing Hulagur by a firm hold on his sash-belt.</p>
+
+<p>"I have told this one," she reported to Travis, "how it is between us
+and that you also are enemy to those who hunt us. It is well that you
+sit together beside a fire and talk of these things."</p>
+
+<p>Again that boom-boom broke her speech, coming from farther out in the
+open land.</p>
+
+<p>"You will do this?" She made of it a half question, half statement.</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced about him. He could dodge back into the misty valley of
+the towers before the Tatars could ride him down. However, if he could
+patch up some kind of truce between his people and the outlaws, the
+Apaches would have only the Reds from the settlement to watch. Too many
+times in Terran past had war on two fronts been disastrous.</p>
+
+<p>"I come&mdash;carrying this&mdash;and not pulled by your ropes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> He held up his
+bow in an exaggerated gesture so that Hulagur could understand.</p>
+
+<p>Coiling the lariat, the Mongol looked from the Apache bow to Travis.
+Slowly, and with obvious reluctance, he nodded agreement.</p>
+
+<p>At Hulagur's call the lancer rode up to the waiting Apache, stretched
+out a booted foot in the heavy stirrup, and held down a hand to bring
+Travis up behind him riding double. Kaydessa mounted in the same fashion
+behind her brother.</p>
+
+<p>Travis looked at the coyotes. Together the animals stood in the door to
+the tower valley, and neither made any move to follow as the horses
+trotted off. He beckoned with his hand and called to them.</p>
+
+<p>Heads up, they continued to watch him go in company with the Mongols.
+Then without any reply to his coaxing, they melted back into the mists.
+For a moment Travis was tempted to slide down and run the risk of taking
+a lance point between the shoulders as he followed Naginlta and
+Nalik'ideyu into retreat. He was startled, jarred by the new awareness
+of how much he had come to depend on the animals. Ordinarily, Travis Fox
+was not one to be governed by the wishes of a <i>mba'a</i>, intelligent and
+un-animallike as it might be. This was an affair of men, and coyotes had
+no part in it!</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later Travis sat in the outlaw camp. There were fifteen
+Mongols in sight, a half dozen women and two children adding to the
+count. On a hillock near their yurts, the round brush-and-hide
+shelters&mdash;not too different from the wickiups of Travis' own people&mdash;was
+a crude drum, a hide stretched taut over a hollowed section of log. And
+next to that stood a man wearing a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> tall pointed cap, a red robe, and a
+girdle from which swung a fringe of small bones, tiny animal skulls, and
+polished bits of stone and carved wood.</p>
+
+<p>It was this man's efforts which sent the boom-boom sounding at intervals
+over the landscape. Was this a signal&mdash;part of a ritual? Travis was not
+certain, though he guessed that the drummer was either medicine man or
+shaman, and so of some power in this company. Such men were credited
+with the ability to prophesy and also endowed with mediumship between
+man and spirit in the old days of the great Hordes.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache evaluated the rest of the company. As was true of his own
+party, these men were much the same age&mdash;young and vigorous. And it was
+also apparent that Hulagur held a position of some importance among
+them&mdash;if he were not their chief.</p>
+
+<p>After a last resounding roll on the drum, the shaman thrust the sticks
+into his girdle and came down to the fire at the center of the camp. He
+was taller than his fellows, pole thin under his robes, his face narrow,
+clean-shaven, with brows arched by nature to give him an unchanging
+expression of scepticism. He strode along, his tinkling collection of
+charms providing him with a not unmusical accompaniment, and came to
+stand directly before Travis, eying him carefully.</p>
+
+<p>Travis copied his silence in what was close to a duel of wills. There
+was that in the shaman's narrowed green eyes which suggested that if
+Hulagur did in fact lead these fighting men, he had an advisor of
+determination and intelligence behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Menlik." Kaydessa did not push past the men to the fireside,
+but her voice carried.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hulagur growled at his sister, but his admonition made no impression on
+her, and she replied in as hot a tone. The shaman's hand went up,
+silencing both of them.</p>
+
+<p>"You are&mdash;who?" Like Kaydessa, Menlik spoke a heavily accented English.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Travis Fox, of the Apaches."</p>
+
+<p>"The Apaches," the shaman repeated. "You are of the West, the American
+West, then."</p>
+
+<p>"You know much, man of spirit talk."</p>
+
+<p>"One remembers. At times one remembers," Menlik answered almost
+absently. "How does an Apache find his way across the stars?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same way Menlik and his people did," Travis returned. "You were
+sent to settle this planet, and so were we."</p>
+
+<p>"There are many more of you?" countered Menlik swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there not many of the Horde? Would one man, or three, or four, be
+sent to hold a world?" Travis fenced. "You hold the north, we the south
+of this land."</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>they</i> are not governed by a machine!" Kaydessa cut in. "They are
+free!"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik frowned at the girl. "Woman, this is a matter for warriors. Keep
+your tongue silent between your jaws!"</p>
+
+<p>She stamped one foot, standing with her fists on her hips.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a Daughter of the Blue Wolf. And we are all warriors&mdash;men and
+women alike&mdash;so shall we be as long as the Horde is not free to ride
+where we wish! These men have won their freedom; it is well that we
+learn how."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Menlik's expression did not change, but his lids drooped over his eyes
+as a murmur of what might be agreement came from the group. More than
+one of them must have understood enough English to translate for the
+others. Travis wondered about that. Had these men and women who had
+outwardly reverted to the life of their nomad ancestors once been well
+educated in the modern sense, educated enough to learn the basic
+language of the nation their rulers had set up as their principal enemy?</p>
+
+<p>"So you ride the land south of the mountains?" the shaman continued.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why did you come hither?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis shrugged. "Why does anyone ride or travel into new lands? There
+is a desire to see what may lie beyond&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or to scout before the march of warriors!" Menlik snapped. "There is no
+peace between your rulers and mine. Do you ride now to take the herds
+and pastures of the Horde&mdash;or to try to do so?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned his head deliberately from side to side, allowing them all
+to witness his slow and openly contemptuous appraisal of their camp.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>This</i> is your Horde, Shaman? Fifteen warriors? Much has changed since
+the days of Temujin, has it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know of Temujin&mdash;you, who are a man of no ancestors, out of
+the West?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do I know of Temujin? That he was a leader of warriors and became
+Genghis Khan, the great lord of the East. But the Apaches had their
+warlords also, rider of barren lands. And I am of those who raided over
+two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> nations when Victorio and Cochise scattered their enemies as a man
+scatters a handful of dust in the wind."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk bold, Apache...." There was a hint of threat in that.</p>
+
+<p>"I speak as any warrior, Shaman. Or are you so used to talking with
+spirits instead of men that you do not realize that?"</p>
+
+<p>He might have been alienating the shaman by such a sharp reply, but
+Travis thought he judged the temper of these people. To face them boldly
+was the only way to impress them. They would not treat with an inferior,
+and he was already at a disadvantage coming on foot, without any backing
+in force, into a territory held by horsemen who were suspicious and
+jealous of their recently acquired freedom. His only chance was to
+establish himself as an equal and then try to convince them that Apache
+and Tatar-Mongol had a common cause against the Reds who controlled the
+settlement on the northern plains.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik's right hand went to his sash-girdle and plucked out a carved
+stick which he waved between them, muttering phrases Travis could not
+understand. Had the shaman retreated so far along the road to his past
+that he now believed in his own supernatural powers? Or was this to
+impress his watching followers?</p>
+
+<p>"You call upon your spirits for aid, Menlik? But the Apache has the
+companionship of the <i>ga-n</i>. Ask of Kaydessa: Who hunts with the Fox in
+the wilds?" Travis' sharp challenge stopped that wand in mid-air.
+Menlik's head swung to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"He hunts with wolves who think like men." She supplied the information
+the shaman would not openly ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> for. "I have seen them act as his
+scouts. This is no spirit thing, but real and of this world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Any man may train a dog to his bidding!" Menlik spat.</p>
+
+<p>"Does a dog obey orders which are not said aloud? These brown wolves
+come and sit before him, look into his eyes. And then he knows what lies
+within their heads, and they know what he would have them do. This is
+not the way of a master of hounds with his pack!"</p>
+
+<p>Again the murmur ran about the camp as one or two translated. Menlik
+frowned. Then he rammed his sorcerer's wand back into his sash.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are a man of power&mdash;such powers," he said slowly, "then you may
+walk alone where those who talk with spirits go&mdash;into the mountains." He
+then spoke over his shoulder in his native tongue, and one of the women
+reached behind her into a hut, brought out a skin bag and a horn cup.
+Kaydessa took the cup from her and held it while the other woman poured
+a white liquid from the bag to fill it.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa passed the cup to Menlik. He pivoted with it in his hand,
+dribbling expertly over its brim a few drops at each point of the
+compass, chanting as he moved. Then he sucked in a mouthful of the
+contents before presenting the vessel to Travis.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache smelled the same sour scent that had clung to the emptied bag
+in the foothills. And another part of memory supplied him with the
+nature of the drink. This was kumiss, a fermented mare's milk which was
+the wine and water of the steppes.</p>
+
+<p>He forced himself to swallow a draft, though it was alien to his taste,
+and passed the cup back to Menlik.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> The shaman emptied the horn and,
+with that, set aside ceremony. With an upraised hand he beckoned Travis
+to the fire again, indicating a pot set on the coals.</p>
+
+<p>"Rest ... eat!" he bade abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Night was gathering in. Travis tried to calculate how far Tsoay must
+have backtracked to the rancheria. He thought that he could have already
+made the pass and be within a day and a half from the Apache camp if he
+pushed on, as he would. As to where the coyotes were, Travis had no
+idea. But it was plain that he himself must remain in this encampment
+for the night or risk rousing the Mongols' suspicion once more.</p>
+
+<p>He ate of the stew, spearing chunks out of the pot with the point of his
+knife. And it was not until he sat back, his hunger appeased, that the
+shaman dropped down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"The Khatun Kaydessa says that when she was slave to the caller, you did
+not feel its chains," he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Those who rule you are not my overlords. The bonds they set upon your
+minds do not touch me." Travis hoped that that was the truth and his
+escape that morning had not been just a fluke.</p>
+
+<p>"This could be, for you and I are not of one blood," Menlik agreed.
+"Tell me&mdash;how did you escape your bonds?"</p>
+
+<p>"The machine which held us so was broken," Travis replied with a portion
+of the truth, and Menlik sucked in his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"The machines, always the machines!" he cried hoarsely. "A thing which
+can sit in a man's head and make him do what it will against his will;
+it is demon sent! There are other machines to be broken, Apache."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Words will not break them," Travis pointed out.</p>
+
+<p>"Only a fool rides to his death without hope of striking a single blow
+before he chokes on the blood in his throat," Menlik retorted. "We
+cannot use bow or tulwar against weapons which flame and kill quicker
+than any storm lightning! And always the mind machines can make a man
+drop his knife and stand helplessly waiting for the slave collar to be
+set on his neck!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis asked a question of his own. "I know that they can bring a caller
+part way into this mountain, for this very day I saw its effect upon the
+maiden. But there are many places in the hills well set for ambushes,
+and those unaffected by the machine could be waiting there. Would there
+be many machines so that they could send out again and again?"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik's bony hand played with his wand. Then a slow smile curved his
+lips into the guise of a hunting cat's noiseless snarl.</p>
+
+<p>"There is meat in that pot, Apache, rich meat, good for the filling of a
+lean belly! So men whose minds the machine could not trouble&mdash;such men
+to be waiting in ambush for the taking of the men who use such a
+machine&mdash;yes. But here would have to be bait, very good bait for such a
+trap, Lord of Wiles. Never do those others come far into the mountains.
+Their flyer does not lift well here, and they do not trust traveling on
+horseback. They were greatly angered to come so far in to reach
+Kaydessa, though they could not have been too close, or you would not
+have escaped at all. Yes, strong bait."</p>
+
+<p>"Such bait as perhaps the knowledge that there were strangers across the
+mountains?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Menlik turned his wand about in his hands. He was no longer smiling, and
+his glance at Travis was sharp and swift.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you sit as Khan in your tribe, Lord?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sit as one they will listen to." Travis hoped that was so. Whether
+Buck and the moderates would hold clan leadership upon his return was a
+fact he could not count upon as certain.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a thing which we must hold council over," Menlik continued.
+"But it is an idea of power. Yes, one to think about, Lord. And I shall
+think...."</p>
+
+<p>He got up and moved away. Travis blinked at the fire. He was very tired,
+and he disliked sleeping in this camp. But he must not go without the
+rest his body needed to supply him with a clear head in the morning. And
+not showing uneasiness might be one way of winning Menlik's confidence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>9</h2>
+
+
+<p>Travis settled his back against the spire of rock and raised his right
+hand into the path of the sun, cradling in his palm a disk of glistening
+metal. Flash ... flash ... he made the signal pattern just as his
+ancestors a hundred years earlier and far across space had used trade
+mirrors to relay war alerts among the Chiricahua and White Mountain
+ranges. If Tsoay had returned safely, and if Buck had kept the agreed
+lookout on that peak a mile or so ahead, then the clan would know that
+he was coming and with what escort.</p>
+
+<p>He waited now, rubbing the small metal mirror absently on the loose
+sleeve of his shirt, waiting for a reply. Mirrors were best, not smoke
+fires which would broadcast too far the presence of men in the hills.
+Tsoay must have returned....</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that you do?"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik, his shaman's robe pulled up so that his breeches and boots were
+dark against the golden rock, climbed up beside the Apache. Menlik,
+Hulagur, and Kaydessa were riding with Travis, offering him one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+their small ponies to hurry the trip. He was still regarded warily by
+the Tatars, but he did not blame them for their cautious attitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;" A flicker of light from the point ahead. One ... two ... three
+flashes, a pause, then two more together. He had been read. Buck had
+dispatched scouts to meet them, and knowing his people's skill at the
+business, Travis was certain the Tatars would never suspect their
+flanking unless the Apaches purposefully revealed themselves. Also the
+Tatars were not to go to the rancheria, but would be met at a mid-point
+by a delegation of Apaches. This was no time for the Tatars to learn
+just how few the clan numbered.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik watched Travis flash an acknowledgment to the sentry ahead. "In
+this way you speak to your men?"</p>
+
+<p>"This way I speak."</p>
+
+<p>"A thing good and to be remembered. We have the drum, but that is for
+the ears of all with hearing. This is for the eyes only of those on
+watch for it. Yes, a good thing. And your people&mdash;they will meet with
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>"They wait ahead," Travis confirmed.</p>
+
+<p>It was close to midday and the heat, gathered in the rocky ways, was
+like a heaviness in the air itself. The Tatars had shucked their heavy
+jackets and rolled the fur brims of their hats far up their heads away
+from their sweat-beaded faces. And at every halt they passed from hand
+to hand the skin bag of kumiss.</p>
+
+<p>Now even the ponies shuffled on with drooping heads, picking a way in a
+cut which deepened into a canyon. Travis kept a watch for the scouts.
+And not for the first time he thought of the disappearance of the
+coyotes. Somehow, back in the Tatar camp, he had counted con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>fidently on
+the animals' rejoining him once he had started his return over the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>But he had seen nothing of either beast, nor had he felt that
+unexplainable mental contact with them which had been present since his
+first awakening on Topaz. Why they had left him so unceremoniously after
+defending him from the Mongol attack, and why they were keeping
+themselves aloof now, he did not know. But he was conscious of a thread
+of alarm for their continued absence, and he hoped he would find they
+had gone back to the rancheria.</p>
+
+<p>The ponies thudded dispiritedly along a sandy wash which bottomed the
+canyon. Here the heat became a leaden weight and the men were panting
+like four-footed beasts running before hunters. Finally Travis sighted
+what he had been seeking, a flicker of movement on the wall well above.
+He flung up his hand, pulling his mount to a stand. Apaches stood in
+full view, bows ready, arrows on cords. But they made no sound.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa cried out, booted her mount to draw equal with Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"A trap!" Her face, flushed with heat, was also stark with anger.</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled slowly. "Is there a rope about you, Wolf Daughter?" he
+inquired softly. "Are you now dragged across this sand?"</p>
+
+<p>Her mouth opened and then closed again. The quirt she had half raised to
+slash at him, flopped across her pony's neck.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache glanced back at the two men. Hulagur's hand was on his sword
+hilt, his eyes darting from one of those silent watchers to the next.
+But the utter hopeless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>ness of the Tatar position was too plain. Only
+Menlik made no move toward any weapon, even his spirit wand. Instead, he
+sat quietly in the saddle, displaying no emotion toward the Apaches save
+his usual self-confident detachment.</p>
+
+<p>"We go on." Travis pointed ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Just as suddenly as they had appeared from the heart of the golden
+cliffs, so did the scouts vanish. Most of them were already on their way
+to the point Buck had selected for the meeting place. There had been
+only six men up there, but the Tatars had no way of knowing just how
+large a portion of the whole clan that number was.</p>
+
+<p>Travis' pony lifted his head, nickered, and achieved a stumbling trot.
+Somewhere ahead was water, one of those oases of growth and life which
+pocked the whole mountain range&mdash;to the preservation of all animals and
+all men.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik and Hulagur pushed on until their mounts were hard on the heels
+of the two ridden by the girl and Travis. Travis wondered if they still
+waited for some arrow to strike home, though he saw that both men rode
+with outward disregard for the patrolling scouts.</p>
+
+<p>A grass-leaf bush beckoned them on and again the ponies quickened pace,
+coming out into a tributary canyon which housed a small pool and a good
+stand of grass and brush. To one side of the water Buck stood, his arms
+folded across his chest, armed only with his belt knife. Grouped behind
+him were Deklay, Tsoay, Nolan, Manulito&mdash;Travis tabulated hurriedly.
+Manulito and Deklay were to be classed together&mdash;or had been when he was
+last in the rancheria. On Buck's stairway<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> from the past, both had
+halted more than halfway down. Nolan was a quiet man who seldom spoke,
+and whose opinion Travis could not foretell. Tsoay would back Buck.</p>
+
+<p>Probably such a divided party was the best Travis could have hoped to
+gather. A delegation composed entirely of those who were ready to leave
+the past of the Redax&mdash;a collection of Bucks and Jil-Lees&mdash;was outside
+the bounds of possibility. But Travis was none too happy to have Deklay
+in on this.</p>
+
+<p>Travis dismounted, letting the pony push forward by himself to dip nose
+into the pool.</p>
+
+<p>"This is," Travis pointed politely with his chin&mdash;"Menlik, one who talks
+with spirits.... Hulagur, who is son to a chief ... and Kaydessa, who is
+daughter to a chief. They are of the horse people of the north." He made
+the introduction carefully in English.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned to the Tatars. "Buck, Deklay, Nolan, Manulito, Tsoay," he
+named them all, "these stand to listen, and to speak for the Apaches."</p>
+
+<p>But sometime later when the two parties sat facing each other, he
+wondered whether a common decision could come from the clansmen on his
+side of that irregular circle. Deklay's expression was closed; he had
+even edged a short way back, as if he had no desire to approach the
+strangers. And Travis read into every line of Deklay's body his distrust
+and antagonism.</p>
+
+<p>He himself began to speak, retelling his adventures since they had
+followed Kaydessa's trail, sketching in the situation at the
+Tatar-Mongol settlement as he had learned it from her and from Menlik.
+He was careful to speak in English so that the Tatars could hear all he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+was reporting to his own kind. And the Apaches listened blank-faced,
+though Tsoay must already have reported much of this. When Travis was
+done it was Deklay who asked a question:</p>
+
+<p>"What have we to do with these people?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is this&mdash;" Travis chose his words carefully, thinking of what
+might move a warrior still conditioned to riding with the raiders of a
+hundred years earlier, "the Pinda-lick-o-yi (whom we call 'Reds,') are
+never willing to live side by side with any who are not of their mind.
+And they have weapons such as make our bow cords bits of rotten string,
+our knives slivers of rust. They do not kill; they enslave. And when
+they discover that we live, then they will come against us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Deklay's lips moved in a wolf grin. "This is a large land, and we know
+how to use it. The Pinda-lick-o-yi will not find us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"With their eyes maybe not," Travis replied. "With their machines&mdash;that
+is another matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Machines!" Deklay spat. "Always these machines ... Is that all you can
+talk about? It would seem that you are bewitched by these machines,
+which we have not seen&mdash;none of us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a machine which brought you here," Buck observed. "Go you back
+and look upon the spaceship and remember, Deklay. The knowledge of the
+Pinda-lick-o-yi is greater than ours when it deals with metal and wire
+and things which can be made with both. Machines brought us along the
+road of the stars, and there is no tracker in the clan who could hope to
+do the same. But now I have this to ask: Does our brother have a plan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those who are Reds," Travis answered slowly, "they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> do not number many.
+But more may later come from our own world. Have you heard of such
+arriving?" he asked Menlik.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, but we are not told much. We live apart and no one of us goes
+to the ship unless he is summoned. For they have weapons to guard them,
+or long since they would have been dead. It is not proper for a man to
+eat from the pot, ride in the wind, sleep easy under the same sky with
+him who has slain his brother."</p>
+
+<p>"They have then killed among your people?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have killed," Menlik returned briefly.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa stirred and muttered a word or two to her brother. Hulagur's
+head came up, and he exploded into violent speech.</p>
+
+<p>"What does he say?" Deklay demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The girl replied: "He speaks of our father who aided in the escape of
+three and so afterward was slain by the leader as a lesson to us&mdash;since
+he was our 'white beard,' the Khan."</p>
+
+<p>"We have taken the oath in blood&mdash;under the Wolf Head Standard&mdash;that
+they will also die," Menlik added. "But first we must shake them out of
+their ship-shell."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the problem," Travis elaborated for the benefit of his
+clansmen. "We must get these Reds away from their protected camp&mdash;out
+into the open. When they now go they are covered by this 'caller' which
+keeps the Tatars under their control, but it has no effect on us."</p>
+
+<p>"So, again I say: What is all this to us?" Deklay got to his feet. "This
+machine does not hunt us, and we can make our camps in this land where
+no Pinda-lick-o-yi can find them&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We are not <i>dobe-gusndhe-he</i>&mdash;invulnerable. Nor do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> we know the full
+range of machines they can use. It does no one well to say
+'<i>doxa-da</i>'&mdash;this is not so&mdash;when he does not know all that lies in an
+enemy's wickiup."</p>
+
+<p>To Travis' relief he saw agreement mirrored on Buck's face, Tsoay's,
+Nolan's. From the beginning he had had little hope of swaying Deklay; he
+could only trust that the verdict of the majority would be the accepted
+one. It went back to the old, old Apache institution of prestige. A
+<i>nantan</i>-chief had the <i>go'ndi</i>, the high power, as a gift from birth.
+Common men could possess horse power or cattle power; they might have
+the gift of acquiring wealth so they could make generous gifts&mdash;be
+<i>ikadntl'izi</i>, the wealthy ones who spoke for their family groups within
+the loose network of the tribe. But there was no hereditary
+chieftainship or even an undivided rule within a rancheria. The
+<i>nagunlka-dnat'an</i>, or war chief, often led only on the warpath and had
+no voice in clan matters save those dealing with a raid.</p>
+
+<p>And to have a split now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklay
+and those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the rest
+could deny him that right.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall think on this," Buck said. "Here is food, water, pasturage for
+horses, a camp for our visitors. They will wait here." He looked at
+Travis. "You will wait with them, Fox, since you know their ways."</p>
+
+<p>Travis' immediate reaction was objection, but then he realized Buck's
+wisdom. To offer the proposition of alliance to the Apaches needed an
+impartial spokesman. And if he himself did it, Deklay might
+automatically oppose the idea. Let Buck talk and it would be a statement
+of fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is well," Travis agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Buck looked about, as if judging time from the lie of sun and shadow on
+the ground. "We shall return in the morning when the shadow lies here."
+With the toe of his high moccasin he made an impression in the soft
+earth. Then, without any formal farewell, he strode off, the others fast
+on his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"He is your chief, that one?" Kaydessa asked, pointing after Buck.</p>
+
+<p>"He is one having a large voice in council," Travis replied. He set
+about building up the cooking fire, bringing out the body of a
+split-horn calf which had been left them. Menlik sat on his heels by the
+pool, dipping up drinking water with his hand. Now he squinted his eyes
+against the probe of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"It will require much talking to win over the short one," he observed.
+"That one does not like us or your plan. Just as there will be those
+among the Horde who will not like it either." He flipped water drops
+from his fingers. "But this I do know, man who calls himself Fox, if we
+do not make a common cause, then we have no hope of going against the
+Reds. It will be for them as a man crushing fleas." He brought his hand
+down on his knee in emphatic slaps. "So ... and so ... and so!"</p>
+
+<p>"This do I think also," Travis admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"So let us both hope that all men will be as wise as we," Menlik said,
+smiling. "And since we can take a hand in that decision, this remains a
+time for rest."</p>
+
+<p>The shaman might be content to sleep the afternoon away, but after he
+had eaten, Hulagur wandered up and down the valley, making a lengthy
+business of rubbing down their horses with twists of last season's
+grass. Now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> and then he paused beside Kaydessa and spoke, his uneasiness
+plain to Travis although he could not understand the words.</p>
+
+<p>Travis had settled down in the shade, half dozing, yet alert to every
+movement of the three Tatars. He tried not to think of what might be
+happening in the rancheria by switching his mind to that misty valley of
+the towers. Did any of those three alien structures contain such a grab
+bag of the past as he, Ashe, and Murdock had found on that other world
+where the winged people had gathered together for them the artifacts of
+an older civilization? At that time he had created for their hosts a new
+weapon of defense, turning metal tubes into blow-guns. It had been
+there, too, where he had chanced upon the library of tapes, one of which
+had eventually landed Travis and his people here on Topaz.</p>
+
+<p>Even if he did find racks of such tapes in one of those towers, there
+would be no way of using them&mdash;with the ship wrecked on the mountain
+side. Only&mdash;Travis' fingers itched where they lay quiet on his
+knees&mdash;there might be other things waiting. If he were only free to
+explore!</p>
+
+<p>He reached out to touch Menlik's shoulder. The shaman half turned,
+opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the spark
+of intelligence awoke in them quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Travis hesitated, already regretting his impulse. He did
+not know how much Menlik remembered of the present. Remember of the
+present&mdash;one part of the Apache's mind was wryly amused at that snarled
+estimate of their situation. Men who had been dropped into their racial
+and ancestral pasts until the present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> time was less real than the
+dreams conditioning them had a difficult job evaluating any situation.
+But since Menlik had clung to his knowledge of English, he must be less
+far down that stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"When we met you, Kaydessa and I, it was outside that valley." Travis
+was still of two minds about this questioning, but the Tatar camp had
+been close to the towers and there was a good chance the Mongols had
+explored them. "And inside were buildings ... very old...."</p>
+
+<p>Menlik was fully alert now. He took his wand, played with it as he
+spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"That is, or was, a place of much power, Fox. Oh, I know that you
+question my kinship with the spirits and the powers they give. But one
+learns not to dispute what one feels here&mdash;and here&mdash;" His long,
+somewhat grimy fingers went to his forehead and then to the bare brown
+chest where his shirt fell open. "I have walked the stone path in that
+valley, and there have been the whispers&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Whispers?"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik twirled the wand. "Whispers which are too low for many ears to
+distinguish. You can hear them as one hears the buzzing of an insect,
+but never the words&mdash;no, never the words! But that is a place of great
+power!"</p>
+
+<p>"A place to explore!"</p>
+
+<p>But Menlik watched only his wand. "That I wonder, Fox, truly do I
+wonder. This is not our world. And here there may be that which does not
+welcome us."</p>
+
+<p>Tricks-in-trade of a shaman? Or was it true recognition of something
+beyond human description? Travis could not be sure, but he knew that he
+must return to the valley and see for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," Menlik said, leaning closer, "I have heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> your tale, that
+you were on that first ship, the one which brought you unwilling along
+the old star paths. Have you ever seen such a thing as this?"</p>
+
+<p>He smoothed a space of soft earth and with the narrow tip of his wand
+began to draw. Whatever role Menlik had played in the present before he
+had been reconditioned into a shaman of the Horde, he had had the
+ability of an artist, for with a minimum of lines he created a figure in
+that sketch.</p>
+
+<p>It was a man or at least a figure with general human outlines. But the
+round, slightly oversized skull was bare, the clothing skintight to
+reveal unnaturally thin limbs. There were large eyes, small nose and
+mouth, rather crowded into the lower third of the head, giving an
+impression of an over-expanded brain case above. And it was familiar.</p>
+
+<p>Not the flying men of the other world, certainly not the nocturnal
+ape-things. Yet for all its alien quality Travis was sure he had seen
+its like before. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it apart from
+lines in the soil.</p>
+
+<p>Such a head, white, almost like the bone of a skull laid bare, such a
+head lying face down on a bone-thin arm clad in a blue-purple skintight
+sleeve. Where had he seen it?</p>
+
+<p>The Apache gave a sharp exclamation as he remembered fully. The derelict
+spaceship as he had first found it&mdash;the dead alien officer had still
+been seated at its controls! The alien who had set the tape which took
+them out into that forgotten empire&mdash;he was the subject of Menlik's
+drawing!</p>
+
+<p>"Where? When did you see such a one?" The Apache bent down over the
+Tatar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Menlik looked troubled. "He came into my mind when I walked the valley.
+I thought I could almost see such a face in one of the tower windows,
+but of that I am not sure. Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Someone from the old days&mdash;those who once ruled the stars," Travis
+answered. But were they still here then, the remnant of a civilization
+which had flourished ten thousand years ago? Were the Baldies, who
+centuries ago had hunted down so ruthlessly the Russians who had dared
+to loot their wrecked ships, still on Topaz?</p>
+
+<p>He remembered the story of Ross Murdock's escape from those aliens in
+the far past of Europe, and he shivered. Murdock was tough, steel tough,
+yet his own description of that epic chase and the final meeting had
+carried with it his terror. What could a handful of primitively armed
+and almost primitively minded Terrans do now if they had to dispute
+Topaz with the Baldies?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>10</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Beyond this&mdash;" Menlik worked his way to the very lip of a drop, raising
+a finger cautiously&mdash;"beyond this we do not go."</p>
+
+<p>"But you say that the camp of your people lies well out in the plains&mdash;"
+Jil-Lee was up on one knee, using the field glasses they had brought
+from the stores of the wrecked ship. He passed them along to Travis.
+There was nothing to be sighted but the rippling amber waves of the tall
+grasses, save for an occasional break of a copse of trees near the
+foothills.</p>
+
+<p>They had reached this point in the early morning, threading through the
+pass, making their way across the section known to the outlaws. From
+here they could survey the debatable land where their temporary allies
+insisted the Reds were in full control.</p>
+
+<p>The result of the conference in the south had been this uneasy alliance.
+From the start Travis realized that he could not hope to commit the clan
+to any set plan, that even to get this scouting party to come against
+the stubborn resistance of Deklay and his reactionaries was a major
+achievement. There was now an opening wedge of six Apaches in the
+north.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Beyond this," Menlik repeated, "they keep watch and can control us with
+the caller."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think?" Travis passed the glasses to Nolan.</p>
+
+<p>If they were ever to develop a war chief, this lean man, tall for an
+Apache and slow to speak, might fill that role. He adjusted the lenses
+and began a detailed study-sweep of the open territory. Then he
+stiffened; his mouth, below the masking of the glasses, was tight.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" Jil-Lee asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Riders&mdash;two ... four ... five.... Also something else&mdash;in the air."</p>
+
+<p>Menlik jerked back and grabbed at Nolan's arm, dragging him down by the
+weight of his body.</p>
+
+<p>"The flyer! Come back&mdash;back!" He was still pulling at Nolan, prodding at
+Travis with one foot, and the Apaches stared at him with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>The shaman sputtered in his own language, and then, visibly regaining
+command of himself, spoke English once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are hunters, and they carry a caller. Either some others have
+escaped or they are determined to find our mountain camp."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee looked at Travis. "You did not feel anything when the woman was
+under that spell?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis shook his head. Jil-Lee nodded and then said to the shaman: "We
+shall stay here and watch. But since it is bad for you&mdash;do you go. And
+we shall meet you near this place of the towers. Agreed?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Menlik's face held a shadowy expression Travis tried to
+read. Was it resentment&mdash;resentment that he was forced to retreat when
+the others could stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> their ground? Did the Tatar believe that he lost
+face this way? But the shaman gave a grunt of what they took as assent
+and slipped over the edge of the lookout point. A moment later they
+heard him speaking the Mongol tongue, warning Hulagur and Lotchu, his
+companions on the scout. Then came the clatter of pony hoofs as they
+rode their mounts away.</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches settled back in the cup, which gave them a wide view over
+the plains. Soon it was not necessary to use the glasses in order to
+sight the advancing party of hunters&mdash;five riders, four wearing Tatar
+dress. The fifth had such an odd outline that Travis was reminded of
+Menlik's sketch of the alien. Under the sharper vision of the glasses he
+saw that the rider was equipped with a pack strapped between his
+shoulders and a bulbous helmet covering most of his head. Highly
+specialized equipment for communication, Travis guessed.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a 'copter up above," Nolan said. "Different shape from ours."</p>
+
+<p>They had been familiar with helicopters back on Terra. Ranchers used
+them for range inspection, and all of the Apache volunteers had flown in
+them. But Nolan was correct; this one possessed several unfamiliar
+features.</p>
+
+<p>"The Tatars say they don't bring those very far into the mountains,"
+Jil-Lee mused. "That could explain their man on horseback; he gets in
+where they don't fly."</p>
+
+<p>Nolan fingered his bow. "If these Reds depend upon their machine to
+control what they seek, then they may be taken by surprise&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But not yet!" Travis spoke sharply. Nolan frowned at him.</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee chuckled. "The way is not so dark for us,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> younger brother, that
+we need your torch held for our feet!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis swallowed back any retort, accepting the fairness of that rebuke.
+He had no right to believe that he alone knew the best way of handling
+the enemy. Biting on the sourness of that realization, he lay quietly
+with the others, watching the riders enter the foothills perhaps a
+quarter of a mile to the west.</p>
+
+<p>The helicopter was circling now over the men riding into a cut between
+two rises. When they were lost to view, the pilot made wider casts, and
+Travis thought the flyer's crew were probably in communication with the
+helmeted one of the quintet on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>He stirred. "They are heading for the Tatar camp, just as if they know
+exactly where it is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That also may be true," Nolan replied. "What do we know of these
+Tatars? They have freely said that the Reds can hold them in mind ropes
+when they wish. Already they may be so bound. I say&mdash;let us go back to
+our own country." He added to the decisiveness of that by handing
+Jil-Lee the glasses and sliding down from their perch.</p>
+
+<p>Travis looked at the other. In a way he could understand the wisdom of
+Nolan's suggestion. But he was sure that withdrawal now would only
+postpone trouble. Sooner or later the Apaches would have to stand
+against the Reds, and if they could do it now while the enemy was
+occupied with trouble from the Tatars, so much the better.</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee was following Nolan. But something in Travis rebelled. He
+watched the circling helicopter. If it was overhanging the action area
+of the horsemen, they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> either reined in or were searching a
+relatively small section of the foothills.</p>
+
+<p>Reluctantly Travis descended to the hollow where Jil-Lee stood with
+Nolan. Tsoay and Lupe and Rope were a little to one side as if the final
+orders would come from their seniors.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be well," Jil-Lee said slowly, "if we saw what weapons they
+have. I want a closer look at the equipment of that one in the helmet.
+Also," he smiled straight at Nolan&mdash;"I do not think that they can detect
+the presence of warriors of the People unless we will it so."</p>
+
+<p>Nolan ran a finger along the curve of his bow, shot a measuring glance
+right and left at the general contours of the country.</p>
+
+<p>"There is wisdom in what you say, elder brother. Only this is a trail we
+shall take alone, not allowing the men with fur hats to know where we
+walk." He looked pointedly in Travis' direction.</p>
+
+<p>"That is wisdom, <i>Ba'is'a</i>," Travis promptly replied, giving Nolan the
+old title accorded the leader of a war party. Travis was grateful for
+that much of a concession.</p>
+
+<p>They swung into action, heading southeast at an angle which should bring
+them across the track of the enemy hunting party. The path was theirs at
+last, only moments after the passing of their quarry. None of the five
+riders was taking any precautions to cover his trail. Each moved with
+the confidence of one not having to fear any attack.</p>
+
+<p>From cover the Apaches looked aloft. They could hear the faint hum of
+the helicopter. It was still circling, Tsoay reported from a higher
+check point, but those circles remained close over the plains area&mdash;the
+riders had already passed beyond the limits of that aerial sentry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Three to a side, the Apaches advanced with the trail between them. They
+were carefully hidden when they caught up with the hunters. The four
+Tatars were grouped together; the fifth man, heavily burdened by his
+pack, had climbed from the saddle and was sitting on the ground, his
+hands busy with a flat plate which covered him from upper chest to belt.</p>
+
+<p>Now that he had a chance to see them closely, Travis noted the lack of
+expression on the broad Tatar faces. The four men were blank of eye,
+astride their mounts with no apparent awareness of their present
+surroundings. Then as one, their heads swung around to the helmeted
+leader before they dismounted and stood motionless for a long moment in
+a way which reminded Travis of the coyotes' attitude when they
+endeavored to pass some message to him. But these men even lacked the
+signs of thinking intelligence the animals had.</p>
+
+<p>The helmeted man's hand moved across his chest plate, and instantly his
+followers came into a measure of life. One put his hand to his forehead
+with an odd, half-dazed gesture. Another half crouched, his lips
+wrinkling back in a snarl. And the leader, watching him, laughed. Then
+he snapped an order, his hand poised over his control plate.</p>
+
+<p>One of the four took the horse reins, made the mounts fast to near-by
+bushes. Then as one they began to walk forward, the Red bringing up the
+rear several paces behind the nearest Tatar. They were going upslope to
+the crest of a small ridge.</p>
+
+<p>The Tatar who first reached the crest put his hands to cup his mouth,
+sent a ringing cry southward, and the faint "hu-hu-hu" echoed on and on
+through the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Either Menlik had reached the camp in time, or his people were not to be
+so easily enticed. For though the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> hunters waited for a long time, there
+was no answer to that hail. At last the helmeted man called his
+captives, bringing them sullenly down to mount and ride again&mdash;a move
+which suited the Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>They could not tell how close was the communication between the rider
+and the helicopter. And they were still too near the plains to attack
+unless it was necessary for their own protection. Travis dropped back to
+join Nolan.</p>
+
+<p>"He controls them by that plate on his chest," he said. "If we would
+take them, we must get at that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"These Tatars use lariats in fighting. Did they not rope you as a calf
+is roped for branding? Then why do they not so take this Red, binding
+his arms to his sides?" The suspicion in Nolan's voice was plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps in them is some conditioned control making it so that they
+cannot attack their rulers&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like this matter of machines which can play this way and that
+with minds and bodies!" flared Nolan. "A man should only <i>use</i> a weapon,
+not be one!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis could agree to that. Had they by the wreck of their own ship and
+the death of Ruthven, escaped just such an existence as these Tatars now
+endured? If so, why? He and all the Apaches were volunteers, eager and
+willing to form new world colonies. What had happened back on Terra that
+they had been so ruthlessly sent out without warning and under Redax?
+Another small piece of that puzzle, or maybe the heart of the whole
+picture snapped into place. Had the project learned in some way of the
+Tatar settlement on Topaz and so been forced to speed up that
+translation from late twentieth-century Americans to primitives? That
+would explain a lot!</p>
+
+<p>Travis returned abruptly to the matter now at hand as he saw a peak
+ahead. The party they were trailing was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> heading directly for the outlaw
+hide-out. Travis hoped Menlik had warned them in time. There&mdash;that wall
+of cliff to his left must shelter the valley of the towers, though it
+was still miles ahead. Travis did not believe the hunters would be able
+to reach their goal unless they traveled at night. They might not know
+of the ape-things which could menace the dark.</p>
+
+<p>But the enemy, whether he knew of such dangers or not, did not intend to
+press on. As the sun pulled away, leaving crevices and crannies shadow
+dark, the hunters stopped to make camp. The Apaches, after their custom
+on the war trail, gathered on the heights above.</p>
+
+<p>"This Red seems to think that he shall find those he seeks sitting
+waiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoay
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe they
+are greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking into
+the arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"A man with a rifle does not fear a man armed only with a stick," Travis
+cut in quickly. "This one is armed with a weapon which he has good
+reason to believe makes him invulnerable to attack. If he rests tonight,
+he probably leaves his machine on guard."</p>
+
+<p>"At least we are sure of one thing," Nolan said in half agreement. "This
+one does not suspect that there are any in these hills save those he can
+master. And his machine does not work against us. Thus at dawn&mdash;" He
+made a swift gesture, and they smiled in concert.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn&mdash;the old time of attack. An Apache does not attack at night.
+Travis was not sure that any of them could break that old taboo and
+creep down upon the camp before the coming of new light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But tomorrow morning they would take over this confident Red, strip him
+of his enslaving machine.</p>
+
+<p>Travis' head jerked. It had come as suddenly as a blow between his
+eyes&mdash;to half stun him. What ... what was it? Not any physical
+impact&mdash;no, something which was dazing but still immaterial. He braced
+his whole body, awaiting its return, trying frantically to understand
+what had happened in that instant of vertigo and seeming disembodiment.
+Never had he experienced anything like it&mdash;or had he? Two years or more
+ago when he had gone through the time transfer to enter the Arizona of
+the Folsom Men some ten thousand years earlier&mdash;that moment of transfer
+had been something like this, a sensation of being awry in space and
+time with no stable footing to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he was lying here on very tangible rock and soil, and nothing about
+him in the shadow-hung landscape of Topaz had changed in the slightest.
+But that blow had left behind it a quivering residue of panic buried far
+inside him, a tender spot like an open wound.</p>
+
+<p>Travis drew a deep breath which was almost a sob, levered himself up on
+one elbow to stare intently down into the enemy camp. Was this some
+attack from the other's unknown weapon? Suddenly he was not at all sure
+what might happen when the Apaches made that dawn rush.</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee was in station on his right. Travis must compare notes with him
+to be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now than
+to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the
+chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in
+a cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you feel something just now&mdash;in your head?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> Travis found it
+difficult to put that sensation into words.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so. But you did?"</p>
+
+<p>He had&mdash;of course, he had! The remains of it were still in him, that
+point of panic. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"The machine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know." Travis' confusion grew. It might be that he alone of the
+party had been struck. If so, he could be a danger to his own kind.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not good. I think we had better hold council, away from here."
+Jil-Lee's whisper was the merest ghost of sound. He chirped again to be
+answered from Tsoay upslope, who passed on the signal.</p>
+
+<p>The first moon was high in the sky as the Apaches gathered together.
+Again Travis asked his question: Had any of the others felt that odd
+blow? He was met by negatives.</p>
+
+<p>But Nolan had the final word: "This is not good," he echoed Jil-Lee's
+comment. "If it was the Red machine at work, then we may all be swept
+into his net along with those he seeks. Perhaps the longer one remains
+close to that thing, the more influence it gains over him. We shall stay
+here until dawn. If the enemy would reach the place they seek, then they
+must pass below us, for that is the easiest road. Burdened with his
+machine, that Red has ever taken the easiest way. So, we shall see if he
+also has a defense against these when they come without warning." He
+touched the arrows in his quiver.</p>
+
+<p>To kill from ambush meant that they might never learn the secret of the
+machine, but after his experience Travis was willing to admit that
+Nolan's caution was the wise way. Travis wanted no part of a second
+attack like that which had shaken him so. And Nolan had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> ordered a
+general retreat. It must be in the war chief's thoughts as it was in
+Travis' that if the machine could have an influence over Apaches, it
+must cease to function.</p>
+
+<p>They set their ambush with the age-old skill the Redax had grafted into
+their memories. Then there was nothing to do but wait.</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour after dawn when Tsoay signaled that the enemy was coming,
+and shortly after, they heard the thud of ponies' hoofs. The first Tatar
+plodded into view, and by the stance of his body in the saddle, Travis
+knew the Red had him under full control. Two, then three Tatars passed
+between the teeth of the Apache trap. The fourth one had allowed a wider
+gap to open between himself and his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Red leader came. His face below the bulge of the helmet was not
+happy. Travis believed the man was not a horseman by inclination. The
+Apache set arrow to bow cord, and at the chirp from Nolan, fired in
+concert with his clansmen.</p>
+
+<p>Only one of those arrows found a target. The Red's pony gave a shrill
+scream of pain and terror, reared, pawing at the air, toppled back,
+pinning its shouting rider under it.</p>
+
+<p>The Red had had a defense right enough, one which had somehow deflected
+the arrows. But he neither had protection against his own awkward seat
+in the saddle nor the arrow which had seriously wounded the now
+threshing pony.</p>
+
+<p>Ahead the Tatars twisted and writhed, mouthed tortured cries, then
+dropped out of their saddles to lie limply on the ground as if the
+arrows aimed at the master had instead struck each to the heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>11</h2>
+
+
+<p>Either the Red was lucky, or his reactions were quick. He had somehow
+rolled clear of the struggling horse as Lupe leaped from behind a
+boulder, knife out and ready. To the eyes of the Apaches the helmeted
+man lay easy prey to Lupe's attack. Nor did he raise an arm to defend
+himself, though one hand lay free across the plate on his chest.</p>
+
+<p>But the young Apache stumbled, rebounding back as if he had run into an
+unseen wall&mdash;when his knife was still six inches away from the other.
+Lupe cried out, shook under a second impact as the Red fired an
+automatic with his other hand.</p>
+
+<p>Travis dropped his bow, returned to the most primitive weapon of all.
+His hand closed around a stone and he hurled the fist-sized oval
+straight at the helmet so clearly outlined against the rocks below.</p>
+
+<p>But even as Lupe's knife had never touched flesh, so was the rock
+deflected; the Red was covered by some protective field. This was
+certainly nothing the Apaches had seen before. Nolan's whistle summoned
+them to draw back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Red fired again, the sharp bark of the hand gun harsh and loud. He
+did not have any real target, for with the exception of Lupe the Apaches
+had gone to earth. Between the rocks the Red was struggling to his feet,
+but he moved slowly, favoring his side and one leg; he had not come
+totally unharmed from his tumble with the pony.</p>
+
+<p>An armed enemy who could not be touched&mdash;one who knew there were more
+than outlaws in this region. The Red leader was far more of a threat to
+the Apaches now than he had ever been. He must not be allowed to escape.</p>
+
+<p>He was holstering his gun, moving along with one hand against the rocks
+to steady himself, trying to reach one of the ponies that stood with
+trailing reins beside the inert Tatars.</p>
+
+<p>But when the enemy reached the far side of that rock he would have to
+sacrifice either his steadying hold, or his touch on the chest plate
+where his other hand rested. Would he, then, for an instant be
+vulnerable?</p>
+
+<p>The pony!</p>
+
+<p>Travis put an arrow on bow cord and shot. Not at the Red, who had
+released his hold of the rock, preferring to totter instead of lose
+control of the chest plate&mdash;but into the air straight before the nose of
+the mount.</p>
+
+<p>The pony neighed wildly, tried to turn, and its shoulder caught the
+free, groping hand of the Red and spun the man around and back, so that
+he flung up both hands in an effort to ward himself off the rocks. Then
+the pony stampeded down the break, its companions catching the same
+fever, trailing in a mad dash which kept the Red hard against the
+boulders.</p>
+
+<p>He continued to stand there until the horses, save<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> for the wounded one
+still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve.
+They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two
+strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the Apaches could
+handle.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently the other was also aware of that, for now he pushed out from
+the rocks and stumbled along after the ponies. But he went only a step
+or two. Then, settling back once more against a convenient boulder, he
+began to work at the plate on his chest.</p>
+
+<p>Nolan appeared noiselessly beside Travis. "What does he do?" His lips
+were very close to the younger man's ear, his voice hardly more than a
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>Travis shook his head slightly. The Red's actions were a complete
+mystery. Unless, now disabled and afoot, he was trying to summon aid.
+Though there was no landing place for a helicopter here.</p>
+
+<p>Now was the time to try and reach Lupe. Travis had seen a slight
+movement in the fallen Apache's hand, the first indication that the
+enemy's shot had not been as fatal as it had looked. He touched Nolan's
+arm, pointed to Lupe; and then, discarding his bow and quiver beside the
+war leader, he stripped for action. There was cover down to the wounded
+Apache which would aid him. He must pass one of the Tatars on the way,
+but none of the tribesmen had shown any signs of life since they had
+fallen from their saddles at the first attack.</p>
+
+<p>With infinite care, Travis lowered himself into a narrow passage, took a
+lizard's way between brush and boulder, pausing only when he reached the
+Tatar for a quick check on the potential enemy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The lean brown face was half turned, one cheek in the sand, but the
+slack mouth, the closed eyes were those, Travis believed, of a dead man.
+By some action of his diabolic machine the Red must have snuffed out his
+four captives&mdash;perhaps in the belief that they were part of the Apache
+attack.</p>
+
+<p>Travis reached the rock where Lupe lay. He knew that Nolan was watching
+the Red and would give him warning if he suddenly showed an interest in
+anything but his machine. The Apache reached out, his hands closing on
+Lupe's ankles. Beneath his touch, flesh and muscle tensed. Lupe's eyes
+were open, focused now on Travis. There was a bleeding furrow above his
+right ear. The Red had tried a difficult head shot, failing in his aim
+by a mere fraction of an inch.</p>
+
+<p>Lupe made a swift move for which Travis was ready. His grip on the
+other's body helped to tumble them both around a rock which lay between
+them and the Red. There was the crack of another shot and dust spurted
+from the side of the boulder. But they lay together, safe for the
+present, as Travis was sure the enemy would not risk an open attack on
+their small fortress.</p>
+
+<p>With Travis' aid Lupe struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited.
+Jil-Lee was there to make competent examination of the boy's wound.</p>
+
+<p>"Creased," he reported. "A sore head, but no great damage. Perhaps a
+scar later, warrior!" He gave Lupe an encouraging thump on the shoulder,
+before plastering an aid pack over the cut.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we go!" Nolan spoke with emphatic decision.</p>
+
+<p>"He saw enough of us to know we are not Tatars."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nolan's eyes were cold, his mouth grim as he faced Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"And how can we fight him&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is a wall&mdash;a wall you cannot see&mdash;about him," Lupe broke in.
+"When I would strike at him, I could not!"</p>
+
+<p>"A man with invisible protection and a gun," Jil-Lee took up the
+argument. "How would you deal with him, younger brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Travis admitted. Yet he also believed that if they
+withdrew, left the Red here to be found by his own people, the enemy
+would immediately begin an investigation of the southern country.
+Perhaps, pushed by their need for learning more about the Apaches, they
+would bring the helicopter in over the mountains. The answer to all
+Apache dangers, for now, lay in the immediate future of this one man.</p>
+
+<p>"He is hurt, he cannot go far on foot. And even if he calls the 'copter,
+there is no landing place. He will have to move elsewhere to be picked
+up." Travis thought aloud, citing the thin handful of points in their
+favor.</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay nodded toward the rim of the ravine. "Rocks up there and rocks can
+roll. Start an earthslide...."</p>
+
+<p>Something within Travis balked at that. From the first he had been
+willing enough to slug it out with the Red, weapon to weapon, man to
+man. Also, he had wanted to take a captive, not stand over a body. But
+to use the nature of the country against the enemy, that was the oldest
+Apache trick of all and one they would have to be forced to employ.</p>
+
+<p>Nolan had already nodded in assent, and Tsoay and Jil-Lee started off.
+Even if the Red did possess a protec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>tive wall device, could it operate
+in full against a landslide? They all doubted that.</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches reached the cliff rim without exposing themselves to the
+enemy's fire. The Red still sat there calmly, his back against the rock,
+his hands busy with his equipment as if he had all the time in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly came a scream from more than one throat.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dar-u-gar</i>!" The ancient war cry of the Mongol Hordes.</p>
+
+<p>Then over the lip of the other slope rose a wave of men&mdash;their curved
+swords out, a glazed set to their eyes&mdash;heading for the Amerindians with
+utter disregard for any personal safety. Menlik in the lead, his
+shaman's robe flapping wide below his belt like the wings of some
+oversized predatory bird. Hulagur ... Jagatai ... men from the outlaws'
+camp. And they were not striving to destroy their disabled overlord in
+the vale below, but to wipe out the Apaches!</p>
+
+<p>Only the fact that the Apaches were already sheltered behind the rocks
+they were laboring to dislodge gave them a precious few moments of
+grace. There was no time to use their bows. They could only use knives
+to meet the swords of the Tatars, knives and the fact that they could
+fight with unclouded minds.</p>
+
+<p>"He has them under control!" Travis pawed at Jil-Lee's shoulder. "Get
+him&mdash;they'll stop!"</p>
+
+<p>He did not wait to see if the other Apache understood. Instead, he threw
+the full force of his own body against the rock they had made the center
+stone of their slide. It gave, rolled, carrying with it and before it
+the rest of the piled rubble. Travis stumbled, fell flat, and then a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+body thudded down upon him, and he was fighting for his life to keep a
+blade from his throat. Around him were the shouts and cries of embroiled
+warriors; then all was silenced by a roar from below.</p>
+
+<p>Glazed eyes in a face only a foot from his own, the twisted, panting
+mouth sending gusts of breath into his nostrils. Suddenly there was
+reason back in those eyes, a bewilderment, which became fear ...
+panic.... The Tatar's body twisted in Travis' hold, striving now not to
+attack, but to win free. As the Apache loosened his grip the other
+jerked away, so that for a moment or two they lay gasping, side by side.</p>
+
+<p>Men sat up to look at men. There was a spreading stain down Jil-Lee's
+side and one of the Tatars sprawled near him, both his hands on his
+chest, coughing violently.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik clawed at the trunk of a wind-twisted mountain tree, pulled
+himself to his feet, and stood swaying as might a man long ill and
+recovering from severe exertion.</p>
+
+<p>Insensibly both sides drew apart, leaving a space between Tatar and
+Apache. The faces of the Amerindians were grim, those of the Mongols
+bewildered and then harsh as they eyed their late opponents with dawning
+reason. What had begun in compulsion for the Tatars might well flare now
+into rational combat&mdash;and from that to a campaign of extermination.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was on his feet. He looked over the lip of the drop. The Red was
+still in his place down there, a pile of rubble about him. His
+protection must have failed, for his head was back at an unnatural angle
+and the dent in his helmet could be easily seen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That one is dead&mdash;or helpless!" Travis cried out. "Do you still wish to
+fight for him, Shaman?"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik came away from the tree and walked to the edge of the drop. The
+others, too, were moving forward. After the shaman looked down he
+stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it at the motionless Red.
+There was a crack of sound. They all saw the tiny spurt of flame, a curl
+of smoke from the plate on the Red's chest. Not only the man, but his
+control was finished now.</p>
+
+<p>A wolfish growl and two of the Tatars swung over, started down to the
+Red. Menlik shouted and they slackened pace.</p>
+
+<p>"We want that," he cried in English. "Perhaps so we can learn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The learning is yours," Jil-Lee replied. "Just as this land is yours,
+Shaman. But I warn you, from this day do not ride south!"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik turned, the charms on his belt clicking. "So that is the way it
+is to be, Apache?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the way it shall be, Tatar! We do not ride to war with allies
+who may turn their knives against our backs because they are slaves to a
+machine the enemy controls."</p>
+
+<p>The Tatar's long, slender-fingered hands opened and closed. "You are a
+wise man, Apache, but sometimes more than wisdom alone is needed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We are wise men, Shaman, let it rest there," Jil-Lee replied somberly.</p>
+
+<p>Already the Apaches were on their way, putting two cliff ridges behind
+them before they halted to examine and cover their wounds.</p>
+
+<p>"We go." Nolan's chin lifted, indicating the southern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> route. "Here we
+do not come again; there is too much witchcraft in this place."</p>
+
+<p>Travis stirred, saw that Jil-Lee was frowning at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Go&mdash;?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, younger brother? You would continue to run with these who are
+governed by a machine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Only, eyes are needed on this side of the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" This time Jil-Lee was plainly on the side of the conservatives.
+"We have now seen this machine at work. It is fortunate that the Red is
+dead. He will carry no tales of us back to his people as you feared.
+Thus, if we remain south from now on, we are safe. And this fight
+between Tatar and Red is none of ours. What do you seek here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must go again to the place of the towers," Travis answered with the
+truth. But his friends were facing him with heavy disapproval&mdash;now a
+full row of Deklays.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not tell us that you felt this strange thing during the night
+we waited about the camp? What if you become one with these Tatars and
+are also controlled by the machine? Then you, too, can be made into a
+weapon against us&mdash;your clansmen!" Jil-Lee was almost openly hostile.</p>
+
+<p>Sense was on his side. But in Travis was this other desire of which he
+was becoming more conscious by the minute. There was a reason for those
+towers, perhaps a reason important enough for him to discover and run
+the risk of angering his own people.</p>
+
+<p>"There may be this&mdash;" Nolan's voice was remote and cold, "you may
+already be a piece of this thing, bound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> to the machines. If so, we do
+not want you among us."</p>
+
+<p>There it was&mdash;an open hostility with more power behind it than Deklay's
+motiveless disapproval had carried. Travis was troubled. The family, the
+clan&mdash;they were important. If he took the wrong step now and was
+outlawed from that tight fortress, then as an Apache he would indeed be
+a lost man. In the past of his people there had been renegades from the
+tribe&mdash;men such as the infamous Apache Kid who had killed and killed
+again, not only white men but his own people. Wolf men living wolves'
+lives in the hills. Travis was threatened with that. Yet&mdash;up the ladder
+of civilization, down the ladder&mdash;why did this feverish curiosity ride
+him so cruelly now?</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," Jil-Lee, his side padded with bandages, stepped closer&mdash;"and
+tell me, younger brother, what is it that you seek in these towers?"</p>
+
+<p>"On another world there were secrets of the old ones to be found in such
+ancient buildings. Here that might also be true."</p>
+
+<p>"And among the secrets of those old ones," Nolan's voice was still
+harsh&mdash;"were those which brought us to this world, is that not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did any man drive you, Nolan, or you, Tsoay, or you, Jil-Lee, or any of
+us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done,
+and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers!"</p>
+
+<p>"Save for this voyage when we were told nothing," Jil-Lee answered,
+cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Yet, Nolan, I do not
+believe that it is for more voyage tapes that our younger brother now
+searches,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> nor would those do us any good&mdash;as our ship will not rise
+again from here. What is it that you do seek?"</p>
+
+<p>"Knowledge&mdash;weapons, maybe. Can we stand against these machines of the
+Reds? Yet many of the devices they now use are taken from the star ships
+they have looted through time. To every weapon there is a defense."</p>
+
+<p>Nolan blinked and for the first time a hint of interest touched the mask
+of his face. "To the bow, the rifle," he said softly, "to the rifle, the
+machine gun, to the cannon, the big bomb. The defense can be far worse
+than the first weapon. So you think that in these towers there may be
+things which shall be to the Reds' machines as the bomb is to the cannon
+of the Horse Soldiers?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis had an inspiration. "Did not our people lay aside the bow for the
+rifle when we went up against the Bluecoats?"</p>
+
+<p>"We do not so go up against these Reds!" protested Lupe.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now. But what if they come across the mountains, perhaps driving
+the Tatars before them to do their fighting&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"And you believe that if you find weapons in these towers, you will know
+how to use them?" Jil-Lee asked. "What will give you that knowledge,
+younger brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not claim such knowledge," Travis countered. "But this much I do
+have: Once I studied to be an archaeologist and I have seen other
+storehouses of these star people. Who else among us can say as much as
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the truth," Jil-Lee acknowledged. "Also there is good sense in
+this seeking out of the tower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> things. Let the Reds find such first&mdash;if
+they exist at all&mdash;and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with
+only death at our heels."</p>
+
+<p>"And you would go to these towers now?" Nolan demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the
+pass!" The feeling of urgency which had been mounting in Travis was now
+so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was
+surprised when Jil-Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, younger brother! This is not a lucky business. And remember,
+if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no
+returning&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall wait on the other side of the pass for one day," Nolan added.
+"Then&mdash;" he shrugged&mdash;"where you go will be your own affair."</p>
+
+<p>Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two
+steps down his chosen path.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>12</h2>
+
+
+<p>Travis had taken a direct cross route through the heights, but not
+swiftly enough to reach his objective before nightfall. And he had no
+wish to enter the tower valley by moonlight. In him two emotions now
+warred. There was the urge to invade the towers, to discover their
+secret, and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was
+he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the
+Redax and his modern education in the Pinda-lick-o-yi world&mdash;half Apache
+brave of the past, half modern archaeologist with a thirst for
+knowledge? Or was the fear rooted more deeply and for another reason?</p>
+
+<p>Travis crouched in a hollow, trying to understand what he felt. Why was
+it suddenly so overwhelmingly important for him to investigate the
+towers? If he only had the coyotes with him.... Why and where had they
+gone?</p>
+
+<p>He was alive to every noise out of the night, every scent the wind
+carried to him. The night had its own life, just as the daylight hours
+held theirs. Only a few of those sounds could he identify, even less did
+he see.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> There was one wide-winged, huge flying thing which passed
+across the green-gold plate of the nearer moon. It was so large that for
+an instant Travis believed the helicopter had come. Then the wings
+flapped, breaking the glide, and the creature merged in the shadows of
+the night&mdash;a hunter large enough to be a serious threat, and one he had
+never seen before.</p>
+
+<p>Relying on his own small defense, the strewing of brittle sticks along
+the only approach to the hollow, Travis dozed at intervals, his head
+down on his forearm across his bent knees. But the cold cramped him and
+he was glad to see the graying sky of pre-dawn. He swallowed two ration
+tablets and a couple of mouthfuls of water from his canteen and started
+on.</p>
+
+<p>By sunup he had reached the ledge of the waterfall, and he hurried along
+the ancient road at a pace which increased to a run the closer he drew
+to the valley. Deliberately he slowed, his native caution now in
+control, so that he was walking as he passed through the gateway into
+the swirling mists which alternately exposed and veiled the towers.</p>
+
+<p>There was no change in the scene from the time he had come there with
+Kaydessa. But now, rising from a comfortable sprawl on the
+yellow-and-green pavement, was a welcoming committee&mdash;Nalik'ideyu and
+Naginlta showing no more excitement at his coming than if they had
+parted only moments before.</p>
+
+<p>Travis went down on one knee, holding out his hand to the female, who
+had always been the more friendly. She advanced a step or two, touched a
+cold nose to his knuckles, and whined.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" He voiced that one word, but behind it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> a long list of
+questions. Why had they left him? Why were they here where there was no
+hunting? Why did they meet him now as if they had calmly expected his
+return?</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced from the animals to the towers, those windows set in
+diamond pattern. And again he was visited by the impression that he was
+under observation. With the mist floating across those openings, it
+would be easy for a lurker to watch him unseen.</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly on into the valley, his moccasins making no sound on
+the pavement, but he could hear the faint click of the coyotes' claws as
+they paced beside him, on each hand. The sun did not penetrate here,
+making merely a gilt fog of the mist. As he approached within touching
+distance of the first tower, it seemed to Travis that the mist was
+curling about him; he could no longer see the archway through which he
+had entered the valley.</p>
+
+<p>"Naye'nezyani&mdash;Slayer of Monsters&mdash;give strength to the bow arm, to the
+knife wrist!" Out of what long-buried memory did that ancient plea come?
+Travis was hardly aware of the sense of the words until he spoke them
+aloud. "You who wait&mdash;<i>shi inday to-dah ishan</i>&mdash;an Apache is not food
+for you! I am Fox of the Itcatcudnde'yu&mdash;the Eagle People; and beside me
+walk <i>ga'ns</i> of power...."</p>
+
+<p>Travis blinked and shook his head as one waking. Why had he spoken so,
+using words and phrases which were not part of any modern speech?</p>
+
+<p>He moved on, around the base of the first tower, to find no door, no
+break in its surface below the second-story windows&mdash;to the next
+structure and the next, until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> he had encircled all three. If he were to
+enter any, he must find a way of reaching the lowest windows.</p>
+
+<p>On he went to the other opening of the valley, the one which gave upon
+the territory of the Tatar camp. But he did not sight any of the Mongols
+as he hacked down a sapling, trimmed, and smoothed it into a
+blunt-pointed lance. His sash-belt, torn into even strips and knotted
+together, gave him a rope which he judged would be barely long enough
+for his purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Then Travis made a chancy cast for the lower window of the nearest
+tower. On the second try the lance slipped in, and he gave a quick jerk,
+jamming the lance as a bar across the opening. It was a frail ladder but
+the best he could improvise. He climbed until the sill of the window was
+within reach and he could pull himself up and over.</p>
+
+<p>The sill was a wide one, at least a twenty-four-inch span between the
+inner and outer surface of the tower. Travis sat there for a minute,
+reluctant to enter. Near the end of his dangling scarf-rope the two
+coyotes lay on the pavement, their heads up, their tongues lolling from
+their mouths, their expressions ones of detached interest.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was the width of the outer wall that subdued the amount of
+light in the room. The chamber was circular, and directly opposite him
+was a second window, the lowest of the matching diamond pattern. He took
+the four-foot drop from the sill to the floor but lingered in the light
+as he surveyed every inch of the room. There were no furnishings at all,
+but in the very center sank a well of darkness. A smooth pillar, glowing
+faintly, rose from its core. Travis' adjusting eyes noted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> how the light
+came in small ripples&mdash;green and purple, over a foundation shade of dark
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>The pillar seemed rooted below and it extended up through a similar
+opening in the ceiling, providing the only possible exit up or down,
+save for climbing from window to window outside. Travis moved slowly to
+the well. Underfoot was a smooth surface overlaid with a velvet carpet
+of dust which arose in languid puffs as he walked. Here and there he
+sighted prints in the dust, strange triangular wedges which he thought
+might possibly have been made by the claws of birds. But there were no
+other footprints. This tower had been undisturbed for a long, long time.</p>
+
+<p>He came to the well and looked down. There was dark there, dark in which
+the pulsations of light from the pillar shown the stronger. But that
+glow did not extend beyond the edge of the well through which the thick
+rod threaded. Even by close examination he could detect no break in the
+smooth surface of the pillar, nothing remotely resembling hand- or
+footholds. If it did serve the purpose of a staircase, there were no
+treads.</p>
+
+<p>At last Travis put out his hand to touch the surface of the pillar. And
+then he jerked back&mdash;to no effect. There was no breaking contact between
+his fingers and an unknown material which had the sleekness of polished
+metal but&mdash;and the thought made him slightly queasy&mdash;the warmth and very
+slight give of flesh!</p>
+
+<p>He summoned all his strength to pull free and could not. Not only did
+that hold grip him, but his other hand and arm were being drawn to join
+the first! Inside Travis primitive fears awoke full force, and he threw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+back his head, voicing a cry of panic as wild as that of a hunting
+beast.</p>
+
+<p>An instant later, his left palm was as tight a prisoner as his right.
+And with both hands so held, his whole body was suddenly snapped
+forward, off the safe foundation of the floor, tight to the pillar.</p>
+
+<p>In this position he was sucked down into the well. And while unable to
+free himself from the pillar, he did slip along its length easily
+enough. Travis shut his eyes in an involuntary protest against this
+weird form of capture, and a shiver ran through his body as he continued
+to descend.</p>
+
+<p>After the first shock had subsided the Apache realized that he was not
+truly falling at all. Had the pillar been horizontal instead of
+vertical, he would have gauged its speed that of a walk. He passed
+through two more room enclosures; he must already be below the level of
+the valley floor outside. And he was still a prisoner of the pillar, now
+in total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>His feet came down against a level surface, and he guessed he must have
+reached the end. Again he pulled back, arching his shoulders in a final
+desperate attempt at escape, and stumbled away as he was released.</p>
+
+<p>He came up sideways against a wall and stood there panting. The light,
+which might have come from the pillar but which seemed more a part of
+the very air, was bright enough to reveal that he was in a corridor
+running into greater dark both right and left.</p>
+
+<p>Travis took two strides back to the pillar, fitted his palms once again
+to its surface, with no result. This time his flesh did not adhere and
+there was no possible way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> for him to climb that slick pole. He could
+only hope that at some point the corridor would give him access to the
+surface. But which way to go&mdash;?</p>
+
+<p>At last he chose the right-hand path and started along it, pausing every
+few steps to listen. But there was no sound except the soft pad of his
+own feet. The air was fresh enough, and he thought he could detect a
+faint current coming toward him from some point ahead&mdash;perhaps an exit.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, he came into a room and a small gasp of astonishment was wrung
+out of him. The walls were blank, covered with the same ripples of
+blue-purple-green light which colored the pillar. Just before him was a
+table and behind it a bench, both carved from the native yellow-red
+mountain rock. And there was no exit except the doorway in which he now
+stood.</p>
+
+<p>Travis walked to the bench. Immovable, it was placed so that whoever sat
+there must face the opposite wall of the chamber with the table before
+him. And on the table was an object Travis recognized immediately from
+his voyage in the alien star ship, one of the reader-viewers through
+which the involuntary explorers had learned what little they knew of the
+older galactic civilization.</p>
+
+<p>A reader&mdash;and beside it a box of tapes. Travis touched the edge of that
+box gingerly, half expecting it to crumble into nothingness. This was a
+place long deserted. Stone table, bench, the towers could survive
+through centuries of abandonment, but these other objects....</p>
+
+<p>The substance of the reader was firm under the film of dust; there was
+less dust here than had been in the upper tower chamber. Hardly knowing
+why, Travis threw one leg over the bench and sat down behind the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> table,
+the reader before him, the box of tapes just beyond his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He surveyed the walls and then looked away hurriedly. The rippling
+colors caught at his eyes. He had a feeling that if he watched that ebb
+and flow too long, he would be captured in some subtle web of
+enchantment just as the Reds' machine had caught and held the Tatars. He
+turned his attention to the reader. It was, he believed, much like the
+one they had used on the ship.</p>
+
+<p>This room, table, bench, had all been designed with a set purpose. And
+that purpose&mdash;Travis' fingers rested on the box of tapes he could not
+yet bring himself to open&mdash;that purpose was to use the reader, he would
+swear to that. Tapes so left must have had a great importance for those
+who left them. It was as if the whole valley was a trap to channel a
+stranger into this underground chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Travis snapped open the box, fed the first disk into the reader, and
+applied his eyes to the vision tube at its apex.</p>
+
+<p>The rippling walls looked just the same when he looked up once more, but
+the cramp in his muscles told Travis that time had passed&mdash;perhaps hours
+instead of minutes&mdash;since he had taken out the first disk. He cupped his
+hands over his eyes and tried to think clearly. There had been sheets of
+meaningless symbol writing, but also there had been many clear,
+three-dimensional pictures, accompanied by a singsong commentary in an
+alien tongue, seemingly voiced out of thin air. He had been stuffed with
+ragged bits and patches of information, to be connected only by guesses,
+and some wild<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> guesses, too. But this much he did know&mdash;these towers had
+been built by the bald spacemen, and they were highly important to that
+vanished stellar civilization. The information in this room, as
+disjointed as it had been for him, led to a treasure trove on Topaz
+greater than he had dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>Travis swayed on the bench. To know so much and yet so little! If Ashe
+were only here, or some other of the project technicians! A treasure
+such as Pandora's box had been, peril for one who opened it and did not
+understand. The Apache studied the three walls of blue-purple-green in
+turn and with new attention. There were ways through those walls; he was
+fairly sure he could unlock at least one of them. But not now&mdash;certainly
+not now!</p>
+
+<p>And there was another thing he knew: The Reds must <i>not</i> find this. Such
+a discovery on their part would not only mean the end of his own people
+on Topaz, but the end of Terra as well. This could be a new and alien
+Black Death spread to destroy whole nations at a time!</p>
+
+<p>If he could&mdash;much as his archaeologist's training would argue against
+it&mdash;he would blot out this whole valley above and below ground. But
+while the Reds might possess a means of such destruction, the Apaches
+did not. No, he and his people must prevent its discovery by the enemy
+by doing what he had seen as necessary from the first&mdash;wiping out the
+Red leaders! And that must be done before they chanced upon the towers!</p>
+
+<p>Travis arose stiffly. His eyes ached, his head felt stuffed with
+pictures, hints, speculations. He wanted to get out, back into the open
+air where perhaps the clean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> winds of the heights would blow some of
+this frightening half knowledge from his benumbed mind. He lurched down
+the corridor, puzzled now by the problem of getting back to the window
+level.</p>
+
+<p>Here, before him, was the pillar. Without hope, but still obeying some
+buried instinct, Travis again set his hands to its surface. There was a
+tug at his cramped arms; once more his body was sucked to the pillar.
+This time he was rising!</p>
+
+<p>He held his breath past the first level and then relaxed. The principle
+of this weird form of transportation was entirely beyond his
+understanding, but as long as it worked in reverse he didn't care to
+find out. He reached the windowed chamber, but the sunlight had left it;
+instead, the clean cut of moon sweep lay on the dusty floor. He must
+have been hours in that underground place.</p>
+
+<p>Travis pulled away from the embrace of the pillar. The bar of his wooden
+lance was still across the window and he ran for it. To catch the
+scouting party at the pass he must hurry. The report they would make to
+the clan now had to be changed radically in the face of his new
+discoveries. The Apaches dared not retreat southward and withdraw from
+the fight, leaving the Reds to use what treasure lay here.</p>
+
+<p>As he hit the pavement below he looked about for the coyotes. Then he
+tried the mind call. But as mysteriously as they had met him in the
+valley, so now were they gone again. And Travis had no time to hunt for
+them. With a sigh, he began his race to the pass.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days, Travis remembered, Apache warriors had been able to
+cover forty-five or fifty miles a day on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> foot and over rough territory.
+But perhaps his modern breeding had slowed him. He had been so sure he
+could catch up before the others were through the pass. But he stood now
+in the hollow where they had camped, read the sign of overturned stone
+and bent twig left for him, and knew they would reach the rancheria and
+report the decision Deklay and the others wanted before he could head
+them off.</p>
+
+<p>Travis slogged on. He was so tired now that only the drug from the
+sustenance tablets he mouthed at intervals kept him going at a dogged
+pace, hardly more than a swift walk. And always his mind was haunted by
+fragments of pictures, pictures he had seen in the reader. The big bomb
+had been the nightmare of his own world for so long, and what was that
+against the forces the bald star rovers had been able to command?</p>
+
+<p>He fell beside a stream and slept. There was sunshine about him as he
+arose to stagger on. What day was this? How long had he sat in the tower
+chamber? He was not sure of time any more. He only knew that he must
+reach the rancheria, tell his story, somehow win over Deklay and the
+other reactionaries to prove the necessity for invading the north in
+force.</p>
+
+<p>A rocky point which was a familiar landmark came into focus. He padded
+on, his chest heaving, his breath whistling through parched, sun-cracked
+lips. He did not know that his face was now a mask of driven resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Hahhhhhh&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The cry reached his dulled ears. Travis lifted his head, saw the men
+before him and tried to think what that show of weapons turned toward
+him could mean.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A stone thudded to earth only inches before his feet, to be followed by
+another. He wavered to a stop.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ni'ilgac</i>&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>Witch? Where was a witch? Travis shook his head. There was no witch.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do ne'ilka da</i>'!"</p>
+
+<p>The old death threat, but why&mdash;for whom?</p>
+
+<p>Another stone, this one hitting him in the ribs with force enough to
+send him reeling back and down. He tried to get up again, saw Deklay
+grin widely and take aim&mdash;and at last Travis realized what was
+happening.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a bursting pain in his head and he was falling&mdash;falling
+into a well of black, this time with no pillar of blue to guide him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>13</h2>
+
+
+<p>The rasp of something wet and rough, persistent against his cheek;
+Travis tried to turn his head to avoid the contact and was answered by a
+burst of pain which trailed off into a giddiness, making him fear
+another move, no matter how minor. He opened his eyes and saw the
+pointed ears, the outline of a coyote head between him and a dull gray
+sky, was able to recognize Nalik'ideyu.</p>
+
+<p>A wetness other than that from the coyote's tongue slid down his
+forehead now. The dull clouds overhead had released the first heavy rain
+Travis had experienced since their landing on Topaz. He shivered as the
+chill damp of his clothes made him aware that he must have been lying
+out in the full force of the downpour for some time.</p>
+
+<p>It was a struggle to get to his knees, but Nalik'ideyu mouthed a hold on
+his shirt, tugging and pulling so that somehow he crept into a hollow
+beneath the branches of a tree where the spouting water was lessened to
+a few pattering drops.</p>
+
+<p>There the Apache's strength deserted him again and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> he could only hunch
+over, his bent knees against his chest, trying to endure the throbbing
+misery in his head, the awful floating sensation which followed any
+movement. Fighting against that, he tried to remember just what had
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>The meeting with Deklay and at least four or five others ... then the
+Apache accusation of witchcraft, a serious thing in the old days. Old
+days! To Deklay and his fellows, these <i>were</i> the old days! And the
+threat that Deklay or some other had shouted at him&mdash;"<i>Do ne'ilka
+da'</i>"&mdash;meant literally: "It won't dawn for you&mdash;death!"</p>
+
+<p>Stones, the last thing Travis remembered were the stones. Slowly his
+hands went out to explore his body. There was more than one bruised area
+on his shoulders and ribs, even on his thighs. He must still have been a
+target after he had fallen under the stone which had knocked him
+unconscious. Stoned ... outlawed! But why? Surely Deklay's hostility
+could not have swept Buck, Jil-Lee, Tsoay, even Nolan, into agreeing to
+that? Now he could not think straight.</p>
+
+<p>Travis became aware of warmth, not only of warmth and the soft touch of
+a furred body by his side, but a comforting communication of mind, a
+feeling he had no words to describe adequately. Nalik'ideyu was sitting
+crowded against him, her nose thrust up to rest on his shoulder. She
+breathed in soft puffs which stirred the loose locks of his rain-damp
+hair. And now he flung one arm about her, a gesture which brought a
+whisper of answering whine.</p>
+
+<p>He was past wondering about the actions of the coyotes, only supremely
+thankful for Nalik'ideyu's present companionship. And a moment later
+when her mate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> squeezed under the low loop of a branch and joined them
+in this natural wickiup, Travis held out his other hand, drew it
+lovingly across Naginlta's wet hide.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what?" he asked aloud. Deklay could only have taken such a drastic
+action with the majority of the clan solidly behind him. It could well
+be that this reactionary was the new chief, this act of Travis'
+expulsion merely adding to Deklay's growing prestige.</p>
+
+<p>The shivering which had begun when Travis recovered consciousness, still
+shook him at intervals. Back on Terra, like all the others in the team,
+he had had every inoculation known to the space physicians, including
+several experimental ones. But the cold virus could still practically
+immobilize a man, and this was no time to give body room to chills and
+fever.</p>
+
+<p>Catching his breath as his movements touched to life the pain in one
+bruise after another, Travis peeled off his soaked clothing, rubbed his
+body dry with handfuls of last year's leaves culled from the thick
+carpet under him, knowing there was nothing he could do until the
+whirling in his head disappeared. So he burrowed into the leaves until
+only his head was uncovered, and tried to sleep, the coyotes curling up
+one on either side of his nest.</p>
+
+<p>He dreamed but later could not remember any incident from those dreams,
+save a certain frustration and fear. When he awoke, again to the sound
+of steady rain, it was dark. He reached out&mdash;both coyotes were gone. His
+head was clearer and suddenly he knew what must be done. As soon as his
+body was strong enough, he, too, would return to instincts and customs
+of the past. This situation was desperate enough for him to challenge
+Deklay.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the dark Travis frowned. He was slightly taller, and three or four
+years younger than his enemy. But Deklay had the advantage in a stouter
+build and longer reach. However, Travis was sure that in his present
+life Deklay had never fought a duel&mdash;Apache fashion. And an Apache duel
+was not a meeting anyone entered into lightly. Travis had the right to
+enter the rancheria and deliver such a challenge. Then Deklay must meet
+him or admit himself in the wrong. That part of it was simple.</p>
+
+<p>But in the past such duels had just one end, a fatal one for at least
+one of the fighters. If Travis took this trail, he must be prepared to
+go the limit. And he didn't want to kill Deklay! There were too few of
+them here on Topaz to make any loss less than a real catastrophe. While
+he had no liking for Deklay, neither did he nurse any hatred. However,
+he must challenge the other or remain a tribal outcast; and Travis had
+no right to gamble with time and the future, not after what he had
+learned in the tower. It might be his life and skill, or Deklay's,
+against the blotting out of them all&mdash;and their home world into the
+bargain.</p>
+
+<p>First, he must locate the present camp of the clan. If Nolan's arguments
+had counted, they would be heading south away from the pass. And to
+follow would draw him farther from the tower valley. Travis' battered
+face ached as he grinned bitterly. This was another time when a man
+could wish he were two people, a scout on sentry duty at the valley, the
+fighter heading in the opposite direction to have it out with Deklay.
+But since he was merely one man he would have to gamble on time, one of
+the trickiest risks of all.</p>
+
+<p>Before dawn Nalik'ideyu returned, carrying with her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> a bird&mdash;or at least
+birds must have been somewhere in the creature's ancestry, but the
+present representative of its kind had only vestigial remnants of wings,
+its trailing feet and legs well developed and far more powerful.</p>
+
+<p>Travis skinned the corpse, automatically putting aside some spine quills
+to feather future arrows. Then he ate slivers of dusky meat raw,
+throwing the bones to Nalik'ideyu.</p>
+
+<p>Though he was still stiff and sore, Travis was determined to be on his
+way. He tried mind contact with the coyote, picturing the Apaches,
+notably Deklay, as sharply as he could by mental image. And her assent
+was clear in return. She and her mate were willing to lead him to the
+tribe. He gave a light sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>As he slogged on through the depressing drizzle, the Apache wondered
+again why the coyotes had left him before and waited in the tower
+valley. What link was there between the animals of Terra and the remains
+of the long-ago empire of the stars? For he was certain it was not by
+chance that Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta had lingered in that misty place.
+He longed to communicate with them directly, to ask questions and be
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>Without their aid, Travis would never have been able to track the clan.
+The drizzle alternated with slashing bursts of rain, torrential enough
+to drive the trackers to the nearest cover. Overhead the sky was either
+dull bronze or night black. Even the coyotes paced nose to ground, often
+making wide casts for the trail while Travis waited.</p>
+
+<p>The rain lasted for three days and nights, filling watercourses with
+rapidly rising streams. Travis could only hope that the others were
+having the same difficulty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> traveling that he was, perhaps the more so
+since they were burdened with packs. The fact that they kept on meant
+that they were determined to get as far from the northern mountains as
+they could.</p>
+
+<p>On the fourth morning the bronze of the clouds slowly thinned into the
+usual gold, and the sun struck across hills where mist curled like steam
+from a hundred bubbling pots. Travis relaxed in the welcome warmth,
+feeling his shirt dry on his shoulders. It was still a waterlogged
+terrain ahead which should continue to slow the clan. He had high
+expectations of catching up with them soon, and now the worst of his
+bruises had faded. His muscles were limber, and he had worked out his
+plan as best he could.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later he sat in ambush, waiting for the scout who was walking
+into his hands. Under the direction of the coyotes, Travis had circled
+the line of march, come in ahead of the clan. Now he needed an emissary
+to state his challenge, and the fact that the scout he was about to jump
+was Manulito, one of Deklay's supporters, suited Travis' purpose
+perfectly. He gathered his feet under him as the other came opposite,
+and sprang.</p>
+
+<p>The rush carried Manulito off his feet and face down on the sod while
+Travis made the best of his advantage and pinned the wildly fighting man
+under him. Had it been one of the older braves he might not have been so
+successful, but Manulito was still a boy by Apache standards.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie still!" Travis ordered. "Listen well&mdash;so you can say to Deklay the
+words of the Fox!"</p>
+
+<p>The frenzied struggles ceased. Manulito managed to wrench his head to
+the left so he could see his captor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> Travis loosened his grip, got to
+his feet. Manulito sat up, his face darkly sullen, but he did not reach
+for his knife.</p>
+
+<p>"You will say this to Deklay: The Fox says he is a man of little sense
+and less courage, preferring to throw stones rather than meet knife to
+knife as does a warrior. If he thinks as a warrior, let him prove
+it&mdash;his strength against my strength&mdash;after the ways of the People!"</p>
+
+<p>Some of the sullenness left Manulito's expression. He was eager,
+excited.</p>
+
+<p>"You would duel with Deklay after the old custom?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would. Say this to Deklay, openly so that all men may hear. Then
+Deklay must also give answer openly."</p>
+
+<p>Manulito flushed at that implication concerning his leader's courage,
+and Travis knew that he would deliver the challenge openly. To keep his
+hold on the clan the latter must accept it, and there would be an
+audience of his people to witness the success or defeat of their new
+chief and his policies.</p>
+
+<p>As Manulito disappeared Travis summoned the coyotes, putting full effort
+into getting across one message. Any tribe led by Deklay would be
+hostile to the mutant animals. They must go into hiding, run free in the
+wilderness if the gamble failed Travis. Now they withdrew into the
+bushes but not out of reach of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He did not have too long to wait. First came Jil-Lee, Buck, Nolan,
+Tsoay, Lupe&mdash;those who had been with him on the northern scout. Then the
+others, the warriors first, the women making a half circle behind,
+leaving a free space in which Deklay walked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the Fox," Travis stated. "And this one has named me witch and
+<i>natdahe</i>, outlaw of the mountains. Therefore do I come to name names in
+my turn. Hear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> me, People: This Deklay&mdash;he would walk among you as
+<i>'izesnantan</i>, a great chief&mdash;but he does not have the <i>go'ndi</i>, the
+holy power of a chief. For this Deklay is a fool, with a head filled by
+nothing but his own wishes, not caring for his clan brothers. He says he
+leads you into safety; I say he leads you into the worst danger any
+living man can imagine&mdash;even in peyote dreams! He is one twisted in his
+thoughts, and he would make you twisted also&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Buck cut in sharply, hushing the murmur of the massed clan.</p>
+
+<p>"These are bold words, Fox. Will you back them?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis' hands were already peeling off his shirt. "I will back them," he
+stated between set teeth. He had known since his awakening after the
+stoning that this next move was the only one left for him to make. But
+now that the testing of his action came, he could not be certain of the
+outcome, of anything save that the final decision of this battle might
+affect more than the fate of two men. He stripped, noting that Deklay
+was doing the same.</p>
+
+<p>Having stepped into the center of the glade, Nolan was using the point
+of his knife to score a deep-ridged circle there. Naked except for his
+moccasins, with only his knife in his hand, Travis took the two strides
+which put him in the circle facing Deklay. He surveyed his opponent's
+finely muscled body, realizing that his earlier estimate of Deklay's
+probable advantages were close to the mark. In sheer strength the other
+outmatched him. Whether Deklay was skillful with his knife was another
+question, one which Travis would soon be able to answer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They circled, eyes intent upon each move, striving to weigh and measure
+each other's strengths and weaknesses. Knife dueling among the
+Pinda-lick-o-yi, Travis remembered, had once been an art close to
+finished swordplay, with two evenly matched fighters able to engage for
+a long time without seriously marking each other. But this was a far
+rougher and more deadly game, with none of the niceties of such a
+meeting.</p>
+
+<p>He evaded a vicious thrust from Deklay.</p>
+
+<p>"The bull charges," he laughed. "And the Fox snaps!" By some incredible
+stroke of good fortune, the point of his weapon actually grazed Deklay's
+arm, drawing a thin, red inch-long line across the skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Charge again, bull. Feel once more the Fox's teeth!"</p>
+
+<p>He strove to goad Deklay into a crippling loss of temper, knowing how
+the other could explode into violent rage. It was dangerous, that rage,
+but it could also make a man blindly careless.</p>
+
+<p>There was an inarticulate sound from Deklay, a dusky swelling in the
+man's face. He spat, as might an enraged puma, and rushed at Travis who
+did not quite manage to avoid the lunge, falling back with a smarting
+slash across the ribs.</p>
+
+<p>"The bull gores!" Deklay bellowed. "Horns toss the Fox!"</p>
+
+<p>He rushed again, elated by the sight of the trickling wound on Travis'
+side. But the slighter man slipped away.</p>
+
+<p>Travis knew he must be careful in such evasions. One foot across the
+ridged circle and he was finished as much as if Deklay's blade had found
+its mark. Travis tried a thrust of his own, and his foot came down hard
+on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> sharp pebble. Through the sole of his moccasin pain shot upward,
+caused him to stumble. Again the scarlet flame of a wound, down his
+shoulder and forearm this time.</p>
+
+<p>Well, there was one trick, he knew. Travis tossed the knife into the
+air, caught it with his left hand. Deklay was now facing a left-handed
+fighter and must adjust to that.</p>
+
+<p>"Paw, bull, rattle your horns!" Travis cried. "The Fox still shows his
+teeth!"</p>
+
+<p>Deklay recovered from his instant of surprise. With a cry which was
+indeed like the bellow of an old range bull, he rushed into grapple,
+sure of his superior strength against a younger and already wounded man.</p>
+
+<p>Travis ducked, one knee thumping the ground. He groped out with his
+right hand, caught up a handful of earth, and flung it into the dusky
+brown face. Again it seemed that luck was on his side. That handful
+could not be as blinding as sand, but some bit of the shower landed in
+Deklay's eye.</p>
+
+<p>For a space of seconds Deklay was wide open&mdash;open for a blow which would
+rip him up the middle, the blow Travis could not and would not deliver.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, he took the offensive recklessly, springing straight for his
+opponent. As the earth-grimed fingers of one hand clawed into Deklay's
+face, he struck with the other, not with the point of the knife but with
+its shaft. But Deklay, already only half conscious from the blow, had
+his own chance. He fell to the ground, leaving his knife behind, two
+inches of steel between Travis' ribs.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow&mdash;he didn't know from where he drew that strength&mdash;Travis kept
+his feet and took one step and then another, out of the circle until the
+comforting brace of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> tree trunk was against his bare back. Was he
+finished&mdash;?</p>
+
+<p>He fought to nurse his rags of consciousness. Had he summoned Buck with
+his eyes? Or had the urgency of what he had to say reached somehow from
+mind to mind? The other was at his side, but Travis put out a hand to
+ward him off.</p>
+
+<p>"Towers&mdash;" He struggled to keep his wits through the pain and billowing
+weakness beginning to creep through him. "Reds mustn't get to the
+towers! Worse than the bomb ... end us all!"</p>
+
+<p>He had a hazy glimpse of Nolan and Jil-Lee closing in about him. The
+desire to cough tore at him, but they had to know, to believe....</p>
+
+<p>"Reds get to the towers&mdash;everything finished. Not only here ... maybe
+back home too...."</p>
+
+<p>Did he read comprehension on Buck's face? Would Nolan and Jil-Lee and
+the rest believe him? Travis could not suppress the cough any longer,
+and the ripping pain which followed was the worst he had ever
+experienced. But still he kept his feet, tried to make them understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let them get to the towers. Find that storehouse!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis stood away from the tree, reached out to Buck his earth and
+bloodstained hand. "I swear ... truth ... this must be done!"</p>
+
+<p>He was going down, and he had a queer thought that once he reached the
+ground everything would end, not only for him but also for his mission.
+Trying to see the faces of the men about him was like attempting to
+identify the people in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Towers!" He had meant to shout it, but he could not even hear for
+himself that last word as he fell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>14</h2>
+
+
+<p>Travis' back was braced against blanketed packs as he steadied a piece
+of light-yellow bark against one bent knee scowling at the lines drawn
+on it in faint green.</p>
+
+<p>"We are here then ... and the ship there&mdash;" His thumb was set on one
+point of the crude map, forefinger on the other. Buck nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"That is so. Tsoay, Eskelta, Kawaykle, they watch the trails. There is
+the pass, two other ways men can come on foot. But who can watch the
+air?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Tatars say the Reds dare not bring the 'copter into the mountains.
+After they first landed they lost a flyer in a tricky air-current flow
+up there. They have only one left and won't risk it. If only they aren't
+reinforced before we can move!" There it was again, that constant
+gnawing fear of time, time shortening into a rope to strangle them all.</p>
+
+<p>"You think that the knowledge of our ship will bring them into the
+open?"</p>
+
+<p>"That&mdash;or information about the towers would be the only things
+important enough to pull out their experts. They could send a controlled
+Tatar party to explore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> the ship, sure. But that wouldn't give them the
+technical reports they need. No, I think if they knew a wrecked Western
+Confederation ship was here, it would bring them&mdash;or enough of them to
+lessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open. Otherwise, they can
+hole up forever in that ship-fort of theirs."</p>
+
+<p>"And just how do we let them know our ship is here? Send out another
+scouting party and let them be trailed back?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's our last resource." Travis continued to frown at the map. Yes,
+it would be possible to let the Reds sight and trail an Apache party.
+But there was none in the clan who were expendable. Surely there was
+some other way of laying the trap with the wrecked ship for bait.
+Capture one of the Reds, let him escape again, having seen what they
+wanted him to see? Again a time-wasting business. And how long would
+they have to wait and what risks would they take to pick up a Red
+prisoner?</p>
+
+<p>"If the Tatars were dependable...." Buck was thinking aloud.</p>
+
+<p>But that "if" was far too big. They could not trust the Tatars. No
+matter how much the Mongols wanted to aid in pulling down the Reds, as
+long as they could be controlled by the caller they were useless. Or
+were they?</p>
+
+<p>"Thought of something?" Buck must have caught Travis' change of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose a Tatar saw our ship and then was picked up by a Red hunting
+patrol and they got the information out of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think any outlaw would volunteer to let him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>self be picked up
+again? And if he did, wouldn't the Reds also be able to learn that he
+had been set up for the trap?"</p>
+
+<p>"An escaped prisoner?" Travis suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Now Buck was plainly considering the possibilities of such a scheme. And
+Travis' own spirits rose a little. The idea was full of holes, but it
+could be worked out. Suppose they capture, say, Menlik, bring him here
+as a prisoner, let him think they were about to kill him because of that
+attack back in the foothills. Then let him escape, pursue him northward
+to a point where he could be driven into the hands of the Reds? Very
+chancy, but it just might work. Travis was favoring a gamble now, since
+his desperate one with the duel had paid off.</p>
+
+<p>The risk he had accepted then had cost him two deep wounds, one of which
+might have been serious if Jil-Lee's project-sponsored medical training
+had not been to hand. But it had also made Travis one of the clan again,
+with his people willing to listen to his warning concerning the tower
+treasury.</p>
+
+<p>"The girl&mdash;the Tatar girl!"</p>
+
+<p>At first Travis did not understand Buck's ejaculation.</p>
+
+<p>"We get the girl," the other elaborated, "let her escape, then hunt her
+to where they'll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship to
+begin with."</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for the
+leading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck's
+choice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures.
+The Tatars themselves had found wives that way in the past, just as the
+Apache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wickiups. Yes,
+for raiders to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as such
+by the Reds. For the same woman to endeavor to escape and be hunted by
+her captors also was reasonable. And for such a woman, cut off from her
+outlaw kin, to eventually head back toward the Red settlement as the
+only hope of evading her enemies&mdash;logical all the way!</p>
+
+<p>"She would have to be well frightened," Travis observed with reluctance.</p>
+
+<p>"That can be done for us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certain
+games out of their common past to be played with Kaydessa. But Buck had
+something very different from old-time brutality in mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Deklay and I
+went back to the ship&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Deklay?"</p>
+
+<p>"You beat him openly, so he must restore his honor in his own sight. And
+the council has forbidden another duel or challenge," Buck replied.
+"Therefore he will continue to push for recognition in another way. And
+now that he has heard your story and knows we must face the Reds, not
+run from them, he is eager to take the war trail&mdash;too eager. So we
+returned to the ship to make another search for weapons&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There were none there before except those we had...."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor now either. But we discovered something else." Buck paused and
+Travis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by a
+note in the other's voice. It was as if Buck had come upon something he
+could not summon the right words to describe.</p>
+
+<p>"First," Buck continued, "there was this dead thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> there, near where
+we found Dr. Ruthven. It was something like a man ... but all silvery
+hair&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The ape-things! The ape-things from the other worlds! What else did you
+see?" Travis had dropped the map. His side gave him a painful twinge as
+he caught at Buck's sleeve. The bald space rovers&mdash;did they still exist
+here somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the pattern
+of their own but manned by Terrans?</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing except tracks, a lot of them, in every open cabin and hole. I
+think there must have been a sizable pack of the things."</p>
+
+<p>"What killed the dead one?"</p>
+
+<p>Buck wet his lips. "I think&mdash;fear...." His voice dropped a little,
+almost apologetically, and Travis stared.</p>
+
+<p>"The ship is changed. Inside, there is something wrong. When you walk
+the corridors your skin crawls, you think there is something behind you.
+You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes.... When you
+turn, there's nothing, nothing at all! And the higher you climb into the
+ship, the worse it is. I tell you, Travis, never have I felt anything
+like it before!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a ship of many dead," Travis reminded him. Had the age-old
+Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute
+phobia&mdash;to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck?</p>
+
+<p>"No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it was
+worst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in the
+Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but running
+in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> wrong way&mdash;so that it does not awaken old memories of our
+ancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have ever
+haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I came
+out of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were a
+child. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There
+is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl,
+were she only to stay there a very short time, would be well
+frightened&mdash;so frightened that any trained scientist examining her later
+would know there was a mystery to be explored."</p>
+
+<p>"The ape-things&mdash;could they have tried to run the Redax?" Travis
+wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure
+folly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old
+civilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent the
+degenerate remnants of a once intelligent species.</p>
+
+<p>"That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out and
+killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now."</p>
+
+<p>"But for us to use the girl...." Travis had seen the logic in Buck's
+first suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship was
+as terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, even
+temporarily, was still wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"She need not remain long. Suppose we should do this: We shall enter
+with her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. We
+could run, leave her alone. When she left the ship, we could then take
+up the chase, shepherding her back to the country she knows. Within the
+ship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Travis could see a good prospect in that plan. There was one thing he
+would insist on&mdash;if Kaydessa was to be in that ship, he himself would be
+one of the "captors." He said as much, and Buck accepted his
+determination as final.</p>
+
+<p>They dispatched a scouting party to infiltrate the territory to the
+north, to watch and wait their chance of capture. Travis strove to
+regain his feet, to be ready to move when the moment came.</p>
+
+<p>Five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay the
+wrecked ship. With him were Jil-Lee, Lupe, and Manulito. They satisfied
+themselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Deklay;
+there was no sign that the ape-things had returned.</p>
+
+<p>"From here," Travis said, "the ship doesn't look too bad, almost as if
+it might be able to take off again."</p>
+
+<p>"It might lift," Jil-Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve of
+the globe&mdash;"about that far. The tubes on this side are intact."</p>
+
+<p>"What would happen were the Reds to get inside and try to fly again?"
+Manulito wondered aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was struck by a sudden idea, one perhaps just as wild as the
+other inspirations he had had since landing on Topaz, but one to be
+studied and explored&mdash;not dismissed without consideration. Suppose
+enough power remained to lift the ship partially and then blow it up?
+With the Red technicians on board at the time.... But he was no
+engineer, he had no idea whether any part of the globe might or might
+not work again.</p>
+
+<p>"They are not fools; a close look would tell them it is a wreck,"
+Jil-Lee countered.</p>
+
+<p>Travis walked on. Not too far ahead a yellow-brown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> shape moved out of
+the brush, stood stiff-legged in his path, facing the ship and growling
+in a harsh rumble of sound. Whatever moved or operated in that wreck was
+picked up by the acute sense of the coyote, even at this distance.</p>
+
+<p>"On!" Travis edged around the snarling animal. With one halting step and
+then another, it followed him. There was a sharp warning yelp from the
+brush, and a second coyote head appeared. Naginlta followed Travis, but
+Nalik'ideyu refused to approach the grounded globe.</p>
+
+<p>Travis surveyed the ship closely, trying to remember the layout of its
+interior. To turn the whole sphere into a trap&mdash;was it possible? How had
+Ashe said the Redax worked? Something about high-frequency waves
+stimulating certain brain and nerve centers.</p>
+
+<p>What if one were shielded from those rays? That tear in the side&mdash;he
+himself must have climbed through that the night they crashed. And the
+break was not too far from the space lock. Near the lock was a storage
+compartment. And if it had not been jammed, or its contents crushed,
+they might have something. He beckoned to Jil-Lee.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a hand&mdash;up there."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see if the space suits are intact."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee regarded Travis with open bewilderment, but Manulito pushed
+forward. "We do not need those suits to walk here, Travis. This air we
+can breathe&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for the air, and not in the open." Travis advanced at a deliberate
+pace. "Those suits may be insulated in more ways than one&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Against a mixed-up Redax broadcast, you mean!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> Jil-Lee exclaimed.
+"Yes, but you stay here, younger brother. This is a risky climb, and you
+are not yet strong."</p>
+
+<p>Travis was forced to accede to that, waiting as Manulito and Lupe
+climbed up to the tear and entered. At least Buck and Deklay's
+experience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weird
+ghosts haunting the interior.</p>
+
+<p>But when they returned, pulling between them the limp space suit, both
+men were pale, the shiny sheen of sweat on their foreheads, their hands
+shaking. Lupe sat down on the ground before Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"Evil spirits," he said, giving to this modern phenomenon the old name.
+"Truly ghosts and witches walk in there."</p>
+
+<p>Manulito had spread the suit on the ground and was examining it with a
+care which spoke of familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>"This is unharmed," he reported. "Ready to wear."</p>
+
+<p>The suits were all tailored for size, Travis knew. And this fitted a
+slender, medium-sized man. It would fit him, Travis Fox. But Manulito
+was already unbuckling the fastenings with practiced ease.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall try it out," he announced. And Travis, seeing the awkward climb
+to the entrance of the ship, had to agree that the first test should be
+carried out by someone more agile at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Sealed into the suit, with the bubble helmet locked in place, the Apache
+climbed back into the globe. The only form of communication with him was
+the rope he had tied about him, and if he went above the first level, he
+would have to leave that behind.</p>
+
+<p>In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> running along the
+rope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, to
+find it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and was
+climbing to the control cabin.</p>
+
+<p>They continued to wait with what patience they could muster. Naginlta,
+pacing up and down a good distance from the ship, whined at intervals,
+the warning echoed each time by his mate upslope.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it&mdash;" Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared
+again at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulito
+reached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and then
+stood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Travis demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I see no ghosts," Manulito said, grinning. "This is ghost-proof!" He
+slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. "There is
+also this&mdash;from what I know of these ships&mdash;some of the relays still
+work. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Reds
+in and then...." His hand moved in a quick upward flip.</p>
+
+<p>"But we don't know anything about the engines," Travis replied.</p>
+
+<p>"No? Listen&mdash;you, Fox, are not the only one to remember useful
+knowledge." Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. "Do you think we are
+just the savages those big brains back at the project wished us to be?
+They have played a trick on us with their Redax. So, we can play a few
+tricks, too. Me&mdash;? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you no
+longer remember, Fox?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until this
+very minute. From the beginning, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> Apache team had been carefully
+selected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was their
+basic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Just
+as Travis' grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so had
+Manulito's technical training made a valuable, though different,
+contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smothered
+that training, perhaps the effects were now fading.</p>
+
+<p>"You can do something, then?" he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I can try. There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least.
+And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be
+tough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not until after we use it on our captive," Jil-Lee decided. "Then there
+would be some time before the Reds come&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You talk as if they <i>will</i> come," cut in Lupe. "How can you be sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"We can't," Travis agreed. "But we can count on this much, judging from
+the past. Once they know that there is a wrecked ship here, they will be
+forced to explore it. They cannot afford an enemy settlement on this
+side of the mountains. That would be, according to their way of
+thinking, an eternal threat."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee nodded. "That is true. This is a complicated plan, yes, and one
+in which many things may go wrong. But it is also one which covers all
+the loopholes we know of."</p>
+
+<p>With Lupe's aid Manulito crawled out of the suit. As he leaned it
+carefully against a supporting rock he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking of this treasure house in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> towers. Suppose we
+could find new weapons there...."</p>
+
+<p>Travis hesitated. He still shrank from the thought of opening the secret
+places behind those glowing walls, to loose a new peril.</p>
+
+<p>"If we took weapons from there and lost the fight...." He advanced his
+first objection and was glad to see the expression of comprehension on
+Jil-Lee's face.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be putting the weapons straight into Red hands," the other
+agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"We may have to chance it before we're through," Manulito warned.
+"Suppose we do get some of their technicians into this trap. That isn't
+going to open up their main defense for us. We may need a bigger
+nutcracker than we've ever seen."</p>
+
+<p>With a return of that queasy feeling he had known in the tower, Travis
+knew Manulito was speaking sense. They might have to open Pandora's box
+before the end of this campaign.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>15</h2>
+
+
+<p>They camped another two days near the wrecked ship while Manulito
+prowled the haunted corridors and cabins in his space suit, planning his
+booby trap. At night he drew diagrams on pieces of bark and discussed
+the possibility of this or that device, sometimes lapsing into
+technicalities his companions could not follow. But Travis was well
+satisfied that Manulito knew what he was doing.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the third day Nolan slipped into their midst. He was
+dust-grimed, his face gaunt, the signs of hard travel plain to read.
+Travis handed him the nearest canteen, and they watched him drink
+sparingly in small sips before he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"They come ... with the girl&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You had trouble?" asked Jil-Lee.</p>
+
+<p>"The Tatars had moved their camp, which was only wise, since the Reds
+must have had a line on the other one. And they are now farther to the
+west. But&mdash;" he wiped his lips with the back of his hand&mdash;"also we saw
+your towers, Fox. And that is a place of power!"</p>
+
+<p>"No sign that the Reds are prowling there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nolan shook his head. "To my mind the mists there conceal the towers
+from aerial view. Only one coming on foot could tell them from the
+natural crags of the hills."</p>
+
+<p>Travis relaxed. Time still granted them a margin of grace. He glanced up
+to see Nolan smiling faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"This maiden, she is a kin to the puma of the mountains," he announced.
+"She has marked Tsoay with her claws until he looks like the ear-clipped
+yearling fresh from the branding chute&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is not hurt?" Travis demanded.</p>
+
+<p>This time Nolan chuckled openly. "Hurt? No, we had much to do to keep
+her from hurting us, younger brother. That one is truly as she claims, a
+daughter of wolves. And she is also keen-witted, marking a return trail
+all the way, though she does not know that is as we wish. Did we not
+pick the easiest way back for just that reason? Yes, she plans to
+escape."</p>
+
+<p>Travis stood up. "Let us finish this quickly!" His voice came out on a
+rough note. This plan had never had his full approval. Now he found it
+less and less easy to think about taking Kaydessa into the ship,
+allowing the emotional torment lurking there to work upon her. Yet he
+knew that the girl would not be hurt, and he had made sure he would be
+beside her within the globe, sharing with her the horror of the unseen.</p>
+
+<p>A rattling of gravel down the narrow valley opening gave warning to
+those by the campfire. Manulito had already stowed the space suit in
+hiding. To Kaydessa they must have seemed reverted entirely to savagery.</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay came first, an angry raking of four parallel scratches down his
+left cheek. And behind him Buck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> and Eskelta shoved the prisoner, urging
+her on with a show of roughness which did not descend to actual
+brutality. Her long braids had shaken loose, and a sleeve was torn,
+leaving one slender arm bare. But none of the fighting spirit had left
+her.</p>
+
+<p>They thrust her out into the circle of waiting men and she planted her
+feet firmly apart, glaring at them all indiscriminately until she
+sighted Travis. Then her anger became hotter and more deadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Pig! Rooter in the dirt! Diseased camel&mdash;" she shouted at him in
+English and then reverted to her own tongue, her voice riding up and
+down the scale. Her hands were tied behind her back, but there were no
+bonds on her tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"This is one who can speak thunders, and shoot lightnings from her
+mouth," Buck commented in Apache. "Put her well away from the wood, lest
+she set it aflame."</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay held his hands over his ears. "She can deafen a man when she
+cannot set her mark on him otherwise. Let us speedily get rid of her."</p>
+
+<p>Yet for all their jeering comments, their eyes held respect. Often in
+the past a defiant captive who stood up boldly to his captors had
+received more consideration than usual from Apache warriors; courage was
+a quality they prized. A Pinda-lick-o-yi such as Tom Jeffords, who rode
+into Cochise's camp and sat in the midst of his sworn enemies for a
+parley, won the friendship of the very chief he had been fighting.
+Kaydessa had more influence with her captors than she could dream of
+holding.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was time for Travis to play his part. He caught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> the girl's
+shoulder and pushed her before him toward the wreck.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the spirit seemed to have left her thin, tense body, and she
+went without any more fight. Only when they came into full view of the
+ship did she falter. Travis heard her breathe a gasp of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>As they had planned, four of the Apaches&mdash;Jil-Lee, Tsoay, Nolan, and
+Buck&mdash;fanned out toward the heights about the ship. Manulito had already
+gone to cover, to don the space suit and prepare for any accident.</p>
+
+<p>Resolutely Travis continued to propel Kaydessa ahead. At the moment he
+did not know which was worse, to enter the ship expecting the fear to
+strike, or to meet it unprepared. He was ready to refuse to enter, not
+to allow the girl, sullenly plodding on under his compulsion, to face
+that unseen but potent danger.</p>
+
+<p>Only the memory of the towers and the threat of the Reds finding and
+exploiting the treasure there kept him going. Eskelta went first,
+climbing to the tear. Travis cut the ropes binding Kaydessa's wrists and
+gave her a slight slap between the shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Climb, woman!" His anxiety made that a harsh order and she climbed.</p>
+
+<p>Eskelta was inside now, heading for the cabin which might reasonably be
+selected as a prison. They planned to get the girl as far as that point
+and then stage their act of being overcome by fear, allowing her to
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>Stage an act? Travis was not two feet along that corridor before he knew
+that there would be little acting needed on his part. The thing which
+pervaded the ship did not attack sharply, rather it seeped into his mind
+and body as if he drew in poison with every breath, sent it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> racing
+along his veins with every beat of a laboring heart. Yet he could not
+put any name to his feelings, except an awful, weakening fear which
+weighted him heavier with every step he took.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa screamed. Not this time in rage, but with such fervor that
+Travis lost his hold, staggered back to the wall. She whirled about, her
+face contorted, and sprang at him.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed like trying to fight a wildcat and after the first second
+or two he was hard put to protect his eyes, his face, his side, without
+injuring her in return. She scrambled over him, running for the break in
+the wall, and disappeared. Travis gasped, and started to crawl for the
+break. Eskelta loomed over him, pulled him up in haste.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the opening but did not climb through. Travis was uncertain
+as to whether he could make that descent yet, and Eskelta was obeying
+orders in not venturing out too soon.</p>
+
+<p>Below, the ground was bare. There was no sign of the Apaches, though
+they were in hiding there&mdash;and none of Kaydessa. Travis was amazed that
+she had vanished so quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Still uneasy from the emanation within, they perched within the shadow
+of the break until Travis thought that the fugitive had a good
+five-minute start. Then he nodded a signal to Eskelta.</p>
+
+<p>By the time they reached ground level Travis felt a warm wetness
+spreading under his shielding palm and he knew the wound had opened. He
+spoke a word or two in hot protest against that mishap, knowing it would
+keep him from the trail. Kaydessa must be cov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>ered all the way back
+across the pass, not only to be shepherded away from her people and
+toward the plains where she could be picked up by a Red patrol, but also
+to keep her from danger. And he had planned from the first to be one of
+those shepherds.</p>
+
+<p>Now he was about as much use as a trail-lame pony. However, he could
+send deputies. He thought out his call, and Nalik'ideyu's head appeared
+in a frame of bush.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, both of you and run with her! Guard&mdash;!" He said the words in a
+whisper, thought them with a fierce intensity as he centered his gaze on
+the yellow eyes in the pointed coyote face. There was a feeling of
+assent, and then the animal was gone. Travis sighed.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache scouts were subtle and alert, but the coyotes could far outdo
+any man. With Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta flanking her flight, Kaydessa
+would be well guarded. She would probably never see her guards or know
+that they were running protection for her.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a good move," Jil-Lee said, coming out of concealment. "But
+what have you done to yourself?" He stepped closer, pulling Travis' hand
+away from his side. By the time Lupe came to report, Travis was again
+wound in a strapping bandage pulled tightly about his lower ribs, and
+reconciled to the fact that any trailing he would do must be well to the
+rear of the first party.</p>
+
+<p>"The towers," he said to Jil-Lee. "If our plan works, we can catch part
+of the Reds here. But we still have their ship to take, and for that we
+need help which we may find at the towers. Or at least we can be on
+guard there if they return with Kaydessa on that path."</p>
+
+<p>Lupe dropped down lightly from an upper ledge. He was grinning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That woman is one who thinks. She runs from the ship first as a rabbit
+with a wolf at her heels. Then she begins to think. She climbs&mdash;" He
+lifted one finger to the slope behind them. "She goes behind a rock to
+watch under cover. When Fox comes from the ship with Eskelta, again she
+climbs. Buck lets himself be seen, so she moves east, as we wish&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And now?" questioned Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"She is keeping to the high ways; almost she thinks like one of the
+People on the war trail. Nolan believes she will hole up for the night
+somewhere above. He will make sure."</p>
+
+<p>Travis licked his lips. "She has no food or water."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee's lips shaped a smile. "They will see that she comes upon both
+as if by chance. We have planned all of this, as you know, younger
+brother."</p>
+
+<p>That was true. Travis knew that Kaydessa would be guided without her
+knowledge by the "accidental" appearance now and then of some
+pursuer&mdash;just enough to push her along.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, too, she is now armed," Jil-Lee added.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" demanded Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"Look to your own belt, younger brother. Where is your knife?"</p>
+
+<p>Startled, Travis glanced down. His sheath was empty, and he had not
+needed that blade since he had drawn it to cut meat at the morning meal.
+Lupe laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"She had steel in her hand when she came out of that ghost ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Took it from me while we struggled!" Travis was openly surprised. He
+had considered the frenzy displayed by the Tatar girl as an outburst of
+almost mindless ter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>ror. Yet Kaydessa had had wit enough to take his
+knife! Could this be another case where one race was less affected by a
+mind machine than the other? Just as the Apaches had not been governed
+by the Red caller, so the Tatars might not be as sensitive to the Redax.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a strong one, that woman&mdash;one worth many ponies." Eskelta
+reverted to the old measure of a wife's value.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true!" Travis agreed emphatically and then was annoyed at the
+broadening of Jil-Lee's smile. Abruptly he changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Manulito is setting the booby trap in the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"That is well. He and Eskelta will remain here, and you with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so! We must go to the towers&mdash;&mdash;" Travis protested.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," Jil-Lee cut in, "that you believed the weapons of the old
+ones too dangerous for us to use."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe they will be forced into our hands. But we must be sure the
+towers are not entered by the Reds on their way here."</p>
+
+<p>"That is reasonable. But for you, younger brother, no trailing today,
+perhaps not tomorrow. If that wound opens again, you might have much bad
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Travis was forced to accept that, in spite of his worry and impatience.
+And the next day when he did move on he had only the report that
+Kaydessa had sheltered beside a pool for the night and was doggedly
+moving back across the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later Travis, Jil-Lee, and Buck came into the tower valley.
+Kaydessa was in the northern foothills, twice turned back from the west
+and the freedom of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> outlaws by the Apache scouts. And only half an
+hour before, Tsoay had reported by mirror what should have been welcome
+news: the Red helicopter was cruising as it had on the day they watched
+the hunters enter the uplands. There was an excellent chance of the
+fugitive's being sighted and picked up soon.</p>
+
+<p>Tsoay had also spotted a party of three Tatars watching the helicopter.
+But after one wide sweep of the flyer they had taken to their ponies and
+ridden away at the fastest pace their mounts could manage in this rough
+territory.</p>
+
+<p>On a stretch of smooth earth Buck scratched a trail, and they studied
+it. The Reds would have to follow this route to seek the wrecked ship&mdash;a
+route covered by Apache sentinels. And following the chain of
+communication the result of the trap would be reported to the party at
+the towers.</p>
+
+<p>The waiting was the most difficult; too many imponderables did not allow
+for unemotional thinking. Travis was down to the last shred of patience
+when word came on the second morning at the hidden valley that Kaydessa
+had been picked up by a Red patrol&mdash;drawn out to meet them by the
+caller.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;the tower weapons!" Buck answered the report with an imperative
+order to Travis. And the other knew he could no longer postpone the
+inevitable. And only by action could he blot out the haunting mental
+picture of Kaydessa once more drawn into the bondage she so hated.</p>
+
+<p>Flanked by Jil-Lee and Buck, he climbed back through the tower window
+and faced the glowing pillar.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the room, put out both hands to the sleek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> pole, uncertain if
+the weird transport would work again. He heard the sharp gasp from the
+others as his body was sucked against the pillar and carried downward
+through the well. Buck followed him, and Jil-Lee came last. Then Travis
+led the way along the underground corridor to the room with the table
+and the reader.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on the bench, fumbled with the pile of tape disks, knowing
+that the other two were watching him with almost hostile intentness. He
+snapped a disk into the reader, hoping he could correctly interpret the
+directions it gave.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the wall before him. Three ... four steps, the correct
+move&mdash;and then an unlocking....</p>
+
+<p>"You know?" Buck demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I can guess&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Jil-Lee moved to the table. "What do we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"This&mdash;" Travis came from behind the table, walked to the wall. He put
+out both hands, flattened his palms against the green-blue-purple
+surface and slid them slowly along. Under his touch, the material of the
+wall was cool and hard, unlike the live feel the pillar had. Cool
+until&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>One palm, held at arm's length had found the right spot. He slid the
+other hand along in the opposite direction until his arms were level
+with his shoulders. His fingers were able now to press on those points
+of warmth. Travis tensed and pushed hard with all ten fingers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>16</h2>
+
+
+<p>At first, as one second and then two passed and there was no response to
+the pressure, Travis thought he had mistaken the reading of the tape.
+Then, directly before his eyes, a dark line cut vertically down the
+wall. He applied more pressure until his fingers were half numb with
+effort. The line widened slowly. Finally he faced a slit some eight feet
+in height, a little more than two in width, and there the opening
+remained.</p>
+
+<p>Light beyond, a cold, gray gleam&mdash;like that of a cloudy winter day on
+Terra&mdash;and with it the chill of air out of some arctic wasteland.
+Favoring his still bandaged side, Travis scraped through the door ahead
+of the others, and came into the place of gray cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Wauggh!" Travis heard that exclamation from Jil-Lee, could have echoed
+it himself except that he was too astounded by what he had seen to say
+anything at all.</p>
+
+<p>The light came from a grid of bars set far above their heads into the
+native rock which roofed this storehouse, for storehouse it was. There
+were orderly lines of boxes, some large enough to contain a tank, others
+no bigger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> than a man's fist. Symbols in the same blue-green-purple
+lights of the outer wall shone from their sides.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;?" Buck began one question and then changed it to another: "Where
+do we begin to look?"</p>
+
+<p>"Toward the far end." Travis started down the center aisle between rows
+of the massed spoils of another time and world&mdash;or worlds. The same tape
+which had given him the clue to the unlocking of the door, emphasized
+the importance of something stored at the far end, an object or objects
+which must be used first. He had wondered about that tape. A sensation
+of urgency, almost of despair, had come through the gabble of alien
+words, the quick sequence of diagrams and pictures. The message might
+have been taped under a threat of some great peril.</p>
+
+<p>There was no dust on the rows of boxes or on the floor underfoot. A
+current of cold, fresh air blew at intervals down the length of the huge
+chamber. They could not see the next aisle across the barriers of stored
+goods, but the only noise was a whisper and the faint sounds of their
+own feet. They came out into an open space backed by the wall, and
+Travis saw what had been so important.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" His protest was involuntary, but his denial loud enough to echo.</p>
+
+<p>Six&mdash;six of them&mdash;tall, narrow cases set upright against the wall; and
+from their depths, five pairs of dark eyes staring back at him in cold
+measurement. These were the men of the ships&mdash;the men Menlik had dreamed
+of&mdash;their bald white heads, their thin bodies with the skintight
+covering of the familiar blue-green-purple. Five of them were here,
+alive&mdash;watching ... waiting....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Five men&mdash;and six boxes. That small fact broke the spell in which those
+eyes held Travis. He looked again at the sixth box to his right.
+Expecting to meet another pair of eyes this time, he was disconcerted to
+face only emptiness. Then, as his gaze traveled downward, he saw what
+lay on the floor there&mdash;a skull, a tangle of bones, tattered material
+cobwebbed into dusty rags by time. Whatever had preserved five of the
+star men intact, had failed the sixth of their company.</p>
+
+<p>"They are alive!" Jil-Lee whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think so," Buck answered. Travis took another step, reached
+out to touch the transparent front of the nearest coffin case. There was
+no change in the eyes of the alien who stood within, no indication that
+if the Apaches could see him, he would be able to return their interest.
+The five stares which had bemused the visitors at first, did not break
+to follow their movements.</p>
+
+<p>But Travis knew! Whether it was some message on the tape which the sight
+of the sleepers made clear, or whether some residue of the driving
+purpose which had set them there now reached his mind, was immaterial.
+He knew the purpose of this room and its contents, why it had been made
+and the reason its six guardians had been left as prisoners&mdash;and what
+they wanted from anyone coming after them.</p>
+
+<p>"They sleep," he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep?" Buck caught him up.</p>
+
+<p>"They sleep in something like deep freeze."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean they can be brought to life again!" Jil-Lee cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not now&mdash;it must be too long&mdash;but they were meant to wait out a
+period and be restored."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that?" Buck asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know for certain, but I think I understand a little. Something
+happened a long time ago. Maybe it was a war, a war between whole star
+systems, bigger and worse than anything we can imagine. I think this
+planet was an outpost, and when the supply ships didn't come any more,
+when they knew they might be cut off for some length of time, they
+closed down. Stacked their supplies and machines here and then went to
+sleep to wait for their rescuers...."</p>
+
+<p>"For rescuers who never came," Jil-Lee said softly. "And there is a
+chance they could be revived even now?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis shivered. "Not one I would want to take."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Buck's tone was somber, "that I agree to, younger brother. These
+are not men as we know them, and I do not think they would be good
+<i>dalaanbiyat'i</i>&mdash;allies. They had <i>go'ndi</i> in plenty, these star men,
+but it is not the power of the People. No one but a madman or a fool
+would try to disturb this sleep of theirs."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth you speak," Jil-Lee agreed. "But where in this," he turned
+his shoulder to the sleeping star men and looked back at the filled
+chamber&mdash;"do we find anything which will serve us here and now?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Travis had only the scrappiest information to draw upon. "Spread
+out," he told them. "Look for the marking of a circle surrounding four
+dots set in a diamond pattern."</p>
+
+<p>They went, but Travis lingered for a moment to look once more into the
+bleak and bitter eyes of the star men. How many planet years ago had
+they sealed themselves into those boxes? A thousand, ten thousand? Their
+empire was long gone, yet here was an outpost still waiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> to be
+revived to carry on its mysterious duties. It was as if in Saxon-invaded
+Britain long ago a Roman garrison had been frozen to await the return of
+the legions. Buck was right; there was no common ground today between
+Terran man and these unknowns. They must continue to sleep undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Yet when Travis also turned away and went back down the aisle, he was
+still aware of a persistent pull on him to return. It was as though
+those eyes had set locking cords to will him back to release the
+sleepers. He was glad to turn a corner, to know that they could no
+longer watch him plunder their treasury.</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" That was Buck's voice, but it echoed so oddly across the big
+chamber that Travis had difficulty in deciding what part of the
+warehouse it was coming from. And Buck had to call several times before
+Travis and Jil-Lee joined him.</p>
+
+<p>There was the circle-dot-diamond symbol shining on the side of a case.
+They worked it out of the pile, setting it in the open. Travis knelt to
+run his hands along the top. The container was an unknown alloy, tough,
+unmarked by the years&mdash;perhaps indestructible.</p>
+
+<p>Again his fingers located what his eyes could not detect&mdash;the
+impressions on the edge, oddly shaped impressions into which his finger
+tips did not fit too comfortably. He pressed, bearing down with the full
+strength of his arms and shoulders, and then lifted up the lid.</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches looked into a set of compartments, each holding an object
+with a barrel, a hand grip, a general resemblance to the sidearms of
+their own world and time, but sufficiently different to point up the
+essential strangeness. With infinite care Travis worked one out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> the
+vise-support which held it. The weapon was light in weight, lighter than
+any automatic he had ever held. Its barrel was long, a good eighteen
+inches&mdash;the grip alien in shape so that it didn't fit comfortably into
+his hand, the trigger nonexistent, but in its place a button on the
+lower part of the barrel which could be covered by an outstretched
+finger.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it do?" asked Buck practically.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure. But it is important enough to have a special mention on
+the tape." Travis passed the weapon along to Buck and worked another
+loose from its holder.</p>
+
+<p>"No way of loading I can see," Buck said, examining the weapon with care
+and caution.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it fires a solid projectile," Travis replied. "We'll have
+to test them outside to find out just what we do have."</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches took only three of the weapons, closing the box before they
+left. And as they wriggled back through the crack door, Travis was
+visited again by that odd flash of compelling, almost possessive power
+he had experienced when they had lain in ambush for the Red hunting
+party. He took a step or two forward until he was able to catch the edge
+of the reading table and steady himself against it.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" Both Buck and Jil-Lee were watching him;
+apparently neither had felt that sensation. Travis did not reply for a
+second. He was free of it now. But he was sure of its source; it had not
+been any backlash of the Red caller! It was rooted here&mdash;a compulsion
+triggered to make the original intentions of the outpost obeyed, a last
+drag from the sleepers. This place had been set up with a single
+purpose: to protect and pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>serve the ancient rulers of Topaz. And
+perhaps the very presence here of the intruding Terrans had released a
+force, started an unseen installation.</p>
+
+<p>Now Travis answered simply: "They want out...."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee glanced back at the slit door, but Buck still watched Travis.</p>
+
+<p>"They call?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"In a way," Travis admitted. But the compulsion had already ebbed; he
+was free. "It is gone now."</p>
+
+<p>"This is not a good place," Buck observed somberly. "We touch that which
+should not be held by men of our earth." He held out the weapon.</p>
+
+<p>"Did not the People take up the rifles of the Pinda-lick-o-yi for their
+defense when it was necessary?" Jil-Lee demanded. "We do what we must.
+After seeing that," his chin indicated the slit and what lay behind
+it&mdash;"do you wish the Reds to forage here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Still," Buck's words came slowly, "this is a choice between two evils,
+rather than between an evil and a good&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us see how powerful this evil is!" Jil-Lee headed for the
+corridor leading to the pillar.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was late afternoon when they made their way through the swirling
+mists of the valley under the archway giving on the former site of the
+outlaw Tatar camp. Travis sighted the long barrel of the weapon at a
+small bush backed by a boulder, and he pressed the firing button. There
+was no way of knowing whether the weapon was loaded except to try it.</p>
+
+<p>The result of his action was quick&mdash;quick and terrifying. There was no
+sound, no sign of any projectile ...<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> ray-gas ... or whatever might have
+issued in answer to his finger movement. But the bush&mdash;the bush was no
+more!</p>
+
+<p>A black smear made a ragged outline of the extinguished branches and
+leaves on the rock which had stood behind. The earth might still enclose
+roots under a thin coating of ash, but the bush was gone!</p>
+
+<p>"The breath of Naye'nezyani&mdash;powerful beyond belief!" Buck broke their
+horrified silence first. "In truth evil is here!"</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee raised his gun&mdash;if gun it could be called&mdash;aimed at the rock
+with the bush silhouette plain to see and fired.</p>
+
+<p>This time they were able to witness disintegration in progress, the
+crumble of the stone as if its substance was no more than sand lapped by
+river water. A pile of blackened rubble remained&mdash;nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>"To use this on a living thing?" Buck protested, horror basing the doubt
+in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not use it against living things," Travis promised, "but against
+the ship of the Reds&mdash;to cut that to pieces. This will open the shell of
+the turtle and let us at its meat."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee nodded. "Those are true words. But now I agree with your fears
+of this place, Travis. This is a devil thing and must not be allowed to
+fall into the hands of those who&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will use it more freely than we plan to?" Buck wanted to know. "We
+reserve to ourselves that right because we hold our motives higher? To
+think that way is also a crooked trail. We will use this means because
+we must, but afterward...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Afterward that warehouse must be closed, the tapes giving the entrance
+clue destroyed. One part of Travis fought that decision, right though he
+knew it to be. The towers were the menace he had believed. And what was
+more discouraging than the risk they now ran, was the belief that the
+treasure was a poison which could not be destroyed but which might
+spread from Topaz to Terra.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the Western Conference had discovered that storehouse and
+explored its riches, would they have been any less eager to exploit
+them? As Buck had pointed out, one's own ideals could well supply
+reasons for violence. In the past Terra had been racked by wars of
+religion, one fanatically held opinion opposed to another. There was no
+righteousness in such struggles, only fatal ends. The Reds had no right
+to this new knowledge&mdash;but neither did they. It must be locked against
+the meddling of fools and zealots.</p>
+
+<p>"Taboo&mdash;" Buck spoke that word with an emphasis they could appreciate.
+Knowledge must be set behind the invisible barriers of taboo, and that
+could work.</p>
+
+<p>"These three&mdash;no more&mdash;we found no other weapons!" Jil-Lee added a
+warning suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"No others," Buck agreed and Travis echoed, adding:</p>
+
+<p>"We found tombs of the space people, and these were left with them.
+Because of our great need we borrowed them, but they must be returned to
+the dead or trouble will follow. And they may only be used against the
+fortress of the Reds by us, who first found them and have taken unto
+ourselves the wrath of disturbed spirits."</p>
+
+<p>"Well thought! That is an answer to give the People. The towers are the
+tombs of dead ones. When we return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> these they shall be taboo. We are
+agreed?" Buck asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We are agreed!"</p>
+
+<p>Buck tried his weapon on a sapling, saw it vanish into nothingness. None
+of the Apaches wanted to carry the strange guns against their bodies;
+the power made them objects of fear, rather than arms to delight a
+warrior. And when they returned to their temporary camp, they laid all
+three on a blanket and covered them up. But they could not cover up the
+memories of what had happened to bush, rock, and tree.</p>
+
+<p>"If such are their small weapons," Buck observed that evening, "then
+what kind of things did they have to balance our heavy armament? Perhaps
+they were able to burn up worlds!"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be what happened elsewhere," Travis replied. "We do not know
+what put an end to their empire. The capital-planet we found on the
+first voyage had not been destroyed, but it had been evacuated in haste.
+One building had not even been stripped of its furnishings." He
+remembered the battle he had fought there, he and Ross Murdock and the
+winged native, standing up to an attack of the ape-things while the
+winged warrior had used his physical advantage to fly above and bomb the
+enemies with boxes snatched from the piles....</p>
+
+<p>"And here they went to sleep in order to wait out some danger&mdash;time or
+disaster&mdash;they did not believe would be permanent," Buck mused.</p>
+
+<p>Travis thought he would flee from the eyes of the sleepers throughout
+his dreams that night, but on the contrary he slept heavily, finding it
+hard to rouse when Jil-Lee awakened him for his watch. But he was alert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+when he saw a four-footed shape flit out of the shadows, drink water
+from the stream, and shake itself vigorously in a spray of drops.</p>
+
+<p>"Naginlta!" he greeted the coyote. Trouble? He could have shouted that
+question, but he put a tight rein on his impatience and strove to
+communicate in the only method possible.</p>
+
+<p>No, what the coyote had come to report was not trouble but the fact that
+the one he had been set to guard was headed back into the mountains,
+though others came with her&mdash;four others. Nalik'ideyu still watched
+their camp. Her mate had come for further orders.</p>
+
+<p>Travis squatted before the animal, cupped the coyote's jowls between his
+palms. Naginlta suffered his touch with only a small whine of
+uneasiness. With all his power of mental suggestion, Travis strove to
+reach the keen brain he knew was served by the yellow eyes looking into
+his.</p>
+
+<p>The others with Kaydessa were to be led on, taken to the ship. But
+Kaydessa must not suffer harm. When they reached a spot near-by&mdash;Travis
+thought of a certain rock beyond the pass&mdash;then one of the coyotes was
+to go ahead to the ship. Let the Apaches there know....</p>
+
+<p>Manulito and Eskelta should also be warned by the sentry along the
+peaks, but additional alerting would not go amiss. Those four with
+Kaydessa&mdash;they must reach the trap!</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?" Buck rolled out of his blanket.</p>
+
+<p>"Naginlta&mdash;" The coyote sped back into the dark again. "The Reds have
+taken the bait, a party of at least four with Kaydessa are moving into
+the foothills, heading south."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the enemy party was not the only one on the move. In the light of
+day a sentry's mirror from a point in the peaks sent another warning
+down to their camp.</p>
+
+<p>Out in their mountain meadows the Tatar outlaws were on horseback,
+moving toward the entrance of the tower valley. Buck knelt by the
+blanket covering the alien weapons.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to stop them," Travis replied, but he had no idea of just
+how they would halt those determined Mongol horsemen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>17</h2>
+
+
+<p>There were ten of them riding on small, wiry steppe ponies&mdash;men and
+women both, and well armed. Travis recalled it was the custom of the
+Horde that the women fought as warriors when necessary. Menlik&mdash;there
+was no mistaking the flapping robe of their leader. And they were
+singing! The rider behind the shaman thumped with violent energy a drum
+fastened beside his saddle horn, its heavy boom, boom the same call the
+Apache had heard before. The Mongols were working themselves into the
+mood for some desperate effort, Travis deduced. And if they were too
+deeply under the Red spell, there would be no arguing with them. He
+could wait no longer.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache swung down from a ledge near the valley gate, moved into the
+open and stood waiting, the alien weapon resting across his forearm. If
+necessary, he intended to give a demonstration with it for an object
+lesson.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dar-u-gar</i>!" The war cry which had once awakened fear across a quarter
+of Terra. Thin here, and from only a few throats, but just as menacing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Two of the horsemen aimed lances, preparing to ride him down. Travis
+sighted a tree midway between them and pressed the firing button. This
+time there was a flash, a flicker of light, to mark the disappearance of
+a living thing.</p>
+
+<p>One of the lancers' ponies reared, squealed in fear. The other kept on
+his course.</p>
+
+<p>"Menlik!" Travis shouted. "Hold up your man! I do not want to kill!"</p>
+
+<p>The shaman called out, but the lancer was already level with the
+vanished tree, his head half turned on his shoulders to witness the
+blackened earth where it had stood. Then he dropped his lance, sawed on
+the reins. A rifle bullet might not have halted his charge, unless it
+killed or wounded, but what he had just seen was a thing beyond his
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p>The tribesmen sat their horses, facing Travis, watching him with the
+feral eyes of the wolves they claimed as forefathers, wolves that
+possessed the cunning of the wild, cunning enough not to rush breakneck
+into unknown danger.</p>
+
+<p>Travis walked forward. "Menlik, I would talk&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was an outburst from the horsemen, protests from Hulagur and one
+or two of the others. But the shaman urged his mount into a walking pace
+toward the Apache until they stood only a few feet from each other&mdash;the
+warrior of the steppes and the Horde facing the warrior of the desert
+and the People.</p>
+
+<p>"You have taken a woman from our yurts," Menlik said, but his eyes were
+more on the alien gun than on the man who held it. "Brave are you to
+come again into our land. He who sets foot in the stirrup must mount<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+into the saddle; he who draws blade free of the scabbard must be
+prepared to use it."</p>
+
+<p>"The Horde is not here&mdash;I see only a handful of people," Travis replied.
+"Does Menlik propose to go up against the Apaches so? Yet there are
+those who are his greater enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment under a
+general to face him."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so
+little time.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not your
+woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he pointed with
+his chin&mdash;"leading the Reds into a trap."</p>
+
+<p>Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him
+now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>We</i>," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind
+in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving,
+contemptuous appraisal.</p>
+
+<p>"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome
+machines?"</p>
+
+<p>"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis
+displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into
+shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not
+change, though his eyes narrowed.</p>
+
+<p>The shaman signaled his small company, and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> dismounted. Travis was
+heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made
+a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in
+sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of
+knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen
+troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.</p>
+
+<p>"You would talk&mdash;then talk!" Menlik ordered.</p>
+
+<p>This time Travis outlined events with an absence of word embroidery.
+"Kaydessa leads the Reds into a trap we have set beyond the peaks&mdash;four
+of them ride with her. How many now remain in the ship near the
+settlement?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are at least two in the flyer, perhaps eight more in the ship.
+But there is no getting at them in there."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" Travis laughed softly, shifted the weapon on his arm. "Do you not
+think that this will crack the shell of that nut so that we can get at
+the meat?"</p>
+
+<p>Menlik's eyes flickered to the left, to the tree which was no longer a
+tree but a thin deposit of ash on seared ground.</p>
+
+<p>"They can control us with the caller as they did before. If we go up
+against them, then we are once more gathered into their net&mdash;before we
+reach their ship."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true for you of the Horde; it does not affect the People,"
+Travis returned. "And suppose we burn out their machines? Then will you
+not be free?"</p>
+
+<p>"To burn up a tree? Lightning from the skies can do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Can lightning," Buck asked softly, "also make rock as sand of the
+river?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Menlik's eyes turned to the second example of the alien weapon's power.</p>
+
+<p>"Give us proof that this will act against their machines!"</p>
+
+<p>"What proof, Shaman?" asked Jil-Lee. "Shall we burn down a mountain that
+you may believe? This is now a matter of time."</p>
+
+<p>Travis had a sudden inspiration. "You say that the 'copter is out.
+Suppose we use that as a target?"</p>
+
+<p>"That&mdash;that can sweep the flyer from the sky?" Menlik's disbelief was
+open.</p>
+
+<p>Travis wondered if he had gone too far. But they needed to rid
+themselves of that spying flyer before they dared to move out into the
+plain. And to use the destruction of the helicopter as an example, would
+be the best proof he could give of the invincibility of the new Apache
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Under the right conditions," he replied stoutly, "yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And those conditions?" Menlik demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"That it must be brought within range. Say, below the level of a
+neighboring peak where a man may lie in wait to fire."</p>
+
+<p>Silent Apaches faced silent Mongols, and Travis had a chance to taste
+what might be defeat. But the helicopter must be taken before they
+advanced toward the ship and the settlement.</p>
+
+<p>"And, maker of traps, how do you intend to bait this one?" Menlik's
+question was an open challenge.</p>
+
+<p>"You know these Reds better than we," Travis counterattacked. "How would
+you bait it, Son of the Blue Wolf?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You say Kaydessa is leading the Reds south; we have but your word for
+that," Menlik replied. "Though how it would profit you to lie on such a
+matter&mdash;" He shrugged. "If you do speak the truth, then the 'copter will
+circle about the foothills where they entered."</p>
+
+<p>"And what would bring the pilot nosing farther in?" the Apache asked.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik shrugged again. "Any manner of things. The Reds have never
+ventured too far south; they are suspicious of the heights&mdash;with good
+cause." His fingers, near the hilt of his tulwar, twitched. "Anything
+which might suggest that their party is in difficulty would bring them
+in for a closer look&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Say a fire, with much smoke?" Jil-Lee suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik spoke over his shoulder to his own party. There was a babble of
+answer, two or three of the men raising their voices above those of
+their companions.</p>
+
+<p>"If set in the right direction, yes," the shaman conceded. "When do you
+plan to move, Apaches?"</p>
+
+<p>"At once!"</p>
+
+<p>But they did not have wings, and the cross-country march they had to
+make was a rough journey on foot. Travis' "at once" stretched into night
+hours filled with scrambling over rocks, and an early morning of
+preparations, with always the threat that the helicopter might not
+return to fly its circling mission over the scene of operations. All
+they had was Menlik's assurance that while any party of the Red
+overlords was away from their well-defended base, the flyer did just
+that.</p>
+
+<p>"Might be relaying messages on from a walkie-talkie or something like
+that," Buck commented.</p>
+
+<p>"They should reach our ship in two days ... three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> at the most ... if
+they are pushing," Travis said thoughtfully. "It would be a help&mdash;if
+that flyer is a link in any com unit&mdash;to destroy it before its crew
+picks up and relays any report of what happens back there."</p>
+
+<p>Jil-Lee grunted. He was surveying the heights above the pocket in which
+Menlik and two of the Mongols were piling brush. "There ... there ...
+and there...." The Apache's chin made three juts. "If the pilot swoops
+for a quick look, our cross fire will take out his blades."</p>
+
+<p>They held a last conference with Menlik and then climbed to the perches
+Jil-Lee had selected. Sentries on lookout reported by mirror flash that
+Tsoay, Deklay, Lupe, and Nolan were now on the move to join the other
+three Apaches. If and when Manulito's trap closed its jaws on the Reds
+at the western ship, the news would pass and the Apaches would move out
+to storm the enemy fort on the prairie. And should they blast any caller
+the helicopter might carry, Menlik and his riders would accompany them.</p>
+
+<p>There it was, just as Menlik had foretold: The wasp from the open
+country was flying into the hills. Menlik, on his knees, struck flint to
+steel, sparking the fire they hoped would draw the pilot to a closer
+investigation.</p>
+
+<p>The brush caught, and smoke, thick and white, came first in separate
+puffs and then gathered into a murky pillar to form a signal no one
+could overlook. In Travis' hands the grip of the gun was slippery. He
+rested the end of the barrel on the rock, curbing his rising tension as
+best he could.</p>
+
+<p>To escape any caller on the flyer, the Tatars had remained in the valley
+below the Apaches' lookout. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> as the helicopter circled in, Travis
+sighted two men in its cockpit, one wearing a helmet identical to the
+one they had seen on the Red hunter days ago. The Reds' long undisputed
+sway over the Mongol forces would make them overconfident. Travis
+thought that even if they sighted one of the waiting Apaches, they would
+not take warning until too late.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik's bush fire was performing well and the flyer was heading
+straight for it. The machine buzzed the smoke once, too high for the
+Apaches to trust raying its blades. Then the pilot came back in a lower
+sweep which carried him only yards above the smoldering brush, on a
+level with the snipers.</p>
+
+<p>Travis pressed the button on the barrel, his target the fast-whirling
+blades. Momentum carried the helicopter on, but at least one of the
+marksmen, if not all three, had scored. The machine plowed through the
+smoke to crack up beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Was their caller working, bringing in the Mongols to aid the Reds
+trapped in the wreck?</p>
+
+<p>Travis watched Menlik make his way toward the machine, reach the cracked
+cover of the cockpit. But in the shaman's hand was a bare blade on which
+the sun glinted. The Mongol wrenched open the sprung door, thrust inward
+with the tulwar, and the howl of triumph he voiced was as worldless and
+wild as a wolf's.</p>
+
+<p>More Mongols flooding down ... Hulagur ... a woman ... centering on the
+helicopter. This time a spear plunged into the interior of the broken
+flyer. Payment was being extracted for long slavery.</p>
+
+<p>The Apaches dropped from the heights, waiting for Menlik to leave the
+wild scene. Hulagur had dragged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> out the body of the helmeted man and
+the Mongols were stripping off his equipment, smashing it with rocks,
+still howling their war cry. But the shaman came to the dying smudge
+fire to meet the Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>He was smiling, his upper lip raised in a curve suggesting the victory
+purr of a snow tiger. And he saluted with one hand.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two who will not trap men again! We believe you now, <i>andas</i>,
+comrades of battle, when you say you can go up against their fort and
+make it as nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Hulagur came up behind the shaman, a modern automatic in his hand. He
+tossed the weapon into the air, caught it again, laughing&mdash;disclaiming
+something in his own language.</p>
+
+<p>"From the serpents we take two fangs," Menlik translated. "These weapons
+may not be as dangerous as yours, but they can bite deeper, quicker, and
+with more force than our arrows."</p>
+
+<p>It did not take the Mongols long to strip the helicopter and the Reds of
+what they could use, deliberately smashing all the other equipment which
+had survived the wreck. They had accomplished one important move: The
+link between the southbound exploring party and the Red headquarters&mdash;if
+that was the role the helicopter had played&mdash;was now gone. And the
+"eyes" operating over the open territory of the plains had ceased to
+exist. The attacking war party could move against the ship near the Red
+settlement, knowing they had only controlled Mongol scouts to watch for.
+And to penetrate enemy territory under those conditions was an old, old
+game the Apaches had played for centuries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>While they waited for the signals from the peaks, a camp was established
+and a Mongol dispatched to bring up the rest of the outlaws and all
+extra mounts. Menlik carried to the Apaches a portion of the dried meat
+which had been transported Horde fashion&mdash;under the saddle to soften it
+for eating.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not skulk any longer like rats or city men in dark holes," he
+told them. "This time we ride, and we shall take an accounting from
+those out there&mdash;a fine accounting!"</p>
+
+<p>"They still have other controllers," Travis pointed out.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have that which is an answer to all their machines," blazed
+Menlik in return.</p>
+
+<p>"They will send against us your own people if they can," Buck warned.</p>
+
+<p>Menlik pulled at his upper lip. "That is also truth. But now they have
+no eyes in the sky, and with so many of their men away, they will not
+patrol too far from camp. I tell you, <i>andas</i>, with these weapons of
+yours a man could rule a world!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis looked at him bleakly. "Which is why they are taboo!"</p>
+
+<p>"Taboo?" Menlik repeated. "In what manner are these forbidden? Do you
+not carry them openly, use them as you wish? Are they not weapons of
+your own people?"</p>
+
+<p>Travis shook his head. "These are the weapons of dead men&mdash;if we can
+name them men at all. These we took from a tomb of the star race who
+held Topaz when our world was only a hunting ground of wild men wearing
+the skins of beasts and slaying mammoths with stone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> spears. They are
+from a tomb and are cursed, a curse we took upon ourselves with their
+use."</p>
+
+<p>There was a strange light deep in the shaman's eyes. Travis did not know
+who or what Menlik had been before the Red conditioner had returned him
+to the role of Horde shaman. He might have been a technician or
+scientist&mdash;and deep within him some remnants of that training could now
+be dismissing everything Travis said as fantastic superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in another way the Apache spoke the exact truth. There was a curse
+on these weapons, on every bit of knowledge gathered in that warehouse
+of the towers. As Menlik had already noted, that curse was power, the
+power to control Topaz, and then perhaps to reach back across the stars
+to Terra.</p>
+
+<p>When the shaman spoke again his words were a half whisper. "It will take
+a powerful curse to keep these out of the hands of men."</p>
+
+<p>"With the Reds gone or powerless," Buck asked, "what need will anyone
+have for them?"</p>
+
+<p>"And if another ship comes from the skies&mdash;to begin all over again?"</p>
+
+<p>"To that we shall have an answer, also, if and when we must find it,"
+Travis replied. That could well be true ... other weapons in the
+warehouse powerful enough to pluck a spaceship out of the sky, but they
+did not have to worry about that now.</p>
+
+<p>"Arms from a tomb. Yes, this is truly dead men's magic. I shall say so
+to my people. When do we move out?"</p>
+
+<p>"When we know whether or not the trap to the south is sprung," Buck
+answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The report came an hour after sunrise the next morning when Tsoay,
+Nolan, and Deklay padded into camp. The war chief made a slight gesture
+with one hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done?" Travis wanted confirmation in words.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done. The Pinda-lick-o-yi entered the ship eagerly. Then they
+blew it and themselves up. Manulito did his work well."</p>
+
+<p>"And Kaydessa?"</p>
+
+<p>"The woman is safe. When the Reds saw the ship, they left their machine
+outside to hold her captive. That mechanical caller was easily
+destroyed. She is now free and with the <i>mba'a</i> she comes across the
+mountains, Manulito and Eskelta with her also. Now&mdash;" he looked from his
+own people to the Mongols, "why are you here with these?"</p>
+
+<p>"We wait, but the waiting is over," Jil-Lee said. "Now we go north!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>18</h2>
+
+
+<p>They lay along the rim of a vast basin, a scooping out of earth so wide
+they could not sight its other side. The bed of an ancient lake, Travis
+speculated, or perhaps even the arm of a long-dried sea. But now the
+hollow was filled with rolling waves of golden grass, tossing heavy
+heads under the flowing touch of a breeze with the exception of a space
+about a mile ahead where round domes&mdash;black, gray, brown&mdash;broke the
+yellow in an irregular oval around the globular silver bead of a spacer:
+a larger ship than that which had brought the Apaches, but of the same
+shape.</p>
+
+<p>"The horse herd ... to the west." Nolan evaluated the scene with the
+eyes of an experienced raider. "Tsoay, Deklay, you take the horses!"</p>
+
+<p>They nodded, and began the long crawl which would take them two miles or
+more from the party to stampede the horses.</p>
+
+<p>To the Mongols in those domelike yurts horses were wealth, life itself.
+They would come running to investigate any disturbance among the grazing
+ponies, thus clearing the path to the ship and the Reds there. Travis,
+Jil-Lee, and Buck, armed with the star guns, would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> spearhead that
+attack&mdash;cutting into the substance of the ship itself until it was a
+sieve through which they could shake out the enemy. Only when the
+installations it contained were destroyed, might the Apaches hope for
+any assistance from the Mongols, either the outlaw pack waiting well
+back on the prairie or the people in the yurts.</p>
+
+<p>The grass rippled and Naginlta poked out a nose, parting stems before
+Travis. The Apache beamed an order, sending the coyotes with the
+horse-raiding party. He had seen how the animals could drive hunted
+split-horns; they would do as well with the ponies.</p>
+
+<p>Kaydessa was safe, the coyotes had made that clear by the fact that they
+had joined the attacking party an hour earlier. With Eskelta and
+Manulito she was on her way back to the north.</p>
+
+<p>Travis supposed he should be well pleased that their reckless plan had
+succeeded as well as it had. But when he thought of the Tatar girl, all
+he could see was her convulsed face close to his in the ship corridor,
+her raking nails raised to tear his cheek. She had an excellent reason
+to hate him, yet he hoped....</p>
+
+<p>They continued to watch both horse herd and domes. There were people
+moving about the yurts, but no signs of life at the ship. Had the Reds
+shut themselves in there, warned in some way of the two disasters which
+had whittled down their forces?</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;!" Nolan breathed.</p>
+
+<p>One of the ponies had raised its head and was facing the direction of
+the camp, suspicion plain to read in its stance. The Apaches must have
+reached the point between the herd and the domes which had been their
+goal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> And the Mongol guard, who had been sitting cross-legged, the
+reins of his mount dangling close to his hand, got to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ahhhuuuuu!" The ancient Apache war cry that had sounded across deserts,
+canyons, and southwestern Terran plains to ice the blood, ripped just as
+freezingly through the honey-hued air of Topaz.</p>
+
+<p>The horses wheeled, racing upslope away from the settlement. A figure
+broke from the grass, flapped his arms at one of the mounts, grabbed at
+flying mane, and pulled himself up on the bare back. Only a master
+horseman would have done that, but the whooping rider now drove the herd
+on, assisted by the snapping and snarling coyotes.</p>
+
+<p>"Deklay&mdash;" Jil-Lee identified the reckless rider, "that was one of his
+rodeo tricks."</p>
+
+<p>Among the yurts it was as if someone had ripped up a rotten log to
+reveal an ants' nest and sent the alarmed insects into a frenzy. Men
+boiled out of the domes, the majority of them running for the horse
+pasture. One or two were mounted on ponies that must have been staked
+out in the settlement. The main war party of Apaches skimmed silently
+through the grass on their way to the ship.</p>
+
+<p>The three who were armed with the alien weapons had already tested their
+range by experimentation back in the hills, but the fear of exhausting
+whatever powered those barrels had curtailed their target practice. Now
+they snaked to the edge of the bare ground between them and the ladder
+hatch of the spacer. To cross that open space was to provide targets for
+lances and arrows&mdash;or the superior armament of the Reds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A chance we can hit from here." Buck laid his weapon across his bent
+knee, steadied the long barrel of the burner, and pressed the firing
+button.</p>
+
+<p>The closed hatch of the ship shimmered, dissolved into a black hole.
+Behind Travis someone let out the yammer of a war whoop.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire&mdash;cut the walls to pieces!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis did not need that order from Jil-Lee. He was already beaming
+unseen destruction at the best target he could ask for&mdash;the side of the
+sphere. If the globe was armed, there was no weapon which could be
+depressed far enough to reach the marksmen at ground level.</p>
+
+<p>Holes appeared, irregular gaps and tears in the fabric of the ship. The
+Apaches were turning the side of the globe into lacework. How far those
+rays penetrated into the interior they could not guess.</p>
+
+<p>Movement at one of the holes, the chattering burst of machine-gun fire,
+spatters of soil and gravel into their faces; they could be cut to
+pieces by that! The hole enlarged, a scream ... cut off....</p>
+
+<p>"They will not be too quick to try that again," Nolan observed with cold
+calm from behind Travis' post.</p>
+
+<p>Methodically they continued to beam the ship. It would never be
+space-borne again; there were neither the skills nor materials here to
+repair such damage.</p>
+
+<p>"It is like laying a knife to fat," Lupe said as he crawled up beside
+Travis. "Slice, slice&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>"Move!" Travis reached to the left, pulled at Jil-Lee's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Travis did not know whether it was possible or not, but he had a heady
+vision of their combined fire power cutting the globe in half, slicing
+it crosswise with the ease Lupe admired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They scurried through cover just as someone behind yelled a warning.
+Travis threw himself down, rolled into a new firing position. An arrow
+sang over his head; the Reds were doing what the Apaches had known they
+would&mdash;calling in the controlled Mongols to fight. The attack on the
+ship must be stepped up, or the Amerindians would be forced to retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Already a new lacing of holes appeared under their concentrated efforts.
+With the gun held tight to his middle, Travis found his feet, zigzagged
+across the bare ground for the nearest of those openings. Another arrow
+clanged harmlessly against the fabric of the ship a foot from his goal.</p>
+
+<p>He made it in, over jagged metal shards which glowed faintly and reeked
+of ozone. The weapons' beams had penetrated well past both the outer
+shell and the wall of insulation webbing. He climbed a second and
+smaller break into a corridor enough like those of the western ship to
+be familiar. The Red spacer, based on the general plan of the alien
+derelict ship as his own had been, could not be very different.</p>
+
+<p>Travis tried to subdue his heavy breathing and listen. He heard a
+confused shouting and the burr of what might be an alarm system. The
+ship's brain was the control cabin. Even if the Reds dared not try to
+lift now, that was the core of their communication lines. He started
+along the corridor, trying to figure out its orientation in relation to
+that all-important nerve center.</p>
+
+<p>The Apache shoved open each door he passed with one shoulder, and twice
+he played a light beam on installations within cabins. He had no idea of
+their use, but the wholesale destruction of each and every machine was
+what good sense and logic dictated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a sound behind. Travis whirled, saw Jil-Lee and beyond him
+Buck.</p>
+
+<p>"Up?" Jil-Lee asked.</p>
+
+<p>"And down," Buck added. "The Tatars say they have hollowed a bunker
+beneath."</p>
+
+<p>"Separate and do as much damage as you can," Travis suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed!"</p>
+
+<p>Travis sped on. He passed another door and then backtracked hurriedly as
+he realized it had given on to an engine room. With the gun he blasted
+two long lines cutting the fittings into ragged lumps. Abruptly the
+lights went out; the burr of the alarms was silenced. Part of the ship,
+if not all, was dead. And now it might come to hunter and hunted in the
+dark. But that was an advantage as far as the Apaches were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Back in the corridor again, Travis crept through a curiously lifeless
+atmosphere. The shouting was stilled as if the sudden failure of the
+machines had stunned the Reds.</p>
+
+<p>A tiny sound&mdash;perhaps the scrape of a boot on a ladder. Travis edged
+back into a compartment. A flash of light momentarily lighted the
+corridor; the approaching figure was using a torch. Travis drew his
+knife with one hand, reversed it so he could use the heavy hilt as a
+silencer. The other was hurrying now, on his way to investigate the
+burned-out engine cabin. Travis could hear the rasp of his fast
+breathing. Now!</p>
+
+<p>The Apache had put down the gun, his left arm closed about a shoulder,
+and the Red gasped as Travis struck with the knife hilt. Not clean&mdash;he
+had to hit a second time before the struggles of the man were over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+Then, using his hands for eyes, he stripped the limp body on the floor
+of automatic and torch.</p>
+
+<p>With the Red's weapon in the front of his sash, the burner in one hand
+and the torch in the other, Travis prowled on. There was a good chance
+that those above might believe him to be their comrade returning. He
+found the ladder leading to the next level, began to climb, pausing now
+and then to listen.</p>
+
+<p>Shock preceded sound. Under him the ladder swayed and the globe itself
+rocked a little. A blast of some kind must have been set off at or under
+the level of the ground. The bunker Buck had mentioned?</p>
+
+<p>Travis clung to the ladder, waited for the vibrations to subside. There
+was a shouting above, a questioning.... Hurriedly he ascended to the
+next level, scrambled out and away from the ladder just in time to avoid
+the light from another torch flashed down the well. Again that call of
+inquiry, then a shot&mdash;the boom of the explosion loud in the confined
+space.</p>
+
+<p>To climb into the face of that light with a waiting marksman above was
+sheer folly. Could there be another way up? Travis retreated down one of
+the corridors raying out from the ladder well. A quick inspection of the
+cabins along that route told him he had reached a section of living
+quarters. The pattern was familiar; the control cabin would be on the
+next level.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Apache remembered something: On each level there should be
+an emergency opening giving access to the insulation space between the
+inner and outer skins of the ship through which repairs could be made.
+If he could find that and climb up to the next level....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The light shining down the well remained steady, and there was the
+echoing crack of another shot. But Travis was far enough away from the
+ladder now to dare use his own torch, seeking the door he needed on the
+wall surface. With a leap of heart he sighted the outline&mdash;his luck was
+in! The Russian and western ships were alike.</p>
+
+<p>Once the panel was open he flashed his torch up, finding the climbing
+rungs and, above, the shadow outline of the next level opening. Securing
+the alien gun in his sash beside the automatic and holding the torch in
+his mouth, Travis climbed, not daring to think of the deep drop below.
+Four ... five ... ten rungs, and he could reach the other door.</p>
+
+<p>His fingers slid over it, searching for the release catch. But there was
+no answering give. Balling his fist, he struck down at an awkward angle
+and almost lost his balance as the panel fell away beneath his blow. The
+door swung and he pulled through.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness! Travis snapped on the torch for an instant, saw about him the
+relays of a com system, and gave it a full spraying as he pivoted,
+destroying the eyes and ears of the ship&mdash;unless the burnout he had
+effected below had already done that. A flash of automatic fire from his
+left, a searing burn along his arm an inch or so below the shoulder&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Travis' action was purely reflex. He swung the burner around, even as
+his mind gave a frantic No! To defend himself with automatic, knife,
+arrow&mdash;yes; but not this way. He huddled against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>An instant earlier there had been a man there, a living, breathing
+man&mdash;one of his own species, if not of his own beliefs. Then because his
+own muscles had uncon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>sciously obeyed warrior training, there was this.
+So easy&mdash;to deal death without really meaning to. The weapon in his
+hands was truly the devil gift they were right to fear. Such weapons
+were not to be put into the hands of men&mdash;any men&mdash;no matter how well
+intentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Travis gulped in great mouthfuls of air. He wanted to throw the burner
+away, hurl it from him. But the task he could rightfully use it for was
+not yet done.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow he reeled on into the control cabin to render the ship truly a
+dead thing and free himself of the heavy burden of guilt and terror
+between his hands. That weight could be laid aside; memory could not.
+And no one of his kind must ever have to carry such memories again.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The booming of the drums was like a pulse quickening the blood to a
+rhythm which bit at the brain, made a man's eyes shine, his muscles
+tense as if he held an arrow to bow cord or arched his fingers about a
+knife hilt. A fire blazed high and in its light men leaped and whirled
+in a mad dance with tulwar blades catching and reflecting the red gleam
+of flames. Mad, wild, the Mongols were drunk with victory and freedom.
+Beyond them, the silver globe of the ship showed the black holes of its
+death, which was also the death of the past&mdash;for all of them.</p>
+
+<p>"What now?" Menlik, the dangling of amulets and charms tinkling as he
+moved, came up to Travis. There was none of the wild fervor in the
+shaman's face; instead, it was as if he had taken several strides out of
+the life of the Horde, was emerging into another person, and the
+question he asked was one they all shared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Travis felt drained, flattened. They had achieved their purpose. The
+handful of Red overlords were dead, their machines burned out. There
+were no controls here any more; men were free in mind and body. What
+were they to do with that freedom?</p>
+
+<p>"First," the Apache spoke his own thoughts&mdash;"we must return these."</p>
+
+<p>The three alien weapons were lashed into a square of Mongol fabric,
+hidden from sight, although they could not be so easily shut out of
+mind. Only a few of the others, Apache or Mongol, had seen them; and
+they must be returned before their power was generally known.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if in days to come," Buck mused, "they will not say that we
+pulled lightning out of the sky, as did the Thunder Slayer, to aid us.
+But this is right. We must return them and make that valley and what it
+holds taboo."</p>
+
+<p>"And what if another ship comes&mdash;one of <i>yours</i>?" Menlik asked shrewdly.</p>
+
+<p>Travis stared beyond the Tatar shaman to the men about the fire. His
+nightmare dragged into the open.... What if a ship did come in, one with
+Ashe, Murdock, men he knew and liked, friends on board? What then of his
+guardianship of the towers and their knowledge? Could he be as sure of
+what to do then? He rubbed his hand across his forehead and said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"We shall take steps when&mdash;or if&mdash;that happens&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But could they, would they? He began to hope fiercely that it would not
+happen, at least in his lifetime, and then felt the cold bleakness of
+the exile they must will themselves into.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether we like it or not," (was he talking to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> others or trying to
+argue down his own rebellion?) "we cannot let what lies under the towers
+be known ... found ... used ... unless by men who are wiser and more
+controlled than we are in our time."</p>
+
+<p>Menlik drew his shaman's wand, twiddled it between his fingers, and
+beneath his drooping lids watched the three Apaches with a new kind of
+measurement.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I say to you this: Such a guardianship must be a double charge,
+shared by my people as well. For if they suspect that you alone control
+these powers and their secret, there will be envy, hatred, fear, a
+division between us from the first&mdash;war ... raids.... This is a large
+land and neither of our groups numbers many. Shall we split apart
+fatally from this day when there is room for all? If these ancient
+things are evil, then let us both guard them with a common taboo."</p>
+
+<p>He was right, of course. And they would have to face the truth squarely.
+To both Apache and Mongol any off-world ship, no matter from which side,
+would be a menace. Here was where they would remain and set roots. The
+sooner they began thinking of themselves as people with a common bond,
+the better it would be. And Menlik's suggestion provided a tie.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak well," Buck was saying. "This shall be a thing we share. We
+are three who know. Do you be three also, but choose well, Menlik!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be assured that I will!" the Tatar returned. "We start a new life here;
+there is no going back. But as I have said: The land is wide. We have no
+quarrel with one another, and perhaps our two peoples shall become one;
+after all, we do not differ too greatly...." He smiled and gestured to
+the fire and the dancers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Among the Mongols another man had gone into action, his head thrown back
+as he leaped and twirled, voicing a deep war cry. Travis recognized
+Deklay. Apache, Mongol&mdash;both raiders, horsemen, hunters, fighters when
+the need arose. No, there was no great difference. Both had been tricked
+into coming here, and they had no allegiance now for those who had sent
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps clan and Horde would combine or perhaps they would drift
+apart&mdash;time would tell. But there would be the bond of the guardianship,
+the determination that what slept in the towers would not be roused&mdash;in
+their lifetime or many lifetimes!</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled a bit crookedly. A new religion of sorts, a priesthood
+with sacred and forbidden knowledge ... in time a whole new life and
+civilization stemming from this night. The bleak cold of his early
+thought cut less deep. There was a different kind of adventure here.</p>
+
+<p>He reached out and gathered up the bundle of the burners, glancing from
+Buck to Jil-Lee to Menlik. Then he stood up, the weight of the burden in
+his arms, the feeling of a greater weight inside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go?"</p>
+
+<p>To get the weapons back&mdash;that was of first importance. Maybe then he
+could sleep soundly, to dream of riding across the Arizona range at dawn
+under a blue sky with a wind in his face, a wind carrying the scent of
+pi&ntilde;on pine and sage, a wind which would never caress or hearten him
+again, a wind his sons and sons' sons would never know. To dream
+troubled dreams, and hope in time those dreams would fade and thin&mdash;that
+a new world would blanket out the old. Better so, Travis told himself
+with defiance and determination&mdash;better so!</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Defiant Agents, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEFIANT AGENTS ***
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,7102 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Defiant Agents, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Defiant Agents
+
+Author: Andre Alice Norton
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2008 [EBook #25550]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEFIANT AGENTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Walker, Greg Weeks, Jason Isbell and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+Obvious printer errors have been corrected (including switched lines).
+Ellipses have been standardised. Otherwise the text is as printed.
+
+
+
+
+_THE
+DEFIANT
+AGENTS_
+
+
+_By Andre Norton_
+
+  RIDE PROUD, REBEL!
+  STORM OVER WARLOCK
+  GALACTIC DERELICT
+  THE TIME TRADERS
+  STAR BORN
+  YANKEE PRIVATEER
+  THE STARS ARE OURS!
+
+_Edited by Andre Norton_
+
+  SPACE PIONEERS
+  SPACE SERVICE
+
+
+
+_THE
+DEFIANT
+AGENTS_
+
+_BY
+ANDRE
+NORTON_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK
+
+
+_Published by_ The World Publishing Company
+2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio
+
+_Published simultaneously in Canada by_
+Nelson, Foster & Scott Ltd.
+
+Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-9063
+
+
+
+FIRST EDITION
+
+WP262
+
+Copyright (C) 1962 by Andre Norton
+All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
+in any form without written permission from the publisher,
+except for brief passages included in a review appearing in
+a newspaper or magazine. Printed in the United States of America.
+
+
+_FOR P. SCHUYLER MILLER
+who expressed a wish
+for some Apache colonists,
+and CHARLES F. KELLEY
+who has a liking
+for "time agent" tales._
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEFIANT AGENTS_
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+No windows broke any of the four plain walls of the office; there was no
+focus of outer-world sunlight on the desk there. Yet the five disks set
+out on its surface appeared to glow--perhaps the heat of the mischief
+they could cause ... had caused ... blazed in them.
+
+But fanciful imaginings did not cushion or veil cold, hard fact. Dr.
+Gordon Ashe, one of the four men peering unhappily at the display, shook
+his head slightly as if to free his mind of such cobwebs.
+
+His neighbor to the right, Colonel Kelgarries, leaned forward to ask
+harshly: "No chance of a mistake?"
+
+"You saw the detector." The thin gray string of a man behind the desk
+answered with chill precision. "No, no possible mistake. These five have
+definitely been snooped."
+
+"And two choices among them," Ashe murmured. That was the important
+point now.
+
+"I thought these were under maximum security," Kelgarries challenged the
+gray man.
+
+Florian Waldour's remote expression did not change. "Every possible
+precaution was in force. There was a sleeper--a hidden
+agent--planted----"
+
+"Who?" Kelgarries demanded.
+
+Ashe glanced around at his three companions--Kelgarries, colonel in
+command of one sector of Project Star, Florian Waldour, the security
+head on the station, Dr. James Ruthven....
+
+"Camdon!" he said, hardly able to believe this answer to which logic had
+led him.
+
+Waldour nodded.
+
+For the first time since he had known and worked with Kelgarries Ashe
+saw him display open astonishment.
+
+"Camdon? But he was sent us by--" The colonel's eyes narrowed. "He must
+have been sent.... There were too many cross checks to fake that!"
+
+"Oh, he was sent, all right." For the first time there was a note of
+emotion in Waldour's voice. "He was a sleeper, a very deep sleeper. They
+must have planted him a full twenty-five or thirty years ago. He's been
+just what he claimed to be as long as that."
+
+"Well, he certainly was worth their time and trouble, wasn't he?" James
+Ruthven's voice was a growling rumble. He sucked in thick lips,
+continuing to stare at the disks. "How long ago were these snooped?"
+
+Ashe's thoughts turned swiftly from the enormity of the betrayal to that
+important point. The time element--that was the primary concern now that
+the damage was done, and they knew it.
+
+"That's one thing we don't know." Waldour's reply came slowly as if he
+hated the admission.
+
+"We'll be safer, then, if we presume the very earliest period."
+Ruthven's statement was as ruthless in its implications as the shock
+they had had when Waldour announced the disaster.
+
+"Eighteen months ago?" Ashe protested.
+
+But Ruthven was nodding. "Camdon was in on this from the very first.
+We've had the tapes in and out for study all that time, and the new
+detector against snooping was not put in service until two weeks ago.
+This case came up on the first checking round, didn't it?" he asked
+Waldour.
+
+"First check," the security man agreed. "Camdon left the base six days
+ago. But he has been in and out on his liaison duties from the first."
+
+"He had to go through those search points every time," Kelgarries
+protested. "Thought nothing could get through those." The colonel
+brightened. "Maybe he got his snooper films and then couldn't take them
+off base. Have his quarters been turned out?"
+
+Waldour's lips lifted in a grimace of exasperation. "Please, Colonel,"
+he said wearily, "this is not a kindergarten exercise. In confirmation
+of his success, listen...." He touched a button on his desk and out of
+the air came the emotionless chant of a newscaster.
+
+"Fears for the safety of Lassiter Camdon, space expediter for the
+Western Conference Space Council, have been confirmed by the discovery
+of burned wreckage in the mountains. Mr. Camdon was returning from a
+mission to the Star Laboratory when his plane lost contact with Ragnor
+Field. Reports of a storm in that vicinity immediately raised concern--"
+Waldour snapped off the voice.
+
+"True--or a cover for his escape?" Kelgarries wondered aloud.
+
+"Could be either. They may have deliberately written him off when they
+had all they wanted," Waldour acknowledged. "But to get back to our
+troubles--Dr. Ruthven is right to assume the worst. I believe we can
+only insure the recovery of our project by thinking that these tapes
+were snooped anywhere from eighteen months ago to last week. And we must
+work accordingly!"
+
+There was silence in the room as they all considered that. Ashe slipped
+down in his chair, his thoughts enmeshed in memories. First there had
+been Operation Retrograde, when specially trained "time agents" had
+shuttled back and forth in history, striving to locate and track down
+the mysterious source of alien knowledge which the eastern Communistic
+nations had suddenly begun to use.
+
+Ashe himself and a younger partner, Ross Murdock, had been part of the
+final action which had solved the mystery, having traced that source of
+knowledge not to an earlier and forgotten Terran civilization but to
+wrecked spaceships from an eon-old galactic empire--an empire which had
+flourished when glacial ice covered most of Europe and northern America
+and Terrans were cave-dwelling primitives. Murdock, trapped by the Reds
+in one of those wrecked ships, had inadvertently summoned its original
+owners, who had descended to trace--through the Russian time
+stations--the looters of their wrecks, destroying the whole Red
+time-travel system.
+
+But the aliens had not chanced on the parallel western system. And a
+year later that had been put into Project Folsom One. Again Ashe,
+Murdock, and a newcomer, the Apache Travis Fox, had gone back into time
+to the Arizona of the Folsom hunters, discovering what they wanted--two
+ships, one wrecked, the other intact. And when the full efforts of the
+project had been centered on bringing the intact ship back into the
+present, chance had triggered controls set by the dead alien commander.
+A party of four, Ashe, Murdock, Fox, and a technician, had then made an
+involuntary voyage into space, touching three worlds on which the
+galactic civilization of the far past was now marked only by ruins.
+
+Voyage tape fed into the controls of the ship had taken the men, and,
+when rewound, had--by a miracle--returned them to Terra with a cargo of
+similar tapes found in a building on a world which might have been the
+central capital for a government comprised not of countries or of worlds
+but of solar systems. Tapes--each one the key to another planet.
+
+And that ancient galactic knowledge was treasure such as the Terrans had
+never dreamed of possessing, though there were the attendant fears that
+such discoveries could be weapons in enemy hands. There had been an
+enforced sharing with other nations of tapes chosen at random at a great
+drawing. And each nation secretly remained convinced that, in spite of
+the untold riches it might hold as a result of chance, its rivals had
+done better. Right at this moment, Ashe did not in the least doubt,
+there were agents of his own party intent on accomplishing at the Red
+project just what Camdon had done there. However, that did not help in
+solving their present dilemma concerning Operation Cochise, one part of
+their project, but perhaps the most important now.
+
+Some of the tapes were duds, either too damaged to be useful, or set for
+worlds hostile to Terrans lacking the equipment the earlier
+star-traveling race had had at its command. Of the five tapes they now
+knew had been snooped, three would be useless to the enemy.
+
+But one of the remaining two.... Ashe frowned. One was the goal toward
+which they had been working feverishly for a full twelve months. To
+plant a colony across the gulf of space--a successful colony--later to
+be used as a steppingstone to other worlds....
+
+"So we have to move faster." Ruthven's comment reached Ashe through his
+stream of memories.
+
+"I thought you required at least three more months to conclude personnel
+training," Waldour observed.
+
+Ruthven lifted a fat hand, running the nail of a broad thumb back and
+forth across his lower lip in a habitual gesture Ashe had learned to
+mistrust. As the latter stiffened, bracing for a battle of wills, he saw
+Kelgarries come alert too. At least the colonel more often than not was
+ready to counter Ruthven's demands.
+
+"We test and we test," said the fat man. "Always we test. We move like
+turtles when it would be better to race like greyhounds. There is such a
+thing as overcaution, as I have said from the first. One would
+think"--his accusing glance included Ashe and Kelgarries--"that there
+had never been any improvising in this project, that all had always been
+done by the book. I say that this is the time we must take the big
+gamble, or else we may find we have been outbid for space entirely. Let
+those others discover even one alien installation they can master and--"
+his thumb shifted from his lip, grinding down on the desk top as if it
+were crushing some venturesome but entirely unimportant insect--"and we
+are finished before we really begin."
+
+There were a number of men in the project who would agree with that,
+Ashe knew. And a greater number in the country and conference at large.
+The public was used to reckless gambles which paid off, and there had
+been enough of those in the past to give an impressive argument for
+that point of view. But Ashe, himself, could not agree to a speed-up. He
+had been out among the stars, shaved disaster too closely because the
+proper training had not been given.
+
+"I shall report that I advise a take-off within a week," Ruthven was
+continuing. "To the council I shall say that--"
+
+"And I do not agree!" Ashe cut in. He glanced at Kelgarries for the
+quick backing he expected, but instead there was a lengthening moment of
+silence. Then the colonel spread out his hands and said sullenly:
+
+"I don't agree either, but I don't have the final say-so. Ashe, what
+would be needed to speed up any take-off?"
+
+It was Ruthven who replied. "We can use the Redax, as I have said from
+the start."
+
+Ashe straightened, his mouth tight, his eyes hard and angry.
+
+"And I'll protest that ... to the council! Man, we're dealing with human
+beings--selected volunteers, men who trust us--not with laboratory
+animals!"
+
+Ruthven's thick lips pouted into what was close to a smile of derision.
+"Always the sentimentalists, you experts in the past! Tell me, Dr. Ashe,
+were you always so thoughtful of your men when you sent agents back into
+time? And certainly a voyage into space is less a risk than time travel.
+These volunteers know what they have signed for. They will be ready----"
+
+"Then you propose telling them about the use of Redax--what it does to a
+man's mind?" countered Ashe.
+
+"Certainly. They will receive all necessary instructions."
+
+Ashe was not satisfied and he would have spoken again, but Kelgarries
+interrupted:
+
+"If it comes to that, none of us here has any right to make final
+decisions. Waldour has already sent in his report about the snoop. We'll
+have to await orders from the council."
+
+Ruthven levered himself out of his chair, his solid bulk stretching his
+uniform coveralls. "That is correct, Colonel. In the meantime I would
+suggest we all check to see what can be done to speed up each one's
+portion of labor." Without another word, he tramped to the door.
+
+Waldour eyed the other two with mounting impatience. It was plain he had
+work to do and wanted them to leave. But Ashe was reluctant. He had a
+feeling that matters were slipping out of his control, that he was about
+to face a crisis which was somehow worse than just a major security
+leak. Was the enemy always on the other side of the world? Or could he
+wear the same uniform, even share the same goals?
+
+In the outer corridor he still hesitated, and Kelgarries, a step or so
+in advance, looked back over his shoulder impatiently.
+
+"There's no use fighting--our hands are tied." His words were slurred,
+almost as if he wanted to disown them.
+
+"Then you'll agree to use the Redax?" For the second time within the
+hour Ashe felt as if he had taken a step only to have firm earth turn
+into slippery, shifting sand underfoot.
+
+"It isn't a matter of my agreeing. It may be a matter of getting through
+or not getting through--now. If they've had eighteen months, or even
+twelve...!" The colonel's fingers balled into a fist. "And _they_ won't
+be delayed by any humanitarian reasoning----"
+
+"Then you believe Ruthven will win the council's approval?"
+
+"When you are dealing with frightened men, you're talking to ears closed
+to anything but what they want to hear. After all, we can't prove that
+the Redax will be harmful."
+
+"But we've only used it under rigidly controlled conditions. To speed up
+the process would mean a total disregard of those controls. Snapping a
+party of men and women back into their racial past and holding them
+there for too long a period...." Ashe shook his head.
+
+"You have been in Operation Retrograde from the start, and we've been
+remarkably successful----"
+
+"Operating in a different way, educating picked men to return to certain
+points in history where their particular temperaments and
+characteristics fitted the roles they were selected to play, yes. And
+even then we had our percentage of failures. But to try this--returning
+people not physically into time, but _mentally and emotionally_ into
+prototypes of their ancestors--that's something else again. The Apaches
+have volunteered, and they've been passed by the psychologists and the
+testers. But they're Americans of today, not tribal nomads of two or
+three hundred years ago. If you break down some barriers, you might just
+end up breaking them all."
+
+Kelgarries was scowling. "You mean--they might revert utterly, have no
+contact with the present at all?"
+
+"That's just what I do mean. Education and training, yes, but full
+awakening of racial memories, no. The two branches of conditioning
+should go slowly and hand in hand, otherwise--real trouble!"
+
+"Only we no longer have the time to go slow. I'm certain Ruthven will be
+able to push this through--with Waldour's report to back him."
+
+"Then we'll have to warn Fox and the rest. They must be given a choice
+in the matter."
+
+"Ruthven said that would be done." The colonel did not sound convinced
+of that.
+
+Ashe snorted. "If I hear him telling them, I'll believe it!"
+
+"I wonder whether we can...."
+
+Ashe half turned and frowned at the colonel. "What do you mean?"
+
+"You said yourself that we had our failures in time travel. We expected
+those, accepted them, even when they hurt. When we asked for volunteers
+for this project we had to make them understand that there was a heavy
+element of risk involved. Three teams of recruits--the Eskimos from
+Point Barren, the Apaches, and the Islanders--all picked because their
+people had a high survival rating in the past, to be colonists on widely
+different types of planets. Well, the Eskimos and the Islanders aren't
+matched to any of the worlds on those snooped tapes, but Topaz is
+waiting for the Apaches. And we may have to move them in there in a
+hurry. It's a rotten gamble any way you see it!"
+
+"I'll appeal directly to the council."
+
+Kelgarries shrugged. "All right. You have my backing."
+
+"But you believe such an effort hopeless?"
+
+"You know the red-tape merchants. You'll have to move fast if you want
+to beat Ruthven. He's probably on a straight line now to Stanton,
+Reese, and Margate. This is what he has been waiting for!"
+
+"There are the news syndicates; public opinion would back us----"
+
+"You don't mean that, of course." Kelgarries was suddenly coldly remote.
+
+Ashe flushed under the heavy brown which overlay his regular features.
+To threaten a silence break was near blasphemy here. He ran both hands
+down the fabric covering his thighs as if to rub away some soil on his
+palms.
+
+"No," he replied heavily, his voice dull. "I guess I don't. I'll contact
+Hough and hope for the best."
+
+"Meanwhile," Kelgarries spoke briskly, "we'll do what we can to speed up
+the program as it now stands. I suggest you take off for New York within
+the hour----"
+
+"Me? Why?" Ashe asked with a trace of suspicion.
+
+"Because I can't leave without acting directly against orders, and that
+would put us wrong immediately. You see Hough and talk to him
+personally--put it to him straight. He'll have to have all the facts if
+he's going to counter any move from Stanton before the council. You know
+every argument we can use and all the proof on our side, and you're
+authority enough to make it count."
+
+"If I can do all that, I will." Ashe was alert and eager. The colonel,
+seeing his change of expression, felt easier.
+
+But Kelgarries stood a moment watching Ashe as he hurried down a side
+corridor, before he moved on slowly to his own box of office. Once
+inside he sat for a long unhappy time staring at the wall and seeing
+nothing but the pictures produced by his thoughts. Then he pressed a
+button and read off the symbols which flashed on a small visa-screen
+set in his desk. Another button pushed, and he picked up a hand mike to
+relay an order which might postpone trouble for a while. Ashe was far
+too valuable a man to lose, and his emotions could boil him straight
+into disaster over this.
+
+"Bidwell--reschedule Team A. They are to go to the Hypno-Lab instead of
+the reserve in ten minutes."
+
+Releasing the mike, he again stared at the wall. No one dared interrupt
+a hypno-training period, and this one would last three hours. Ashe could
+not possibly see the trainees before he left for New York. And that
+would remove one temptation from his path--he would not talk at the
+wrong time.
+
+Kelgarries' mouth twisted sourly. He had no pride in what he was doing.
+And he was perfectly certain that Ruthven would win and that Ashe's
+fears of Redax were well founded. It all came back to the old basic
+tenet of the service: the end justified the means. They must use every
+method and man under their control to make sure that Topaz would remain
+a western possession, even though that strange planet now swung far
+beyond the sky which covered both the western and eastern alliances on
+Terra. Time had run out too fast; they were being forced to play what
+cards they held, even though those might be very low ones. Ashe would be
+back, but not, Kelgarries hoped, until this had been decided one way or
+another. Not until this was finished.
+
+Finished! Kelgarries blinked at the wall. Perhaps _they_ were finished,
+too. No one would know until the transport ship landed on that other
+world which appeared on the direction tape symbolized by a jewellike
+disk of gold-brown which had given it the code name of Topaz.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+There were an even dozen of the air-borne guardians, each following the
+swing of its own orbital path just within the atmospheric envelope of
+the planet which glowed as a great bronze-golden gem in the four-world
+system of a yellow star. The globes had been launched to form a web of
+protection around Topaz six months earlier, and the highest skill had
+gone into their production. Just as contact mines sown in a harbor could
+close that landfall to ships not knowing the secret channel, so was this
+world supposedly closed to any spaceship not equipped with the signal to
+ward off the sphere missiles.
+
+That was the theory of the new off-world settlers whose protection they
+were to be, already tested as well as possible, but as yet not put to
+the ultimate proof. The small bright globes spun undisturbed across a
+two-mooned sky at night and made reassuring blips on an installation
+screen by day.
+
+Then a thirteenth object winked into being, began the encircling,
+closing spiral of descent. A sphere resembling the warden-globes, it was
+a hundred times their size, and its orbit was purposefully controlled
+by instruments under the eye and hand of a human pilot.
+
+Four men were strapped down on cushioned sling-seats in the control
+cabin of the Western Alliance ship, two hanging where their fingers
+might reach buttons and levers, the others merely passengers, their own
+labor waiting for the time when they would set down on the alien soil of
+Topaz. The planet hung there in their visa-screen, richly beautiful in
+its amber gold, growing larger, nearer, so that they could pick out
+features of seas, continents, mountain ranges, which had been studied on
+tape until they were familiar, yet now were strangely unfamiliar too.
+
+One of the warden-globes alerted, oscillated in its set path, whirled
+faster as its delicate interior mechanisms responded to the awakening
+spark which would send it on its mission of destruction. A relay
+clicked, but for the smallest fraction of a millimeter failed to set the
+proper course. On the instrument, far below, which checked the globe's
+new course the mistake was not noted.
+
+The screen of the ship spiraling toward Topaz registered a path which
+would bring it into violent contact with the globe. They were still some
+hundreds of miles apart when the alarm rang. The pilot's hand clawed out
+at the bank of controls; under the almost intolerable pressure of their
+descent, there was so little he could do. His crooked fingers fell back
+powerlessly from the buttons and levers; his mouth was a twisted grimace
+of bleak acceptance as the beat of the signal increased.
+
+One of the passengers forced his head around on the padded rest, fought
+to form words, to speak to his companion. The other was staring ahead at
+the screen, his thick lips wide and flat against his teeth in a snarl
+of rage.
+
+"They ... are ... here...."
+
+Ruthven paid no attention to the obvious as stated by his fellow
+scientist. His fury was a red, pulsing thing inside him, fed by his own
+helplessness. To be pinned here so near his goal, fastened up as a
+target for an inanimate but cunningly fashioned weapon, ate into him
+like a stream of deadly acid. His big gamble would puff out in a blast
+of fire to light up Topaz's sky, with nothing left--nothing. On the
+armrest of his sling-seat his nails scratched deep.
+
+The four men in the control cabin could only sit and watch, waiting for
+the rendezvous which would blot them out. Ruthven's flaming anger was a
+futile blaze. His companion in the passenger seat had closed his eyes,
+his lips moving soundlessly in an expression of his own scattered
+thoughts. The pilot and his assistant divided their attention between
+the screen, with its appalling message, and the controls they could not
+effectively use, feverishly seeking a way out in these last moments.
+
+Below them in the bowl of the ship were those who would not know the end
+consciously--save in one compartment. In a padded cage a prick-eared
+head stirred where it rested on forepaws, slitted eyes blinked, aware
+not only of familiar surroundings, but also of the tension and fear
+generated by human minds and emotions levels above. A pointed nose
+raised, and there was a growling deep in a throat covered with thick
+buff-gray hair.
+
+The growl aroused another similar captive. Knowing yellow eyes met
+yellow eyes. An intelligence, which was certainly not that of the animal
+body which contained it, fought down instinct raging to send both those
+bodies hurtling at the fastenings of the twin cages. Curiosity and the
+ability to adapt had been bred into both from time immemorial. Then
+something else had been added to sly and cunning brains. A step up had
+been taken--to weld intelligence to cunning, connect thought to
+instinct.
+
+More than a generation earlier mankind had chosen barren desert--the
+"white sands" of New Mexico--as a testing ground for atomic experiments.
+Humankind could be barred, warded out of the radiation limits; the
+natural desert dwellers, four-footed and winged, could not be so
+controlled.
+
+For thousands of years, since the first southward roving Amerindian
+tribes had met with their kind, there had been a hunter of the open
+country, a smaller cousin of the wolf, whose natural abilities had made
+an undeniable impression on the human mind. He was in countless Indian
+legends as the Shaper or the Trickster, sometimes friend, sometimes
+enemy. Godling for some tribes, father of all evil for others. In the
+wealth of tales the coyote, above all other animals, had a firm place.
+
+Driven by the press of civilization into the badlands and deserts,
+fought with poison, gun, and trap, the coyote had survived, adapting to
+new ways with all his legendary cunning. Those who had reviled him as
+vermin had unwillingly added to the folklore which surrounded him,
+telling their own tales of robbed traps, skillful escapes. He continued
+to be a trickster, laughing on moonlit nights from the tops of ridges at
+those who would hunt him down.
+
+Then, close to the end of the twentieth century, when myths were
+scoffed at, the stories of the coyote's slyness began once more on a
+fantastic scale. And finally scientists were sufficiently intrigued to
+seek out this creature that seemed to display in truth all the abilities
+credited to his immortal namesake by pre-Columbian tribes.
+
+What they discovered was indeed shattering to certain closed minds. For
+the coyote had not only adapted to the country of the white sands; he
+had evolved into something which could not be dismissed as an animal,
+clever and cunning, but limited to beast range. Six cubs had been
+brought back on the first expedition, coyote in body, their developing
+minds different. The grandchildren of those cubs were now in the ship's
+cages, their mutated senses alert, ready for the slightest chance of
+escape. Sent to Topaz as eyes and ears for less keenly endowed humans,
+they were not completely under the domination of man. The range of their
+mental powers was still uncomprehended by those who had bred, trained,
+and worked with them from the days their eyes had opened and they had
+taken their first wobbly steps away from their dams.
+
+The male growled again, his lips wrinkling back in a snarl as the
+emanations of fear from the men he could not see reached panic peak. He
+still crouched, belly flat, on the protecting pads of his cage; but he
+strove now to wriggle closer to the door, just as his mate made the same
+effort.
+
+Between the animals and those in the control cabin lay the others--forty
+of them. Their bodies were cushioned and protected with every ingenious
+device known to those who had placed them there so many weeks earlier.
+Their minds were free of the ship, roving into places where men had not
+trod before, a territory potentially more dangerous than any solid earth
+could ever be.
+
+Operation Retrograde had returned men bodily into the past, sending
+agents to hunt mammoths, follow the roads of the Bronze Age traders,
+ride with Attila and Genghis Khan, pull bows among the archers of
+ancient Egypt. But Redax returned men in mind to the paths of their
+ancestors, or this was the theory. And those who slept here and now in
+their narrow boxes, lay under its government, while the men who had
+arbitrarily set them so could only assume they were actually reliving
+the lives of Apache nomads in the wide southwestern wastes of the late
+eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
+
+Above, the pilot's hand pushed out again, fighting the pressure to reach
+one particular button. That, too, had been a last-minute addition, an
+experiment which had only had partial testing. To use it was the final
+move he could make, and he was already half convinced of its
+uselessness.
+
+With no faith and only a very wan hope, he sent that round of metal
+flush with the board. What followed no one ever lived to explain.
+
+On the planet the installation which tracked the missiles flashed on a
+screen bright enough to blind momentarily the duty man on watch, and its
+tracker was shaken off course. When it jiggled back into line it was no
+longer the efficient eye-in-the-sky it had been, though its tenders were
+not to realize that for an important minute or two.
+
+While the ship, now out of control, sped in dizzy whirls toward Topaz,
+engines fought blindly to stabilize, to re-establish their functions.
+Some succeeded, some wobbled in and out of the danger zone, two failed.
+And in the control cabin three dead men spun in prisoning seats.
+
+Dr. James Ruthven, blood bubbling from his lips with every shallow
+breath he could draw, fought the stealthy tide of blackness which crept
+up his brain, his stubborn will holding to rags of consciousness,
+refusing to acknowledge the pain of his fatally injured body.
+
+The orbiting ship was on an erratic path. Slowly the machines were
+correcting, relays clicking, striving to bring it to a landing under
+auto-pilot. All the ingenuity built into a mechanical brain was now
+centered in landing the globe.
+
+It was not a good landing, in fact a very bad one, for the sphere
+touched a mountain side, scraped down rocks, shearing away a portion of
+its outer bulk. But the mountain barrier was now between it and the base
+from which the missiles had been launched, and the crash had not been
+recorded on that tracking instrument. So far as the watchers several
+hundred miles away knew, the warden in the sky had performed as
+promised. Their first line of defense had proven satisfactory, and there
+had been no unauthorized landing on Topaz.
+
+In the wreckage of the control cabin Ruthven pawed at the fastenings of
+his sling-chair. He no longer tried to suppress the moans every effort
+tore out of him. Time held the whip, drove him. He rolled from his seat
+to the floor, lay there gasping, as again he fought doggedly to remain
+above the waves--those frightening, fast-coming waves of dark faintness.
+
+Somehow he was crawling, crawling along a tilted surface until he gained
+the well where the ladder to the lower section hung, now at an acute
+angle. It was that angle which helped him to the next level.
+
+He was too dazed to realize the meaning of the crumpled bulkheads. There
+was a spur of bare rock under his hands as he edged over and around
+twisted metal. The moans were now a gobbling, burbling, almost
+continuous cry as he reached his goal--a small cabin still intact.
+
+For long moments of anguish he paused by the chair there, afraid that he
+could not make the last effort, raise his almost inert bulk up to the
+point where he could reach the Redax release. For a second of unusual
+clarity he wondered if there was any reason for this supreme ordeal,
+whether any of the sleepers could be aroused. This might now be a ship
+of the dead.
+
+His right hand, his arm, and finally his bulk over the seat, he braced
+himself and brought his left hand up. He could not use any of the
+fingers; it was like lifting numb, heavy weights. But he lurched
+forward, swept the unfeeling lump of cold flesh down against the release
+in a gesture which he knew must be his final move. And, as he fell back
+to the floor, Dr. Ruthven could not be certain whether he had succeeded
+or failed. He tried to screw his head around, to focus his eyes upward
+at that switch. Was it down or still stubbornly up, locking the sleepers
+into confinement? But there was a fog between; he could not see it--or
+anything.
+
+The light in the cabin flickered, was gone as another circuit in the
+broken ship failed. It was dark, too, in the small cubby below which
+housed the two cages. Chance, which had snuffed out nineteen lives in
+the space globe, had missed ripping open that cabin on the mountain
+side. Five yards down the corridor the outside fabric of the ship was
+split wide open, the crisp air native to Topaz entering, sending a
+message to two keen noses through the combination of odors now pervading
+the wreckage.
+
+And the male coyote went into action. Days ago he had managed to work
+loose the lower end of the mesh which fronted his cage, but his mind had
+told him that a sortie inside the ship was valueless. The odd rapport
+he'd had with the human brains, unknown to them, had operated to keep
+him to the old role of cunning deception, which in the past had saved
+countless of his species from sudden and violent death. Now with teeth
+and paws he went diligently to work, urged on by the whines of his mate,
+that tantalizing smell of an outside world tickling their nostrils--a
+wild world, lacking the taint of man-places.
+
+He slipped under the loosened mesh and stood up to paw at the front of
+the female's cage. One forepaw caught in the latch and pressed it down,
+and the weight of the door swung against him. Together they were free
+now to reach the corridor and see ahead the subdued light of a strange
+moon beckoning them on into the open.
+
+The female, always more cautious than her mate, lingered behind as he
+trotted forward, his ears a-prick with curiosity. Their training had
+been the same since cubhood--to range and explore, but always in the
+company and at the order of man. This was not according to the pattern
+she knew, and she was suspicious. But to her sensitive nose the smell of
+the ship was an offense, and the puffs of breeze from without enticing.
+Her mate had already slipped through the break; now he barked with
+excitement and wonder, and she trotted on to join him.
+
+Above, the Redax, which had never been intended to stand rough usage,
+proved to be a better survivor of the crash than most of the other
+installations. Power purred along a network of lines, activated beams,
+turned off and on a series of fixtures in those coffin-beds. For five of
+the sleepers--nothing. The cabin which had held them was a flattened
+smear against the mountain side. Three more half aroused, choked, fought
+for life and breath in a darkness which was a mercifully short
+nightmare, and succumbed.
+
+But in the cabin nearest the rent through which the coyotes had escaped,
+a young man sat up abruptly, looking into the dark with wide-open,
+terror-haunted eyes. He clawed for purchase against the smooth edge of
+the box in which he had lain, somehow got to his knees, weaving weakly
+back and forth, and half fell, half pushed to the floor where he could
+stand only by keeping his hold on the box.
+
+Dazed, sick, weak, he swayed there, aware only of himself and his own
+sensations. There were small sounds in the dark, a stilled moan, a
+gasping sigh. But that meant nothing. Within him grew a compulsion to be
+out of this place, his terror making him lurch forward.
+
+His flailing hand rapped painfully against an upright surface which his
+questing fingers identified hazily as an exit. Unconsciously he fumbled
+along the surface of the door until it gave under that weak pressure.
+Then he was out, his head swimming, drawn by the light behind the wall
+rent.
+
+He progressed toward that in a scrambling crawl, making his way over the
+splintered skin of the globe. Then he dropped with a jarring thud onto
+the mound of earth the ship had pushed before it during its downward
+slide. Limply he tumbled on in a small cascade of clods and sand,
+hitting against a less movable rock with force enough to roll him over
+on his back and stun him again.
+
+The second and smaller moon of Topaz swung brightly through the sky, its
+weird green rays making the blood-streaked face of the explorer an alien
+mask. It had passed well on to the horizon, and its large yellow
+companion had risen when a yapping broke the small sounds of the night.
+
+As the _yipp, yipp, yipp_ arose in a crescendo, the man stirred, putting
+one hand to his head. His eyes opened, he looked vaguely about him and
+sat up. Behind him was the torn and ripped ship, but he did not look
+back at it.
+
+Instead, he got to his feet and staggered out into the direct path of
+the moonlight. Inside his brain there was a whirl of thoughts, memories,
+emotions. Perhaps Ruthven or one of his assistants could have explained
+that chaotic mixture for what it was. But for all practical purposes
+Travis Fox--Amerindian Time Agent, member of Team A, Operation
+Cochise--was far less of a thinking animal now than the two coyotes
+paying their ritual addresses to a moon which was not the one of their
+vanished homeland.
+
+Travis wavered on, drawn somehow by that howling. It was familiar, a
+thread of something real through all the broken clutter in his head. He
+stumbled, fell, crawled up again, but he kept on.
+
+Above, the female coyote lowered her head, drew a test sniff of a new
+scent. She recognized that as part of the proper way of life. She yapped
+once at her mate, but he was absorbed in his night song, his muzzle
+pointed moonward as he voiced a fine wailing.
+
+Travis tripped, pitched forward on his hands and knees, and felt the jar
+of such a landing shoot up his stiffened forearms. He tried to get up,
+but his body only twisted, so he landed on his back and lay looking up
+at the moon.
+
+A strong, familiar odor ... then a shadow looming above him. Hot breath
+against his cheek, and the swift sweep of an animal tongue on his face.
+He flung up his hand, gripped thick fur, and held on as if he had found
+one anchor of sanity in a world gone completely mad.
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+Travis, one knee braced against the red earth, blinked as he parted a
+screen of tall rust-brown grass with cautious fingers to look out into a
+valley where golden mist clouded most of the landscape. His head ached
+with dull persistence, the pain fostered in some way by his own
+bewilderment. To study the land ahead was like trying to see through one
+picture interposed over another and far different one. He knew what
+ought to be there, but what was before him was very dissimilar.
+
+A buff-gray shape flitted through the tall cover grass, and Travis
+tensed. _Mba'a_--coyote? Or were these companions of his actually
+_ga-n_, spirits who could choose their shape at will and had, oddly,
+this time assumed the bodies of man's tricky enemy? Were they
+_ndendai_--enemies--or _dalaanbiyat'i_, allies? In this mad world he did
+not know.
+
+_Ei'dik'e?_ His mind formed a word he did not speak: Friend?
+
+Yellow eyes met his directly. Dimly he had been aware, ever since
+awaking in this strange wilderness with the coming of morning light,
+that the four-footed ones trotting with him as he walked aimlessly had
+unbeastlike traits. Not only did they face him eye-to-eye, but in some
+ways they appeared able to read his thoughts.
+
+He had longed for water to ease the burning in his throat, the
+ever-present pain in his head, and the creatures had nudged him in
+another direction, bringing him to a pool where he had mouthed liquid
+with a strange sweet, but not unpleasant taste.
+
+Now he had given them names, names which had come out of the welter of
+dreams which shadowed his stumbling journey across this weird country.
+
+Nalik'ideyu (Maiden-Who-Walks-Ridges) was the female who continued to
+shepherd him along, never venturing too far from his side. Naginlta
+(He-Who-Scouts-Ahead) was the male who did just that, disappearing at
+long intervals and then returning to face the man and his mate as if
+conveying some report necessary to their journey.
+
+It was Nalik'ideyu who sought out Travis now, her red tongue lolling
+from her mouth as she panted. Not from exertion, he was certain of that.
+No, she was excited and eager ... on the hunt! That was it--a hunt!
+
+Travis' own tongue ran across his lips as an impression hit him with
+feral force. There was meat--rich, fresh--just ahead. Meat that lived,
+waiting to be killed. Inside him his own avid hunger roused, shaking him
+farther out of the crusting dream.
+
+His hands went to his waist, but the groping fingers did not find what
+vague memory told him should be there--a belt, heavy with knife in
+sheath.
+
+He examined his own body with attention to find he was adequately
+covered by breeches of a smooth, dull brown material which blended well
+with the vegetation about him. He wore a loose shirt, belted in at the
+narrow waist by a folded strip of cloth, the ends of which fluttered
+free. On his feet were tall moccasins, the leg pieces extending some
+distance up his calves, the toes turned up in rounded points.
+
+Some of this he found familiar, but these were fragments of memory;
+again his mind fitted one picture above another. One thing he did know
+for sure--he had no weapons. And that realization struck home with a
+thrust of real and terrible fear which tore away more of the
+bewilderment cloaking his mind.
+
+Nalik'ideyu was impatient. Having advanced a step or two, she now looked
+back at him over her shoulder, yellow eyes slitted, her demand on him as
+instant and real as if she had voiced understandable words. Meat was
+waiting, and she was hungry. Also she expected Travis to aid in the
+hunt--at once.
+
+Though he could not match her fluid grace in moving through the grass,
+Travis followed her, keeping to cover. He shook his head vigorously, in
+spite of the stab of pain the motion cost him, and paid more attention
+to his surroundings. It was apparent that the earth under him, the grass
+around, the valley of the golden haze, were all real, not part of a
+dream. Therefore that other countryside which he kept seeing in a
+ghostly fashion was a hallucination.
+
+Even the air which he drew into his lungs and expelled again, had a
+strange smell, or was it taste? He could not be sure which. He knew that
+hypno-training could produce queer side effects, but ... this....
+
+Travis paused, staring unseeingly before him at the grass still waving
+from the coyote's passage. Hypno-training! What was that? Now three
+pictures fought to focus in his mind: the two landscapes which did not
+match and a shadowy third. He shook his head again, his hands to his
+temples. This--this only was real: the ground, the grass, the valley,
+the hunger in him, the hunt waiting....
+
+He forced himself to concentrate on the immediate present and the
+portion of world he could see, feel, scent, which lay here and now about
+him.
+
+The grass grew shorter as he proceeded in Nalik'ideyu's wake. But the
+haze was not thinning. It seemed to hang in patches, and when he
+ventured through the edge of a patch it was like creeping through a fog
+of golden, dancing motes with here and there a glittering speck whirling
+and darting like a living thing. Masked by the stuff, Travis reached a
+line of brush and sniffed.
+
+It was a warm scent, a heavy odor he could not identify and yet one he
+associated with a living creature. Flat to earth, he pushed head and
+shoulders under the low limbs of the bush to look ahead.
+
+Here was a space where the fog did not hold, a pocket of earth clear
+under the morning sun. And grazing there were three animals. Again shock
+cleared a portion of Travis' bemused brain.
+
+They were about the size, he thought, of antelopes, and they had a
+general resemblance to those beasts in that they had four slender legs,
+a rounded body, and a head. But they had alien features, so alien as to
+hold him in open-mouthed amazement.
+
+The bodies had bare spots here and there, and patches of creamy--fur? Or
+was it hair which hung in strips, as if the creatures had been partially
+plucked in a careless fashion? The necks were long and moved about in a
+serpentine motion, as though their spines were as limber as reptiles'.
+On the end of those long and twisting necks were heads which also
+appeared more suitable to another species--broad, rather flat, with a
+singular toadlike look--but furnished with horns set halfway down the
+nose, horns which began in a single root and then branched into two
+sharp points.
+
+They were unearthly! Again Travis blinked, brought his hand up to his
+head as he continued to view the browsers. There were three of them: two
+larger and with horns, the other a smaller beast with less of the ragged
+fur and only the beginning button of a protuberance on the nose; it was
+probably a calf.
+
+One of those mental alerts from the coyotes broke his absorption.
+Nalik'ideyu was not interested in the odd appearance of the grazing
+creatures; she was intent upon their usefulness in another way--as a
+full and satisfying meal--and she was again impatient with him for his
+dull response.
+
+His examination took a more practical turn. An antelope's defense was
+speed, though it could be tricked into hunting range through its
+inordinate curiosity. The slender legs of these beasts suggested a like
+degree of speed, and Travis had no weapons at all.
+
+Those nose horns had an ugly look; this thing might be a fighter rather
+than a runner. But the suggestion which had flashed from coyote to him
+had taken root. Travis was hungry, he was a hunter, and here was meat on
+the hoof, queer as it looked.
+
+Again he received a message. Naginlta was on the opposite side of the
+clearing. If the creatures depended on speed, then Travis believed they
+could probably outrun not only him but the coyotes as well--which left
+cunning and some sort of plan.
+
+Travis glanced at the cover where he knew Nalik'ideyu crouched and from
+which had come that flash of agreement. He shivered. These were truly no
+animals, but _ga-n_, _ga-n_ of power! And as _ga-n_ he must treat them,
+accede to their will. Spurred by that, the Apache gave only flicks of
+attention to the browsers while at the same time he studied the part of
+the landscape uncovered by mist.
+
+Without weapons or speed, they must conceive a trap. Again Travis sensed
+that agreement which was _ga-n_ magic, and with it the strong impression
+urging him to the right. He was making progress with skill he did not
+even recognize and which he had never been conscious of learning.
+
+The bushes and small, droop-limbed trees, their branches not clothed
+with leaves from proper twigs but with a reddish bristly growth
+protruding directly from their surfaces, made a partial wall for the
+pocket-sized meadow. That screen reached a rocky cleft where the mist
+curled in a long tongue through a wall twice Travis' height. If the
+browsers could be maneuvered into taking the path through that cleft....
+
+Travis searched about him, and his hands closed upon the oldest weapon
+of his species, a stone pulled from an earth pocket and balanced neatly
+in the palm of his hand. It was a long chance but his best one.
+
+The Apache took the first step on a new and fearsome road. These _ga-n_
+had put their thoughts--or their desires--into his mind. Could he so
+contact them in return?
+
+With the stone clenched in his fist, his shoulders back against the wall
+not too far from the cleft opening, Travis strove to think out, clearly
+and simply, this poor plan of his. He did not know that he was reacting
+the way scientists deep space away had hoped he might. Nor did Travis
+guess that at this point he had already traveled far beyond the
+expectations of the men who had bred and trained the two mutant coyotes.
+He only believed that this might be the one way he could obey the wishes
+of the two spirits he thought far more powerful than any man. So he
+pictured in his mind the cleft, the running creatures, and the part the
+_ga-n_ could play if they so willed.
+
+Assent--in its way as loud and clear as if shouted. The man fingered the
+stone, weighed it. There would probably be just one moment when he could
+use it to effect, and he must be ready.
+
+From this point he could no longer see the small meadow where the
+grazers were. But Travis knew, as well as if he watched the scene, that
+the coyotes were creeping in, belly flat to earth, adding a feline
+stealth and patience to their own cunning.
+
+There! Travis' head jerked, the alert had come, the drive was beginning.
+He tensed, gripping his stone.
+
+A yapping bark was answered by a sound he could not describe, a noise
+which was neither cough nor grunt but a combination of both. Again a
+yap-yap....
+
+A toad-head burst through the screen of brush, the double horn on its
+nose festooned with a length of grass torn up by the roots. Wide
+eyes--milky and seeming to be without pupils--fastened on Travis, but he
+could not be sure the thing saw him, for it kept on, picking up speed
+as it approached the cleft. Behind it ran the calf, and that guttural
+cry was bubbling from its broad flat lips.
+
+The long neck of the adult writhed, the frog-head swung closer to the
+ground so that the twin points of the horn were at a slant--aimed now at
+Travis. He had been right in his guess at their deadliness, but he had
+only a fleeting chance to recognize that fact as the thing bore down,
+its whole attitude expressing the firm intention of goring him.
+
+He hurled his stone and then flung his body to one side, stumbling and
+rolling into the brush where he fought madly to regain his feet,
+expecting at any moment to feel trampling hoofs and thrusting horns.
+There was a crash to his right, and the bushes and grass were wildly
+shaken.
+
+On his hands and knees the Apache retreated, his head turned to watch
+behind him. He saw the flirt of a triangular flap-tail in the mouth of
+the cleft. The calf had escaped. And now the threshing in the bushes
+stilled.
+
+Was the thing stalking him? He got to his feet, for the first time
+hearing clearly the continued yapping, as if a battle was in progress.
+Then the second of the adult beasts came into view, backing and turning,
+trying to keep lowered head with menacing double horn always pointed to
+the coyotes dancing a teasing, worrying circle about it.
+
+One of the coyotes flung up its head, looked upslope, and barked. Then,
+as one, both rushed the fighting beast, but for the first time from the
+same side, leaving it a clear path to retreat. It made a rush before
+which they fled easily, and then it whirled with a speed and grace,
+which did not fit its ungainly, ill-proportioned body, and jumped
+toward the cleft, the coyotes making no effort to hinder its escape.
+
+Travis came out of cover, approaching the brush which had concealed the
+crash of the other animal. The actions of the coyotes had convinced him
+that there was no danger now; they would never have allowed the escape
+of their prey had the first beast not been in difficulties.
+
+His shot with the stone, the Apache decided as he stood moments later
+surveying the twitching crumpled body, must have hit the thing in the
+head, stunning it. Then the momentum of its charge had carried it full
+force against the rock to kill it. Blind luck--or the power of the
+_ga-n_? He pulled back as the coyotes came padding up shoulder to
+shoulder to inspect the kill. It was truly more theirs than his.
+
+Their prey yielded not only food but a weapon for Travis. Instead of the
+belt knife he had remembered having, he was now equipped with two. The
+double horn had been easy to free from the shattered skull, and some
+careful work with stones had broken off one prong at just the angle he
+wanted. So now he had a short and a longer tool, defense. At least they
+were better than the stone with which he had entered the hunt.
+
+Nalik'ideyu pushed past him to lap daintily at the water. Then she sat
+up on her haunches, watching Travis as he smoothed the horn with a
+stone.
+
+"A knife," he said to her, "this will be a knife. And--" he glanced up,
+measuring the value of the wood represented by trees and bushes--"then a
+bow. With a bow we shall hunt better."
+
+The coyote yawned, her yellow eyes half closed, her whole pose one of
+satisfaction and contentment.
+
+"A knife," Travis repeated, "and a bow." He needed weapons; he had to
+have them!
+
+Why? His hand stopped scraping. Why? The toad-faced double horn had been
+quick to attack, but Travis could have avoided it, and it had not hunted
+him first. Why was he ridden by this fear that he must not be unarmed?
+
+He dipped his hand into the pool of the spring and lifted the water to
+cool his sweating face. The coyote moved, turned around in the grass,
+crushing down the growth into a nest in which she curled up, head on
+paws. But Travis sat back on his heels, his now idle hands hanging down
+between his knees, and forced himself to the task of sorting out jumbled
+memories.
+
+This landscape was wrong--totally unlike what it should be--but it was
+real. He had helped kill this alien creature. He had eaten its meat,
+raw. Its horn lay within touch now. All that was real and unchangeable.
+Which meant that the rest of it, that other desert world in which he had
+wandered with his kind, ridden horses, raided invading men of another
+race, that was not real--or else far, far removed from where he now sat.
+
+Yet there had been no dividing line between those two worlds. One moment
+he had been in the desert place, returning from a successful foray
+against the Mexicans. Mexicans! Travis caught at that identification,
+tried to use it as a thread to draw closer to the beginning of his
+mystery.
+
+Mexicans.... And he was an Apache, one of the Eagle people, one who rode
+with Cochise. No!
+
+Sweat again beaded his face where the water had cooled it. He was not of
+that past. He was Travis Fox, of the very late twentieth century, not a
+nomad of the middle nineteenth! He was of Team A of the project!
+
+The Arizona desert and then this! From one to the other in an instant.
+He looked about him in rising fear. Wait! He had been in the dark when
+he got out of the desert, lying in a box. Getting out, he had crawled
+down a passage to reach moonlight, strange moonlight.
+
+A box in which he had lain, a passage with smooth metallic walls, and an
+alien world at the end of it.
+
+The coyote's ears twitched, her head came up, she was staring at the
+man's drawn face, at his eyes with their core of fear. She whined.
+
+Travis caught up the two pieces of horn, thrust them into his sash belt,
+and got to his feet. Nalik'ideyu sat up, her head cocked a little to one
+side. As the man turned to seek his own back trail she padded along in
+his wake and whined for Naginlta. But Travis was more intent now on what
+he must prove to himself than he was on the actions of the two animals.
+
+It was a wandering trail, and now he did not question his skill in being
+able to follow it so unerringly. The sun was hot. Winged things buzzed
+from the bushes, small scuttling things fled from him through the tall
+grass. Once Naginlta growled a warning which led them all to a detour,
+and Travis might not have picked up the proper trace again had not the
+coyote scout led him to it.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked once, and then guessed it would have better been
+said, "What are you?" These were not animals, or rather they were more
+than the animals he had always known. And one part of him, the part
+which remembered the desert rancherias where Cochise had ruled, said
+they were spirits. Yet that other part of him.... Travis shook his
+head, accepting them now for what they were--welcome company in an alien
+place.
+
+The day wore on close to sunset, and still Travis followed that
+wandering trail. The need which drove him kept him going through the
+rough country of hills and ravines. Now the mist lifted above towering
+walls of mountains very near him, yet not the mountains of his memory.
+These were dull brown, with a forbidding look, like sun-dried skulls
+baring teeth in warning against all comers.
+
+With great difficulty, Travis topped a rise. Ahead against the skyline
+stood both coyotes. And, as the man joined them, first one and then the
+other flung back its head and sounded the sobbing, shattering cry which
+had been a part of that other life.
+
+The Apache looked down. His puzzle was answered in part. The wreckage
+crumpled on the mountain side was identifiable--a spaceship! Cold fear
+gripped him and his own head went back; from between his tight lips came
+a cry as desolate and despairing as the one the animals had voiced.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+Fire, mankind's oldest ally, weapon, tool, leaped high before the naked
+stone of the mountain side. Men sat cross-legged about it, fifteen of
+them. And behind, guarded by the flames and that somber circle, were the
+women. There was a uniformity in this gathering. The members were
+plainly all of the same racial stock, of medium height, stocky yet fined
+down to the peak of stamina and endurance, their skin brown, their
+shoulder-length hair black. And they were all young--none over thirty,
+some still in their late teens. Alike, too, was a certain drawn look in
+their faces, a tenseness of the eyes and mouth as they listened to
+Travis.
+
+"So we must be on Topaz. Do any of you remember boarding the ship?"
+
+"No. Only that we awoke within it." Across the fire one chin lifted; the
+eyes which caught Travis' held a deep, smoldering anger. "This is more
+trickery of the Pinda-lick-o-yi, the White Eyes. Between us there has
+never been fair dealing. They have broken their promise as a man breaks
+a rotten stick, for their words are as rotten. And it was you, Fox, who
+brought us to listen to them."
+
+A stir about the circle, a murmur from the women.
+
+"And do I not also sit here with you in this strange wilderness?" he
+countered.
+
+"I do not understand," another of the men held out his hand, palm up, in
+a gesture of asking--"what has happened to us. We were in the old Apache
+world.... I, Jil-Lee, was riding with Cuchillo Negro as we went down to
+the taking of Ramos. And then I was here, in a broken ship and beside me
+a dead man who was once my brother. How did I come out of the past of
+our people into another world across the stars?"
+
+"Pinda-lick-o-yi tricks!" The first speaker spat into the fire.
+
+"It was the Redax, I think," Travis replied. "I heard Dr. Ashe discuss
+this. A new machine which could make a man remember not his own past,
+but the past of his ancestors. While we were on that ship we must have
+been under its influence, so we lived as our people lived a hundred
+years or more ago--"
+
+"And the purpose of such a thing?" Jil-Lee asked.
+
+"To make us more like our ancestors perhaps. It is part of what they
+told us at the project. To venture into these new worlds requires a
+different type of man than lives on Terra today. Traits we have
+forgotten are needed to face the dangers of wild places."
+
+"You, Fox, have been beyond the stars before, and you found there were
+such dangers to face?"
+
+"It is true. You have heard of the three worlds I saw when the ship from
+the old days took us off, unwilling, to the stars. Did you not all
+volunteer to pioneer in this manner so you could also see strange and
+new things?"
+
+"But we did not agree to be returned to the past in medicine dreams and
+be sent unknowingly into space!"
+
+Travis nodded. "Deklay is right. But I know no more than you why we were
+so sent, or why the ship crashed. We have found Dr. Ruthven's body in
+the cabin with that new installation. Only we have discovered nothing
+else which tells us why we were brought here. With the ship broken, we
+must stay."
+
+They were silent now, men and women alike. Behind them lay several days
+of activity, nights of exhausted slumber. Against the cliff wall lay the
+packs of supplies they had salvaged from the wreck. By mutual consent
+they had left the vicinity of the broken globe, following their old
+custom of speedily withdrawing from a place of death.
+
+"This is a world empty of men?" Jil-Lee wanted to know.
+
+"So far we have found only animal signs, and the _ga-n_ have not warned
+us of anything else----"
+
+"Those devil ones!" Again Deklay spat into the fire. "I say we should
+have no dealings with them. The _mba'a_ is no friend to the People."
+
+Again a murmur which seemed one of agreement answered that outburst.
+Travis stiffened. Just how much influence had the Redax had over them?
+He knew from his own experience that sometimes he had an odd double
+reaction--two different feelings which almost sickened him when they
+struck simultaneously. And he was beginning to suspect that with some of
+the others the return to the past had been far more deep and lasting.
+Now Jil-Lee was actually to reason out what had happened. While Deklay
+had reverted to an ancestor who had ridden with Victorio or Magnus
+Colorado! Travis had a flash of premonition, a chill which made him
+half foresee a time when the past and the present might well split them
+apart--fatally.
+
+"Devil or _ga-n_." A man with a quiet face, rather deeply sunken eyes,
+spoke for the first time. "We are in two minds because of this Redax, so
+let us not do anything in haste. Back in the desert world of the People
+I have seen the _mba'a_, and he was very clever. With the badger he went
+hunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the
+_mba'a_ wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those who
+would escape that way. Between him and the badger there was no war.
+These two who sit over yonder now--they are also hunters and they seem
+friendly to us. In a strange place a man needs all the help he can find.
+Let us not call names out of old tales, which may mean nothing in fact."
+
+"Buck speaks straightly," Jil-Lee agreed. "We seek a camp which can be
+defended. For perhaps there are men here whose hunting territory we have
+invaded, though we have not yet seen them. We are a people small in
+number and alone. Let us walk softly on trails which are strange to our
+feet."
+
+Inwardly Travis sighed in relief. Buck, Jil-Lee ... for the moment their
+sensible words appeared to swing the opinions of the party. If either of
+them could be established as _haldzil_, or clan leader, they would all
+be safer. He himself had no aspirations in that direction and dared not
+push too hard. It had been his initial urging which had brought them as
+volunteers into the project. Now he was doubly suspect, and especially
+by those who thought as Deklay, he was considered too alien to their old
+ways.
+
+So far their protests had been fewer than he anticipated. Although
+brothers and sisters had followed each other into the team after the
+immemorial desire of Apaches to cling to family ties, they were not a
+true clan with solidity of that to back them, but representatives of
+half a dozen.
+
+Basically, back on Terra, they had all been among the most progressive
+of their people--progressive, that is, in the white man's sense of the
+word. Travis had a fleeting recognition of his now oblique way of
+thinking. He, too, had been marked by the Redax. They had all been
+educated in the modern fashion and all possessed a spirit of adventure
+which marked them over their fellows. They had volunteered for the team
+and successfully passed the tests to weed out the temperamentally unfit
+or fainthearted. But all that was before Redax....
+
+Why had they been submitted to that? And why this flight? What had
+pushed Dr. Ashe and Murdock and Colonel Kelgarries, time agents he knew
+and trusted, into dispatching them without warning to Topaz? Something
+had happened, something which had given Dr. Ruthven ascendancy over
+those others and had started them on this wild trip.
+
+Travis was conscious of a stir about the firelit circle. The men were
+rising, moving back into the shadows, stretching out on the blankets
+they had found among other stores on the ship. They had discovered
+weapons there--knives, bows, quivers of arrows, all of which they had
+been trained to use in the intensive schooling of the project and which
+needed no more repair than they themselves could give. And the rations
+they carried were field supplies, few of them. Tomorrow they must begin
+hunting in earnest....
+
+"Why has this thing been done to us?" Buck was beside Travis, those
+quiet eyes sliding past him to seek the fire once more. "I do not think
+you were told when the rest of us were not----"
+
+Travis seized upon that. "There are those who say that I knew, agreed?"
+
+"That is so. Once we stood at the same place in time--in our thoughts,
+our desires. Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway,
+each at his own speed--a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon.
+Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a series
+of step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble--"
+
+"The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing of
+this, that I climb with you on these stairs."
+
+"So I believe. But there comes a time when it is best not to be a woman
+stirring a pot of boiling stew but rather one who stands quietly at a
+distance--"
+
+"You mean?" Travis pressed.
+
+"I say that alone among us you have crossed the stars before, therefore
+new things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout. Also the
+coyotes run in your footsteps, and you do not fear them."
+
+It made good sense. Let him scout ahead of the party, taking the coyotes
+with him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak small--until the
+people on Buck's stairway were more closely united.
+
+"I go in the morning," Travis agreed. He could slip away tonight, but
+just now he could not force himself away from the fire, from the
+companionship.
+
+"You might take Tsoay with you," Buck continued.
+
+Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one of
+the youngest of their group, Buck's own cross-cousin and near-brother.
+
+"It is well," Buck explained, "that we learn this land, and it has
+always been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of the
+older. Also, not only should trails be learned, but also men."
+
+Travis caught the thought behind that. Perhaps by taking the younger men
+as scouts, one after another, he could build up among them a following
+of sorts. Among the Apaches, leadership was wholly a matter of
+personality. Until the reservation days, chieftains had gained their
+position by force of character alone, though they might come
+successively from one family clan over several generations.
+
+He did not want the chieftainship here. No, but neither did he want
+growing whispers working about him to cut him off from his people. To
+every Apache severance from the clan was a little death. He must have
+those who would back him if Deklay, or those who thought like Deklay,
+turned grumbling into open hostility.
+
+"Tsoay is one quick to learn," Travis agreed. "We go at dawn--"
+
+"Along the mountain range?" Buck inquired.
+
+"If we seek a protected place for the rancheria, yes. The mountains have
+always provided good strongholds for the People."
+
+"And you think there is need for a fort?"
+
+Travis shrugged. "I have been one day's journey out into this world. I
+saw nothing but animals. But that is no promise that elsewhere there are
+no enemies. The planet was on the tapes we brought back from that other
+world, and so it was known to the others who once rode between star and
+star as we rode between ranch and town. If they had this world set on a
+journey tape, it was for a reason; that reason may still be in force."
+
+"Yet it was long ago that these star people rode so...." Buck mused.
+"Would the reason last so long?"
+
+Travis remembered two other worlds, one of weird desert inhabited by
+beast things--or had they once been human, human to the point of
+possessing intelligence?--that had come out of sand burrows at night to
+attack a spaceship. And the second world where the ruins of a giant city
+had stood choked with jungle vegetation, where he had made a blowgun
+from tubes of rustless metal as a weapon gift for small winged men--but
+were they men? Both had been remnants of that ancient galactic empire.
+
+"Some things could so remain," he answered soberly. "If we find them, we
+must be careful. But first a good site for the rancheria."
+
+"There is no return to home for us," Buck stated flatly.
+
+"Why do you say that? There could be a rescue ship later--"
+
+The other raised his eyes again to Travis. "When you slept under the
+Redax how did you ride?"
+
+"As a warrior--raiding ... living...."
+
+"And I--I was one with _go'ndi_," Buck returned simply.
+
+"But--"
+
+"But the white man has assured us that such power--the power of a
+chief--does not exist? Yes, the Pinda-lick-o-yi has told us so many
+things. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. And
+those who think in another fashion cannot be measured by his rules, so
+they are foolish dreamers. Not all white men think so. There was Dr.
+Ashe--he was beginning to understand a little.
+
+"Perhaps I, too, am standing still, halfway up the stairway of the past.
+But of this I am very sure: For us, there will be no return to our own
+place. And the time will come when something new shall grow from the
+seed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders of
+that growth. So I urge you, take Tsoay, and the next time, Lupe. For the
+young who may be swayed this way and that by words--as the wind shakes a
+small tree--must be given firm roots."
+
+In Travis education warred with instinct, just as the picture Redax had
+planted in his mind had warred with his awaking to this alien landscape.
+Yet now he believed he must be guided by what he felt. And he knew that
+no man of his race would claim _go'ndi_, the power of spirit known only
+to a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. It
+might have been fostered by hallucination in the past, but the aura of
+it carried into the here and now. And Travis had no doubts that Buck
+believed implicitly in what he said, and that belief carried credulity
+to others.
+
+"This is wisdom, _Nantan_--"
+
+Buck shook his head. "I am no _nantan_, no chief. But of some things I
+am sure. You also be sure of what lies within you, younger brother!"
+
+On the third day, ranging eastward along the base of the mountain range,
+Travis found what he believed would be an acceptable camp site. There
+was a canyon with a good spring of water cut round by well-marked game
+trails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrub
+wood could be used to build the wickiups. Water and food lay within
+reach, and the ledge approach was easy to defend. Even Deklay and his
+fellow malcontents were forced to concede the value of the site.
+
+His duty to the clan accomplished, Travis returned to his own concern,
+one which had haunted him for days. Topaz had been taped by men of the
+vanished star empire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? As
+yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence
+level of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed by
+the certainty that there _was_ something here, waiting.... And the
+desire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache.
+
+Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come to
+follow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis was
+content to scout with only the coyotes for company, and he did not find
+the loneliness of the unknown planet as intimidating as most of the
+others.
+
+He was checking his small trail pack on the fourth day after they had
+settled on the plateau when Buck and Jil-Lee hunkered down beside him.
+
+"You go to hunt--?" Buck broke the silence first.
+
+"Not for meat."
+
+"What do you fear? That _ndendai_--enemy people--have marked this as
+their land?" Jil-Lee questioned.
+
+"That may be true, but now I hunt for what this world was at one time,
+the reason why the ancient star men marked it as their own."
+
+"And this knowledge may be of value to us?" Jil-Lee asked slowly. "Will
+it bring food to our mouths, shelter for our bodies--mean life for us?"
+
+"All that is possible. It is the unknowing which is bad."
+
+"True. Unknowing is always bad," Buck agreed. "But the bow which is
+fitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to another.
+Remember that, younger brother. Also, do you go alone?"
+
+"With Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu I am not alone."
+
+"Take Tsoay with you also. The four-footed ones are indeed _ga-n_ for
+the service of those they like, but it is not good that man walks alone
+from his kind."
+
+There it was again, the feeling of clan solidarity which Travis did not
+always share. On the other hand, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. On
+other scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the country and a
+liking for experimentation which was not a universal attribute even
+among those of his own age.
+
+"I would go to find a path through the mountains; it may be a long
+trail," Travis half protested.
+
+"You believe what you seek may lie to the north?"
+
+Travis shrugged. "I do not know. How can I? But it will be another way
+of seeking."
+
+"Tsoay shall go. He keeps silent before older warriors as is proper for
+the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours," Buck replied. "It
+is in him also, this need to see new places."
+
+"There is this," Jil-Lee got to his feet, "--do not go so far, brother,
+that you may not easily find a way to return. This is a wide land, and
+within it we are but a handful of men alone----"
+
+"That, too, I know." Travis thought he could read more than one kind of
+warning in Jil-Lee's words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were the second day away from the plateau camp, and climbing, when
+they chanced upon the pass Travis had hoped might exist. Before them lay
+an abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked in
+a dusky amber Travis now knew was the thick grass found in the southern
+valleys. Tsoay pointed with his chin.
+
+"Wide land--good for horses, cattle, ranches...."
+
+But all those lay far beyond the black space surrounding them. Travis
+wondered if there was any native animal which could serve man in place
+of the horse.
+
+"Do we go down?" Tsoay asked.
+
+From this point Travis could sight no break far out on the amber plain,
+no sign of any building or any disturbance of its smooth emptiness. Yet
+it drew him. "We go," he decided.
+
+Close as it had looked from the pass, the plain was yet a day and a
+night, spent in careful watching by turns, ahead of them. It was
+midmorning of the second day that they left the foothill breaks, and the
+grass of the open country was waist high about them. Travis could see it
+rippling where the coyotes threaded ahead. Then he was conscious of a
+persistent buzzing, a noise which irritated faintly until he was
+compelled to trace it to its source.
+
+The grass had been trampled flat for an irregular patch, with a trail
+of broken stalks out of the heart of the plain. At one side was a
+buzzing, seething mass of glitter-winged insects which Travis already
+knew as carrion eaters. They arose reluctantly from their feast as he
+approached.
+
+He drew a short breath which was close to a grunt of astounded
+recognition. What lay there was so impossible that he could not believe
+the evidence of his eyes. Tsoay gave a sharp exclamation, went down on
+one knee for a closer examination, then looked at Travis over his
+shoulder, his eyes wide, more than a trace of excitement in his voice.
+
+"Horse dung--and fresh!"
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+"There was one horse, unshod but ridden. It came here from the plains
+and it had been ridden hard, going lame. There was a rest here, maybe
+shortly after dawn." Travis sorted out what they had learned by a
+careful examination of the ground.
+
+Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta, Tsoay, watched and listened as if the coyotes
+as well as the boy could understand every word.
+
+"There is that also--" Tsoay indicated the one trace left by the unknown
+rider, an impression blurred as if some attempt had been made to conceal
+it.
+
+"Small and light, the rider is both. Also in fear, I think--"
+
+"We follow?" Tsoay asked.
+
+"We follow," Travis assented. He looked to the coyotes, and as he had
+learned to do, thought out his message. This trail was the one to be
+followed. When the rider was sighted they were to report back if the
+Apaches had not yet caught up.
+
+There was no visible agreement; the coyotes simply vanished through the
+wall of grass.
+
+"Then there are others here," Tsoay said as he and Travis began their
+return to the foothills. "Perhaps there was a second ship--"
+
+"That horse," Travis said, shaking his head. "There was no provision in
+the project for the shipping of horses."
+
+"Perhaps they have always been here."
+
+"Not so. To each world its own species of beasts. But we shall know the
+truth when we look upon that horse--and its rider."
+
+It was warmer this side of the mountains, and the heat of the plains
+beat at them. Travis thought that the horse might well be seeking water
+if allowed his head. Where did he come from? And why had his rider gone
+in haste and fear?
+
+This was rough, broken country and the tired, limping horse seemed to
+have picked the easiest way through it, without any hindrance from the
+man with him. Travis spotted a soft patch of ground with a deep-set
+impression. This time there had been no attempt at erasure; the boot
+track was plain. The rider had dismounted and was leading the horse--yet
+he was moving swiftly.
+
+They followed the tracks around the bend of a shallow cut and found
+Nalik'ideyu waiting for them. Between her forefeet was a bundle still
+covered with smears of soft earth, and behind her were drag marks from a
+hole under the overhang of a bush. The coyote had plainly just
+disinterred her find. Travis squatted down to examine it, using his eyes
+before his hands.
+
+It was a bag made of hide, probably the hide of one of the split horns
+by its color and the scraps of long hair which had been left in a
+simple decorative fringe along the bottom. The sides had been laced
+together neatly by someone used to working in leather, the closing flap
+lashed down tightly with braided thong loops.
+
+As the Apache leaned closer to it he could smell a mixture of odors--the
+hide itself, horse, wood smoke, and other scents--strange to him. He
+undid the fastenings and pulled out the contents.
+
+There was a shirt, with long full sleeves, of a gray wool undyed from
+the sheep. Then a very bulky short jacket which, after fingering it
+doubtfully, Travis decided was made of felt. It was elaborately
+decorated with highly colorful embroidery, and there was no mistaking
+the design--a heavy antlered Terran deer in mortal combat with what
+might be a puma. It was bordered with a geometric pattern of beautiful,
+oddly familiar work. Travis smoothed it flat over his knee and tried to
+remember where he had seen its like before ... a book! An illustration
+in a book! But which book, when? Not recently, and it was not a pattern
+known to his own people.
+
+Twisted into the interior of the jacket was a silklike scarf, clear,
+light blue--the blue of Terra's cloudless skies on certain days, so
+different from the yellow shield now hanging above them. A small case of
+leather, with silhouetted designs cut from hide and affixed to it,
+designs as intricate and complex as the embroidery on the jacket--art of
+a high standard. In the case a knife and spoon, the bowl and blade of
+dull metal, the handles of horn carved with horse heads, the tiny
+wide-open eyes set with glittering stones.
+
+Personal possessions dear to the owner, so that when they must be
+abandoned for flight they were hidden with some hope of recovery. Travis
+slowly repacked them, trying to fold the garments into their original
+creases. He was still puzzled by those designs.
+
+"Who?" Tsoay touched the edge of the jacket with one finger, his
+admiration for it plain to read.
+
+"I don't know. But it is of our own world."
+
+"That is a deer, though the horns are wrong," Tsoay agreed. "And the
+puma is very well done. The one who made this knows animals well."
+
+Travis pushed the jacket back into the bag and laced it shut. But he did
+not return it to the hiding place. Instead, he made it a part of his own
+pack. If they did not succeed in running down the fugitive, he wanted an
+opportunity for closer study, a chance to remember just where he had
+seen that picture before.
+
+The narrow valley where they had discovered the bag sloped upward, and
+there were signs that their quarry found the ground harder to cover. The
+second discard lay in open sight--again a leather bag which Nalik'ideyu
+sniffed and then began to lick eagerly, thrusting her nose into its
+flaccid interior.
+
+Travis picked it up, finding it damp to the touch. It had an odd smell,
+like that of sour milk. He ran a finger around inside, brought it out
+wet; yet this was neither water bag nor canteen. And he was completely
+mystified when he turned it inside out, for though the inner surface was
+wet, the bag was empty. He offered it to the coyote, and she took it
+promptly.
+
+Holding it firmly to the earth with her forepaws, she licked the
+surface, though Travis could see no deposit which might attract her. It
+was clear that the bag had once held some sort of food.
+
+"Here they rested," Tsoay said. "Not too far ahead now--"
+
+But now they were in the kind of country where a man could hide in order
+to check on his back trail. Travis studied the terrain and then made his
+own plans. They would leave the plainly marked trace of the fugitive,
+strike out upslope to the east and try to parallel the other's route. In
+that maze of rock outcrops and wood copses there was tricky going.
+
+Nalik'ideyu gave a last lick to the bag as Travis signaled her. She
+regarded him, then turned her head to survey the country before them. At
+last she trotted on, her buff coat melting into the vegetation. With
+Naginlta she would scout the quarry and keep watch, leaving the men to
+take the longer way around.
+
+Travis pulled off his shirt, folding it into a packet and tucking it
+beneath the folds of his sash-belt, just as his ancestors had always
+done before a fight. Then he cached his pack and Tsoay's. As they began
+the stiff climb they carried only their bows, the quivers slung on their
+shoulders, and the long-bladed knives. But they flitted like shadows
+and, like the coyotes, their red-brown bodies became indistinguishable
+against the bronze of the land.
+
+They should be, Travis judged, not more than an hour away from sundown.
+And they had to locate the stranger before the dark closed in. His
+respect for their quarry had grown. The unknown might have been driven
+by fear, but he held to a good pace and headed intelligently for just
+the kind of country which would serve him best. If Travis could only
+remember where he had seen the like of that embroidery! It had a
+meaning which might be important now....
+
+Tsoay slipped behind a wind-gnarled tree and disappeared. Travis stooped
+under a line of bush limbs. Both were working their way south, using the
+peak ahead as an agreed landmark, pausing at intervals to examine the
+landscape for any hint of a man and horse.
+
+Travis squirmed snake fashion into an opening between two rock pillars
+and lay there, the westering sun hot on his bare shoulders and back, his
+chin propped on his forearm. In the band holding back his hair he had
+inserted some concealing tufts of wiry mountain grass, the ends of which
+drooped over his rugged features.
+
+Only seconds earlier he had caught that fragmentary warning from one of
+the coyotes. What they sought was very close, it was right down there.
+Both animals were in ambush, awaiting orders. And what they found was
+familiar, another confirmation that the fugitive was Terran, not native
+to Topaz.
+
+With searching eyes, Travis examined the site indicated by the coyotes.
+His respect for the stranger was raised another notch. In time either he
+or Tsoay might have sighted that hideaway without the aid of the animal
+scouts; on the other hand, they might have failed. For the fugitive had
+truly gone to earth, using some pocket or crevice in the mountain wall.
+
+There was no sign of the horse, but a branch here and there had been
+pulled out of place, the scars of their removal readable when one knew
+where to look. Odd, Travis began to puzzle over what he saw. It was
+almost as if whatever pursuit the stranger feared would come not at
+ground level but from above; the precautions the stranger had taken were
+to veil his retreat to the reaches of the mountain side.
+
+Had he expected any trailer to make a flanking move from up that slope
+where the Apaches now lay? Travis' teeth nipped the weathered skin of
+his forearm. Could it be that at some time during the day's journeying
+the fugitive had doubled back, having seen his trackers? But there had
+been no traces of any such scouting, and the coyotes would surely have
+warned them. Human eyes and ears could be tricked, but Travis trusted
+the senses of Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu far above his own.
+
+No, he did not believe that the rider expected the Apaches. But the man
+did expect someone or something which would come upon him from the
+heights. The heights.... Travis rolled his head slightly to look at the
+upper reaches of the hills about him--with suspicion.
+
+In their own journey across the mountains and through the pass they had
+found nothing threatening. Dangerous animals might roam there. There had
+been some paw marks, one such trail the coyotes had warned against. But
+the type of precautions the stranger had taken were against intelligent,
+thinking beings, not against animals more likely to track by scent than
+by sight.
+
+And if the stranger expected an attack from above, then Travis and Tsoay
+must be alert. Travis analyzed each feature of the hillside, setting in
+his mind a picture of every inch of ground they must cross. Just as he
+had wanted daylight as an ally before, so now was he willing to wait for
+the shadows of twilight.
+
+He closed his eyes in a final check, able to recall the details of the
+hiding place, knowing that he could reach it when the conditions
+favored, without mistake. Then he edged back from his vantage point, and
+raising his fingers to his lips, made a small angry chittering, three
+times repeated. One of the species inhabiting these heights, as they had
+noted earlier, was a creature about as big as the palm of a man's hand,
+resembling nothing so much as a round ball of ruffled feathers, though
+its covering might actually have been a silky, fluffy fur. Its short
+legs could cover ground at an amazing speed, and it had the bold
+impudence of a creature with few natural enemies. This was its usual
+cry.
+
+Tsoay's hand waved Travis on to where the younger man had taken position
+behind the bleached trunk of a fallen tree.
+
+"He hides," Tsoay whispered.
+
+"Against trouble from above." Travis added his own observation.
+
+"But not us, I think."
+
+So Tsoay had come to that conclusion too? Travis tried to gauge the
+nearness of twilight. There was a period after the passing of Topaz' sun
+when the dusky light played odd tricks with shadows. That would be the
+first time for their move. He said as much, and Tsoay nodded eagerly.
+They sat with their backs to a boulder, the tree trunk serving as a
+screen, and chewed methodically on ration tablets. There was energy and
+sustenance in the tasteless squares which would support men, even though
+their stomachs continued to demand the satisfaction of fresh meat.
+
+Taking turns, they dozed a little. But the last banners of Topaz' sun
+were still in the sky when Travis judged the shadows cover enough. He
+had no way of knowing how the stranger was armed. Though he used a horse
+for transportation, he might well carry a rifle and the most modern
+Terran sidearms.
+
+The Apaches' bows were little use for infighting, but they had their
+knives. However, Travis wanted to take the fugitive unharmed if he
+could. There was information he must have. So he did not even draw his
+knife as he started downhill.
+
+When he reached a pool of violet dusk at the bottom of the small ravine
+Naginlta's eyes regarded him knowingly. Travis signaled with his hand
+and thought out what would be the coyotes' part in this surprise attack.
+The prick-eared silhouette vanished. Uphill the chitter of a fluff-fur
+sounded twice--Tsoay was in position.
+
+A howl ... wailing ... sobbing ... was heard, one of the keening songs
+of the _mba'a_. Travis darted forward. He heard the nicker of a
+frightened horse, a clicking which could have marked the pawing of hoof
+on gravel, saw the brush hiding the stranger's hole tremble, a portion
+of it fall away.
+
+Travis sped on, his moccasins making no sound on the ground. One of the
+coyotes gave tongue for the second time, the eerie wailing rising to a
+yapping which echoed from the rocks about them. Travis poised for a
+dive.
+
+Another section of those artfully heaped branches had given way and a
+horse reared, its upflung head plainly marked against the sky. A blurred
+figure weaved back and forth before it, trying to control the mount. The
+stranger had his hands full, certainly no weapon drawn--this was it!
+
+Travis leaped. His hands found their mark, the shoulders of the
+stranger. There was a shrill cry from the other as he tried to turn in
+the Apache's hold, to face his attacker. But Travis bore them both on,
+rolling almost under the feet of the horse, sliding downhill, the
+unknown's writhing body pinned down by the Apache's weight and his
+clasp, tight as an iron grip, about the other's chest and upper arms.
+
+He felt his opponent go limp, but was suspicious enough not to release
+that hold, for the heavy breathing of the stranger was not that of an
+unconscious man. They lay so, the unknown still tight in Travis' hold
+but no longer fighting. The Apache could hear Tsoay soothing the horse
+with the purring words of a practiced horseman.
+
+Still the stranger did not resume the struggle. They could not lie in
+this position all night, Travis thought with a wry twist of amusement.
+He shifted his hold, and got the lightning-quick response he had
+expected. But it was not quite quick enough, for Travis had the other's
+hands behind his back, cupping slender, almost delicate wrists together.
+
+"Throw me a cord!" he called to Tsoay.
+
+The younger man ran up with an extra bow cord, and in a moment they had
+bonds on the struggling captive. Travis rolled their catch over,
+reaching down for a fistful of hair to pull the head into a patch of
+clearer light.
+
+In his grasp that hair came loose, a braid unwinding. He grunted as he
+looked down into the stranger's face. Dust marks were streaked now with
+tear runnels, but the gray eyes which turned fiercely on him said that
+their owner cried more in rage than fear.
+
+His captive might be wearing long trousers tucked into curved, toed
+boots, and a loose overblouse, but she was certainly not only a woman,
+but a very young and attractive one. Also, at the present moment, an
+exceedingly angry one. And behind that anger was fear, the fear of one
+fighting hopelessly against insurmountable odds. But as she eyed Travis
+now her expression changed.
+
+He felt she had expected another captor altogether and was astounded at
+the sight of him. Her tongue touched her lips, moistening them, and now
+the fear in her was another kind--the wary fear of one facing a totally
+new and perhaps dangerous thing.
+
+"Who are you?" Travis spoke in English, for he had no doubts that she
+was Terran.
+
+Now she sucked in her breath with a gasp of pure astonishment.
+
+"Who are _you_?" she parroted his question in a marked accent. English
+was not her native tongue, he was sure.
+
+Travis reached out, and again his hands closed on her shoulders. She
+started to twist and then realized he was merely pulling her up to a
+sitting position. Some of the fear had left her eyes, an intent interest
+taking its place.
+
+"You are not Sons of the Blue Wolf," she stated in her heavily accented
+speech.
+
+Travis smiled. "I am the Fox, not the Wolf," he returned. "And the
+Coyote is my brother." He snapped his fingers at the shadows, and the
+two animals came noiselessly into sight. Her gaze widened even more at
+Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu, and she deduced the bond which must exist
+between her captor and the beasts.
+
+"This woman is also of our world." Tsoay spoke in Apache, looking over
+their prisoner with frank interest. "Only she is not of the People."
+
+Sons of the Blue Wolf? Travis thought again of the embroidery designs on
+the jacket. Who had called themselves by that picturesque
+title--where--and when in time?
+
+"What do you fear, Daughter of the Blue Wolf?" he asked.
+
+And with that question he seemed to touch some button activating terror.
+She flung back her head so that she could see the darkening sky.
+
+"The flyer!" Her voice was muted as if more than a whisper would carry
+to the stars just coming into brilliance above them. "They will come ...
+tracking. I did not reach the inner mountains in time."
+
+There was a despairing note in that which cut through to Travis, who
+found that he, too, was searching the sky, not knowing what he looked
+for or what kind of menace it promised, only that it was real danger.
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+"The night comes," Tsoay spoke slowly in English. "Do these you fear
+hunt in the dark?"
+
+She shook her head to free her forehead from a coil of braid, pulled
+loose in her struggle with Travis.
+
+"They do not need eyes or such noses as those four-footed hunters of
+yours. They have a machine to track--"
+
+"Then what purpose is this brush pile of yours?" Travis raised his chin
+at the disturbed hiding place.
+
+"They do not constantly use the machine, and one can hope. But at night
+they can ride on its beam. We are not far enough into the hills to lose
+them. Bahatur went lame, and so I was slowed...."
+
+"And what lies in these mountains that those you fear dare not invade
+them?" Travis continued.
+
+"I do not know, save if one can climb far enough inside, one is safe
+from pursuit."
+
+"I ask it again: Who are you?" The Apache leaned forward, his face in
+the fast-fading light now only inches away from hers. She did not shrink
+from his close scrutiny but met him eye to eye. This was a woman of
+proud independence, truly a chief's daughter, Travis decided.
+
+"I am of the People of the Blue Wolf. We were brought across the star
+lanes to make this world safe for ... for ... the...." She hesitated,
+and now there was a shade of puzzlement on her face. "There is a
+reason--a dream. No, there is the dream and there is reality. I am
+Kaydessa of the Golden Horde, but sometimes I remember other
+things--like this speech of strange words I am mouthing now----"
+
+"The Golden Horde!" Travis knew now. The embroidery, Sons of the Blue
+Wolf, all fitted into a special pattern. But what a pattern! Scythian
+art, the ornament that the warriors of Genghis Khan bore so proudly.
+Tatars, Mongols--the barbarians who had swept from the fastness of the
+steppes to change the course of history, not only in Asia but across the
+plains of middle Europe. The men of the Emperor Khans who had ridden
+behind the yak-tailed standards of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan,
+Tamerlane--!
+
+"The Golden Horde," Travis repeated once again. "That lies far back in
+the history of another world, Wolf Daughter."
+
+She stared at him, a queer, lost expression on her dust-grimed face.
+
+"I know." Her voice was so muted he could hardly distinguish the words.
+"My people live in two times, and many do not realize that."
+
+Tsoay had crouched down beside them to listen. Now he put out his hand,
+touching Travis' shoulder.
+
+"Redax?"
+
+"Or its like." For Travis was sure of one point. The project, which had
+been training three teams for space colonization--one of Eskimos, one of
+Pacific Islanders, and one of his own Apaches--had no reason or chance
+to select Mongols from the wild past of the raiding Hordes. There was
+only one nation on Terra which could have picked such colonists.
+
+"You are Russian." He studied her carefully, intent on noting the effect
+of his words.
+
+But she did not lose that lost look. "Russian ... Russian ..." she
+repeated, as if the very word was strange.
+
+Travis was alarmed. Any Russian colony planted here could well possess
+technicians with machines capable of tracking a fugitive, and if
+mountain heights were protection against such a hunt, he intended to
+gain them, even by night traveling. He said this to Tsoay, and the other
+emphatically agreed.
+
+"The horse is too lame to go on," the younger man reported.
+
+Travis hesitated for a long second. Since the time they had stolen their
+first mounts from the encroaching Spanish, horses had always been wealth
+to his people. To leave an animal which could well serve the clan was
+not right. But they dared not waste time with a lame beast.
+
+"Leave it here, free," he ordered.
+
+"And the woman?"
+
+"She goes with us. We must learn all we can of these people and what
+they do here. Listen, Wolf Daughter," again Travis leaned close to make
+sure she was listening to him as he spoke with emphasis--"you will
+travel with us into these high places, and there will be no trouble from
+you." He drew his knife and held the blade warningly before her eyes.
+
+"It was already in my mind to go to the mountains," she told him evenly.
+"Untie my hands, brave warrior, you have surely nothing to fear from a
+woman."
+
+His hand made a swift sweep and plucked a knife as long and keen as his
+from the folds of the sash beneath her loose outer garment.
+
+"Not now, Wolf Daughter, since I have drawn your fangs."
+
+He helped her to her feet and slashed the cord about her wrists with her
+knife, which he then fastened to his own belt. Alerting the coyotes, he
+dispatched them ahead; and the three started on, the Mongol girl between
+the two Apaches. The abandoned horse nickered lonesomely and then began
+to graze on tufts of grass, moving slowly to favor his foot.
+
+The two moons rode the sky as the hours advanced, their beams fighting
+the shadows. Travis felt reasonably safe from any attack at ground
+level, depending upon the coyotes for warning. But he held them all to a
+steady pace. And he did not question the girl again until all three of
+them hunkered down at a small mountain spring, to dash icy water over
+their faces and drink from cupped hands.
+
+"Why do you flee your own people, Wolf Daughter?"
+
+"My name is Kaydessa," she corrected him.
+
+He chuckled with laughter at the prim tone of her voice. "And you see
+here Tsoay of the People--the Apaches--while I am Fox." He was giving
+her the English equivalent of his tribal name.
+
+"Apaches." She tried to repeat the word with the same accent he had
+used. "And what are Apaches?"
+
+"Indians--Amerindians," he explained. "But you have not answered my
+question, Kaydessa. Why do you run from your own people?"
+
+"Not from my people," she said, shaking her head determinedly. "From
+those others. It is like this--Oh, how can I make you understand
+rightly?" She spread her wet hands out before her in the moonlight, the
+damp patches on her sleeves clinging to her arms. "There are my people
+of the Golden Horde, though once we were different and we can remember
+bits of that previous life. Then there are also the men who live in the
+sky ship and use the machine so that we think only the thoughts they
+would have us think. Now why," she looked at Travis intently--"do I wish
+to tell you all this? It is strange. You say you are
+Indian--American--are we then enemies? There is a part memory which says
+that we are ... were...."
+
+"Let us rather say," he corrected her, "that the Apaches and the Horde
+are not enemies here and now, no matter what was before." That was the
+truth, Travis recognized. By all accounts his people had come out of
+Asia in the very dim beginnings of migrating peoples. For all her
+dark-red hair and gray eyes, this girl who had been arbitrarily returned
+to a past just as they had been by Redax, could well be a distant
+clan-cousin.
+
+"You--" Kaydessa's fingers rested for a moment on his wrist--"you, too,
+were sent here from across the stars. Is this not so?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"And there are those here who govern you now?"
+
+"No. We are free."
+
+"How did you become free?" she demanded fiercely.
+
+Travis hesitated. He did not want to tell of the wrecked ship, the fact
+that his people possessed no real defenses against the
+Russian-controlled colony.
+
+"We went to the mountains," he replied evasively.
+
+"Your governing machine failed?" Kaydessa laughed. "Ah, they are so
+great, those men of the machines. But they are smaller and weaker when
+their machines cannot obey them."
+
+"It is so with your camp?" Travis probed gently. He was not quite sure
+of her meaning, but he dared not ask more detailed questions without
+dangerously revealing his own ignorance.
+
+"In some manner their control machine--it can only work upon those
+within a certain distance. They discovered that in the days of the first
+landing, when hunters went out freely and many of them did not return.
+After that when hunters were sent out to learn how lay this land, they
+went along in the flyer with a machine so that there would be no more
+escapes. But we knew!" Kaydessa's fingers curled into small fists. "Yes,
+we knew that if we could get beyond the machines, there was freedom for
+us. And we planned--many of us--planned. Then nine or ten sleeps ago
+those others were very excited. They gathered in their ship, watching
+their machines. And something happened. For a while all those machines
+went dead.
+
+"Jagatai, Kuchar, my brother Hulagur, Menlik...." She was counting the
+names off on her fingers. "They raided the horse herd, rode out...."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I, too, should have ridden. But there was Aljar, my sister--Kuchar's
+wife. She was very near her time and to ride thus, fleeing and fast,
+might kill her and the child. So I did not go. Her son was born that
+night, but the others had the machine at work once more. We might long
+to go here," she brought her fist up to her breast, and then raised it
+to her head--"but there was that _here_ which kept us to the camp and
+their will. We only knew that if we could reach the mountains, we might
+find our people who had already gained their freedom."
+
+"But you are here. How did you escape?" Tsoay wanted to know.
+
+"They knew that I would have gone had it not been for Aljar. So they
+said they would make her ride out with them unless I played guide to
+lead them to my brother and the others. Then I knew I must take up the
+sword of duty and hunt with them. But I prayed that the spirits of the
+upper air look with favor upon me, and they granted aid...." Her eyes
+held a look of wonder. "For when we were out on the plains and well away
+from the settlement, a grass devil attacked the leader of the searching
+party, and he dropped the mind control and so it was broken. Then I
+rode. Blue Sky Above knows how I rode. And those others are not with
+their horses as are the people of the Wolf."
+
+"When did this happen?"
+
+"Three suns ago."
+
+Travis counted back in his mind. Her date for the failure of the machine
+in the Russian camp seemed to coincide with the crash landing of the
+American ship. Had one thing any connection with the other? It was very
+possible. The planeting spacer might have fought some kind of weird duel
+with the other colony before it plunged to earth on the other side of
+the mountain range.
+
+"Do you know where in these mountains your people hide?"
+
+Kaydessa shook her head. "Only that I must head south, and when I reach
+the highest peak make a signal fire on the north slope. But that I
+cannot do now, for those in the flyer may see it. I know they are on my
+trail, for twice I have seen it. Listen, Fox, I ask this of you--I,
+Kaydessa, who am eldest daughter to the Khan--for you are like unto us,
+a warrior and a brave man, that I believe. It may be that you cannot be
+governed by their machine, for you have not rested under their spell,
+nor are of our blood. Therefore, if they come close enough to send forth
+the call, the call I must obey as if I were a slave dragged upon a horse
+rope, then do you bind my hands and feet and hold me here, no matter how
+much I struggle to follow that command. For that which is truly me does
+not want to go. Will you swear this by the fires which expel demons?"
+
+The utter sincerity of her tone convinced Travis that she was pleading
+for aid against a danger she firmly believed in. Whether she was right
+about his immunity to the Russian mental control was another matter, and
+one he would rather not put to the test.
+
+"We do not swear by your fires, Blue Wolf Maiden, but by the Path of the
+Lightning." His fingers moved as if to curl about the sacred charred
+wood his people had once carried as "medicine." "So do I promise!"
+
+She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded in satisfaction.
+
+They left the pool and pushed on toward the mountain slopes, working
+their way back to the pass. A low growl out of the dark brought them to
+an instant halt. Naginlta's warning was sharp; there was danger ahead,
+acute danger.
+
+The moonlight from the moons made a weird pattern of light and dark on
+the stretch ahead. Anything from a slinking four-footed hunter to a war
+party of intelligent beings might have been lying in wait there.
+
+A flitting shadow out of shadows. Nalik'ideyu pressed against Travis'
+legs, making a barrier of her warm body, attracting his attention to a
+spot at the left perhaps a hundred yards on. There was a great splotch
+of dark there, large enough to hide a really formidable opponent; that
+wordless communication between animal and man told Travis that such an
+opponent was just what was lurking there.
+
+Whatever lay in ambush beside the upper track was growing impatient as
+its destined prey ceased to advance, the coyotes reported.
+
+"Your left--beyond that pointed rock--in the big shadow--"
+
+"Do you see it?" Tsoay demanded.
+
+"No. But the _mba'a_ do."
+
+The men had their bows ready, arrows set to the cords. But in this light
+such weapons were practically useless unless the enemy moved into the
+path of the moon.
+
+"What is it?" Kaydessa asked in a half whisper.
+
+"Something waits for us ahead."
+
+Before he could stop her, she set her fingers to her lips and gave a
+piercing whistle.
+
+There was answering movement in the shadow. Travis shot at that, his
+arrow followed instantly by one from Tsoay. There was a cry, scaling up
+in a throat-scalding scream which made Travis flinch. Not because of
+the sound, but because of the hint which lay behind it--could it have
+been a human cry?
+
+The thing flopped out into a patch of moonlight. It was four-limbed, its
+body silvery--and it was large. But the worst was that it had been
+groveling on all fours when it fell, and now it was rising on its hind
+feet, one forepaw striking madly at the two arrows dancing head-deep in
+its upper shoulder. Man? No! But something sufficiently manlike to chill
+the three downtrail.
+
+A whirling four-footed hunter dashed in, snapped at the creature's legs,
+and it squalled again, aiming a blow with a forepaw; but the attacking
+coyote was already gone. Together Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu were
+harassing the creature, just as they had fought the split horn, giving
+the hunters time to shoot. Travis, although he again felt that touch of
+horror and disgust he could not account for, shot again.
+
+Between them the Apaches must have sent a dozen arrows into the raving
+beast before it went to its knees and Naginlta sprang for its throat.
+Even then the coyote yelped and flinched, a bleeding gash across its
+head from the raking talons of the dying thing. When it no longer moved,
+Travis approached to see more closely what they had brought down. That
+smell....
+
+Just as the embroidery on Kaydessa's jacket had awakened memories from
+his Terran past, so did this stench remind him of something.
+Where--when--had he smelled it before? Travis connected it with dark,
+dark and danger. Then he gasped in a half exclamation.
+
+Not on this world, no, but on two others: two worlds of that broken
+stellar empire where he had been an involuntary explorer two planet
+years ago! The beast things which had lived in the dark of the desert
+world the Terrans' wandering galactic derelict had landed upon. Yes, the
+beast things whose nature they had never been able to deduce. Were they
+the degenerate dregs of a once intelligent species? Or were they
+animals, akin to man, but still animals?
+
+The ape-things had controlled the night of the desert world. And they
+had been met again--also in the dark--in the ruins of the city which had
+been the final goal of the ship's taped voyage. So they were a part of
+the vanished civilization. And Travis' own vague surmise concerning
+Topaz was proven correct. This had not been an empty world for the
+long-gone space people. This planet had a purpose and a use, or else
+this beast would not have been here.
+
+"Devil!" Kaydessa made a face of disgust.
+
+"You know it?" Tsoay asked Travis. "What is it?"
+
+"That I do not know, but it is a thing left over from the star people's
+time. And I have seen it on two other of their worlds."
+
+"A man?" Tsoay surveyed the body critically. "It wears no clothes, has
+no weapons, but it walks erect. It looks like an ape, a very big ape. It
+is not a good thing, I think."
+
+"If it runs with a pack--as they do elsewhere--this could be a very bad
+thing." Travis, remembering how these creatures had attacked in force on
+the other worlds, looked about him apprehensively. Even with the coyotes
+on guard, they could not stand up to such a pack closing in through the
+dark. They had better hole up in some defendable place and wait out the
+rest of the night.
+
+Naginlta brought them to a cliff overhang where they could set their
+backs to the hard rock of the mountain, face outward to a space they
+could cover with arrow flight if the need arose. And the coyotes, lying
+before them with their noses resting on paws, would, Travis knew, alert
+them long before the enemy could close in.
+
+They huddled against the rock, Kaydessa between them, alert at first to
+every sound of the night, their hearts beating faster at a small scrape
+of gravel, the rustle of a bush. Slowly, they began to relax.
+
+"It is well that two sleep while one guards," Travis observed. "By
+morning we must push on, out of this country."
+
+So the two Apaches shared the watch in turn, the Tatar girl at first
+protesting, and then falling exhausted into a slumber which left her
+breathing heavily.
+
+Travis, on the dawn watch, began to speculate about the ape-thing they
+had killed. The two previous times he had met this creature it had been
+in ruins of the old empire. Were there ruins somewhere here? He wanted
+to make sure about that. On the other hand, there was the problem of the
+Tatar-Mongol settlement controlled by the Reds. There was no doubt in
+his mind that, were the Reds to suspect the existence of the Apache
+camp, they would make every attempt to hunt down and kill or capture the
+survivors from the American ship. A warning must be carried to the
+rancheria as quickly as they could make the return trip.
+
+Beside him the girl stirred, raising her head. Travis glanced at her and
+then watched with attention. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes as
+fixed as if she were in a trance. Now she inched forward from the
+mountain wall, wriggling out of its shelter.
+
+"What--?" Tsoay had awakened again. But Travis was already moving. He
+pushed on, rushing up to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder.
+
+"What is it? Where do you go?" he asked.
+
+She made no answer, did not even seem aware of his voice. He caught at
+her arm and she pulled to free herself. When he tightened his grip she
+did not fight him actively as during their first encounter, but merely
+pulled and twisted as if she were being compelled to go ahead.
+
+Compulsion! He remembered her plea the night before, asking his help
+against recapture by the machine. Now he deliberately tripped her,
+twisted her hands behind her back. She swayed in his hold, trying to win
+to her feet, paying no attention to him save as a hindrance against her
+answering that demanding call he could not hear.
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+"What happened?" Tsoay took a swift stride, stood over the writhing girl
+whose strength was now such that Travis had to exert all his efforts to
+control her.
+
+"I think that the machine she spoke about is holding her. She is being
+drawn to it out of hiding as one draws a calf on a rope."
+
+Both coyotes had arisen and were watching the struggle with interest,
+but there was no warning from them. Whatever called Kaydessa into such
+mindless and will-less answer did not touch the animals. And neither
+Apache felt it. So perhaps only Kaydessa's people were subject to it, as
+she had thought. How far away was that machine? Not too near, for
+otherwise the coyotes would have traced the man or men operating it.
+
+"We cannot move her," Tsoay brought the problem into the open--"unless
+we bind and carry her. She is one of their kind. Why not let her go to
+them, unless you fear she will talk." His hand went to the knife in his
+belt, and Travis knew what primitive impulse moved in the younger man.
+
+In the old days a captive who was likely to give trouble was
+efficiently eliminated. In Tsoay that memory was awake now. Travis shook
+his head.
+
+"She has said that others of her kin are in these hills. We must not set
+two wolf packs hunting us," Travis said, giving the more practical
+reason which might better appeal to that savage instinct for
+self-preservation. "But you are right, since she has tried to answer
+this summons, we cannot force her with us. Therefore, do you take the
+back trail. Tell Buck what we have discovered and have him make the
+necessary precautions against either these Mongol outlaws or a Red
+thrust over the mountains."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I stay to discover where the outlaws hide and learn all I can of this
+settlement. We may have reason to need friends----"
+
+"Friends!" Tsoay spat. "The People need no friends! If we have warning,
+we can hold our own country! As the Pinda-lick-o-yi have discovered
+before."
+
+"Bows and arrows against guns and machines?" Travis inquired bitingly.
+"We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future.
+Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before,"
+Travis calculated--"ten suns. If I do not, send no search party; the
+clan is too small to risk more lives for one."
+
+"And if these Reds take you--?"
+
+Travis grinned, not pleasantly. "They shall learn nothing! Can their
+machines sort out the thoughts of a dead man?" He did not intend his
+future to end as abruptly as that, but also he would not be easy meat
+for any Red hunting party.
+
+Tsoay took a share of their rations and refused the company of the
+coyotes. Travis realized that for all his seeming ease with the animals,
+the younger scout had little more liking for them than Deklay and the
+others back at the rancheria. Tsoay went at dawn, aiming at the pass.
+
+Travis sat down beside Kaydessa. They had bound her to a small tree, and
+she strove incessantly to free herself, turning her head at an acute and
+painful angle, only to face the same direction in which she had been
+tied. There was no breaking the spell which held her. And she would soon
+wear herself out with that struggling. Then he struck an expert blow.
+
+The girl sagged limply, and he untied her. It all depended now on the
+range of the beam or broadcast of that diabolical machine. From the
+attitude of the coyotes, he assumed that those using the machine had not
+made any attempt to come close. They might not even know where their
+quarry was; they would simply sit and wait in the foothills for the
+caller to reel in a helpless captive.
+
+Travis thought that if he moved Kaydessa farther away from that point,
+sooner or later they would be out of range and she would awake from the
+knockout, free again. Although she was not light, he could manage to
+carry her for a while. So burdened, Travis started on, with the coyotes
+scouting ahead.
+
+He speedily discovered that he had set himself an ambitious task. The
+going was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to a
+snail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to make careful plans.
+
+As long as the Reds held the balance of power on this side of the
+mountain range, the rancheria was in danger. Bows and knives against
+modern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter of
+time before exploration on the part of the northern settlement--or some
+tracking down of Tatar fugitives--would bring the enemy across the pass.
+
+The Apaches could move farther south into the unknown continent below
+the wrecked ship, thus prolonging the time before they were discovered.
+But that would only postpone the inevitable showdown. Whether Travis
+could make his clan believe that, was also a matter of concern.
+
+On the other hand, if the Red overlords could be met in some practical
+way.... Travis' mind fastened on that more attractive idea, worrying it
+as Naginlta worried a prey, tearing out and devouring the more delicate
+portions. Every bit of sense and prudence argued against such an
+approach, whose success could rest only between improbability and
+impossibility; yet that was the direction in which he longed to move.
+
+Across his shoulder Kaydessa stirred and moaned. The Apache doubled his
+efforts to reach the outcrop of rock he could see ahead, chiseled into
+high relief by the winds. In its lee they would have protection from any
+sighting from below. Panting, he made it, lowering the girl into the
+guarded cup of space, and waited.
+
+She moaned again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open,
+and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and her
+surroundings intelligently or not.
+
+"Kaydessa!"
+
+Her heavy eyelids lifted, and he had no doubt she could see him. But
+there was no recognition of his identity in her gaze, only surprise and
+fear--the same expression she had worn during their first meeting in the
+foothills.
+
+"Daughter of the Wolf," he spoke slowly. "Remember!" Travis made that an
+order, an emphatic appeal to the mind under the influence of the caller.
+
+She frowned, the struggle she was making naked on her face. Then she
+answered:
+
+"You--Fox--"
+
+Travis grunted with relief, his alarm subsiding. Then she _could_
+remember.
+
+"Yes," he responded eagerly.
+
+But she was gazing about, her puzzlement growing. "Where is this--?"
+
+"We are higher in the mountains."
+
+Now fear was pushing out bewilderment. "How did I come here?"
+
+"I brought you." Swiftly he outlined what had happened at their night
+camp.
+
+The hand which had been at her head was now pressed tight across her
+lips as if she were biting furiously into its flesh to still some panic
+of her own, and her gray eyes were round and haunted.
+
+"You are free now," Travis said.
+
+Kaydessa nodded, and then dropped her hand to speak. "You brought me
+away from the hunters. You did not have to obey them?"
+
+"I heard nothing."
+
+"You do not hear--you feel!" She shuddered. "Please." She clawed at the
+stone beside her, pulling up to her feet. "Let us go--let us go quickly!
+They will try again--move farther in--"
+
+"Listen," Travis had to be sure of one thing--"have they any way of
+knowing that they had you under control and that you have again
+escaped?"
+
+Kaydessa shook her head, some of the panic again shadowing her eyes.
+
+"Then we'll just go on--" his chin lifted to the wastelands before
+them--"try to keep out of their reach."
+
+And away from the pass to the south, he told himself silently. He dared
+not lead the enemy to that secret, so he must travel west or hole up
+somewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessa
+was no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyond
+its beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin,
+just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things.
+Before dark they must discover a protected camp site.
+
+They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration tablets. But
+the coyotes could locate water.
+
+"Come!" Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of him
+so that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once again
+to the influence of the enemy. But his burdened early morning flight had
+told on Travis more than he thought, and he discovered he could not spur
+himself on to a pace better than a walk. Now and again one of the
+coyotes, usually Nalik'ideyu, would come into view, express impatience
+in both stance and mental signal, and then be gone again. The Apache was
+increasingly aware that the animals were disturbed, yet to his tentative
+gropings at contact they did not reply. Since they gave no warning of
+hostile animal or man, he could only be on constant guard, watching the
+countryside about him.
+
+They had been following a ledge for several minutes before Travis was
+aware of some strange features of that path. Perhaps he had actually
+noted them with a trained eye before his archaeological studies of the
+recent past gave him a reason for the faint marks. This crack in the
+mountain's skin might have begun as a natural fault, but afterward it
+had been worked with tools, smoothed, widened to serve the purpose of
+some form of intelligence!
+
+Travis caught at Kaydessa's shoulder to slow her pace. He could not have
+told why he did not want to speak aloud here, but he felt the need for
+silence. She glanced around, perplexed, more so when he went down on his
+knees and ran his fingers along one of those ancient tool marks. He was
+certain it was very old. Inside of him anticipation bubbled. A road made
+with such labor could only lead to something of importance. He was going
+to make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into these
+mountains.
+
+"What is it?" Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge.
+
+"This was cut by someone, a long time ago," Travis half whispered and
+then wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers could
+hear him when perhaps a thousand years or more lay between the chipping
+of that stone and this day.
+
+The Tatar girl looked over her shoulder. Perhaps she too was troubled by
+the sense that here time was subtly telescoped, that past and present
+might be meeting. Or was that feeling with them both because of their
+enforced conditioning?
+
+"Who?" Now her voice sank in turn.
+
+"Listen--" he regarded her intently--"did your people or the Reds ever
+find any traces of the old civilization here--ruins?"
+
+"No." She leaned forward, tracing with her own finger the same
+almost-obliterated marks which had intrigued Travis. "But I think they
+have looked. Before they discovered that we could be free, they sent out
+parties--to hunt, they said--but afterward they always asked many
+questions about the country. Only they never asked about ruins. Is that
+what they wished us to find? But why? Of what value are old stones piled
+on one another?"
+
+"In themselves, little, save for the knowledge they may give us of the
+people who piled them. But for what the stones might contain--much
+value!"
+
+"And how do you know what they might contain, Fox?"
+
+"Because I have seen such treasure houses of the star men," he returned
+absently. To him the marks on the ledge were a pledge of greater
+discoveries to come. He must find where that carefully constructed road
+ran--to what it led. "Let us see where this will take us."
+
+But first he gave the chittering signal in four sharp bursts. And the
+tawny-gray bodies came out of the tangled brush, bounding up to the
+ledge. Together the coyotes faced him, their attention all for his
+halting communication.
+
+Ruins might lie ahead; he hoped that they did. But on another planet
+such ruins had twice proved to be deadly traps, and only good fortune
+had prevented their closing on Terran explorers. If the ape-things or
+any other dangerous form of life had taken up residence before them, he
+wanted good warning.
+
+Together the coyotes turned and loped along the now level way of the
+ledge, disappearing around a curve fitted to the mountain side while
+Travis and Kaydessa followed.
+
+They heard it before they saw its source--a waterfall. Probably not a
+large one, but high. Rounding the curve, they came into a fine mist of
+spray where sunlight made rainbows of color across a filmy veil of
+water.
+
+For a long moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry,
+held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lips
+again to suck the gathered moisture.
+
+Water slicked the surface of the ledge, and Travis pushed her back
+against the wall of the cliff. As far as he could discern, their road
+continued behind the out-flung curtain of water, and footing on the wet
+stone was treacherous. With their backs to the solid security of the
+wall, facing outward into the solid drape of water, they edged behind it
+and came out into rainbowed sunlight again.
+
+Here either provident nature or ancient art had hollowed a pocket in the
+stone which was filled with water. They drank. Then Travis filled his
+canteen while Kaydessa washed her face, holding the cold freshness of
+the moisture to her cheeks with both palms.
+
+She spoke, but he could not hear her through the roar. She leaned closer
+and raised her voice to a half shout:
+
+"This is a place of spirits! Do you not also feel their power, Fox?"
+
+Perhaps for a space out of time he did feel something. This was a
+watering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place--and to his
+desert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be taken
+for granted. The rainbow--the Spirit People's sacred sign--old beliefs
+stirred in Travis, moving him. "I feel," he said, nodding in emphasis to
+his agreement.
+
+They followed the ledge road to a section where a landslide of an
+earlier season had choked it. Travis worked a careful way across the
+debris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn. Then they were on a
+sloping downward way which led to a staircase--the treads weather-worn
+and crumbling, the angle so steep Travis wondered if it had ever been
+intended for beings with a physique approximating the Terrans'.
+
+They came to a cleft where an arch of stone was chiseled out as a
+roofing. Travis thought he could make out a trace of carving on the
+capstone, so worn by years and weather that it was now only a faint
+shadow of design.
+
+The cleft was a door into another valley. Here, too, golden mist swirled
+in tendrils to disguise and cloak what stood there. Travis had found his
+ruins. Only the structures were intact, not breached by time.
+
+Mist flowed in lapping tongues back and forth, confusing outlines, now
+shuttering, now baring oval windows which were spaced in diamonds of
+four on round tower surfaces. There were no visible cracks, no cloaking
+of climbing vegetation, nothing to suggest age and long roots in the
+valley. Nor did the architecture he could view match any he had seen on
+those other worlds.
+
+Travis strode away from the cleft doorway. Under his moccasins was a
+block pavement, yellow and green stone set in a simple pattern of
+checks. This, too, was level, unchipped and undisturbed, save for a
+drift or two of soil driven in by the wind. And nowhere could he see any
+vegetation.
+
+The towers were of the same green stone as half the pavement blocks, a
+glassy green which made him think of jade--if jade could be mined in
+such quantities as these five-story towers demanded.
+
+Nalik'ideyu padded to him, and he could hear the faint click of her
+claws on the pavement. There was a deep silence in this place, as if the
+air itself swallowed and digested all sound. The wind which had been
+with them all the day of their journeying was left beyond the cleft.
+
+Yet there was life here. The coyote told him that in her own way. She
+had not made up her mind concerning that life--wariness and curiosity
+warred in her now as her pointed muzzle lifted toward the windows
+overhead.
+
+The windows were all well above ground level, but there was no opening
+in the first stories as far as Travis could see. He debated moving into
+the range of those windows to investigate the far side of the towers for
+doorways. The mist and the message from Nalik'ideyu nourished his
+suspicions. Out in the open he would be too good a target for whatever
+or whoever might be standing within the deep-welled frames.
+
+The silence was shattered by a boom. Travis jumped, slewed half around,
+knife in hand.
+
+Boom-boom ... a second heavy beat-beat ... then a clangor with a
+swelling echo.
+
+Kaydessa flung back her head and called, her voice rising up as if
+tunneled by the valley walls. She then whistled as she had done when
+they fronted the ape-thing and ran on to catch at Travis' sleeve, her
+face eager.
+
+"My people! Come--it is my people!"
+
+She tugged him on before breaking into a run, weaving fearlessly around
+the base of one of the towers. Travis ran after her, afraid he might
+lose her in the mist.
+
+Three towers, another stretch of open pavement, and then the mist lifted
+to show them a second carved doorway not two hundred yards ahead. The
+boom-boom seemed to pull Kaydessa, and Travis could do nothing but trail
+her, the coyotes now trotting beside him.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+They burst through a last wide band of mist into a wilderness of tall
+grass and shrubs. Travis heard the coyotes give tongue, but it was too
+late. Out of nowhere whirled a leather loop, settling about his chest,
+snapping his arms tight to his body, taking him off his feet with a jerk
+to be dragged helplessly along the ground behind a galloping horse.
+
+A tawny fury sprang in the air to snap at the horse's head. Travis
+kicked fruitlessly, trying to regain his feet as the horse reared, and
+fought against the control of his shouting rider. All through the melee
+the Apache heard Kaydessa shrilly screaming words he did not understand.
+
+Travis was on his knees, coughing in the dust, exerting the muscles in
+his chest and shoulders to loosen the lariat. On either side of him the
+coyotes wove a snarling pattern of defiance, dashing back and forth to
+present no target for the enemy, yet keeping the excited horses so
+stirred up that their riders could use neither ropes nor blades.
+
+Then Kaydessa ran between two of the ringing horses to Travis and jerked
+at the loop about him. The tough, braided leather eased its hold, and he
+was able to gasp in full lungfuls of air. She was still shouting, but
+the tone had changed from one of recognition to a definite scolding.
+
+Travis won to his feet just as the rider who had lassoed him finally got
+his horse under rein and dismounted. Holding the rope, the man walked
+hand over hand toward them, as Travis back on the Arizona range would
+have approached a nervous, unschooled pony.
+
+The Mongol was an inch or so shorter than the Apache, and his face was
+young, though he had a drooping mustache bracketing his mouth with
+slender spear points of black hair. His breeches were tucked into high
+red boots, and he wore a loose felt jacket patterned with the same
+elaborate embroidery Travis had seen on Kaydessa's. On his head was a
+hat with a wide fur border--in spite of the heat--and that too bore
+touches of scarlet and gold design.
+
+Still holding his lariat, the Mongol reached Kaydessa and stood for a
+moment, eying her up and down before he asked a question. She gave an
+impatient twitch to the rope. The coyotes snarled, but the Apache
+thought the animals no longer considered the danger immediate.
+
+"This is my brother Hulagur." Kaydessa made the introduction over her
+shoulder. "He does not have your speech."
+
+Hulagur not only did not understand, he was also impatient. He jerked at
+the rope with such sudden force that Travis was almost thrown. Then
+Kaydessa dragged as fiercely on the lariat in the other direction and
+burst into a soaring harangue which drew the rest of the men closer.
+
+Travis flexed his upper arms, and the slack gained by Kaydessa's action
+made the lariat give again. He studied the Tatar outlaws. There were
+five of them beside Hulagur, lean men, hard-faced, narrow-eyed, the
+ragged clothing of three pieced out with scraps of hide. Besides the
+swords with the curved blades, they were armed with bows, two to each
+man, one long, one shorter. One of the riders carried a lance, long
+tassels of woolly hair streaming from below its head. Travis saw in them
+a formidable array of barbaric fighting men, but he thought that man for
+man the Apaches could not only take on the Mongols with confidence, but
+might well defeat them.
+
+The Apache had never been a hot-headed, ride-for-glory fighter like the
+Cheyenne, the Sioux, and the Comanche of the open plains. He estimated
+the odds against him, used ambush, trick, and every feature of the
+countryside as weapon and defense. Fifteen Apache fighting men under
+Chief Geronimo had kept five thousand American and Mexican troops in the
+field for a year and had come off victorious for the moment.
+
+Travis knew the tales of Genghis Khan and his formidable generals who
+swept over Asia into Europe, unbeaten and seemingly undefeatable. But
+they had been a wild wave, fed by a reservoir of manpower from the
+steppes of their homeland, utilizing driven walls of captives to protect
+their own men in city assaults and attacks. He doubted if even that
+endless sea of men could have won the Arizona desert defended by Apaches
+under Cochise, Victorio, or Magnus Colorado. The white man had done
+it--by superior arms and attrition; but bow against bow, knife against
+sword, craft and cunning against craft and cunning--he did not think
+so....
+
+Hulagur dropped the end of the lariat, and Kaydessa swung around,
+loosening the loop so that the rope fell to Travis' feet. The Apache
+stepped free of it, turned and passed between two of the horsemen to
+gather up the bow he had dropped. The coyotes had gone with him and when
+he turned again to face the company of Tatars, both animals crowded past
+him to the entrance of the valley, plainly urging him to retire there.
+
+The horsemen had faced about also, and the warrior with the lance
+balanced the shaft of the weapon in his hand as if considering the
+possibility of trying to spear Travis. But just then Kaydessa came up,
+towing Hulagur by a firm hold on his sash-belt.
+
+"I have told this one," she reported to Travis, "how it is between us
+and that you also are enemy to those who hunt us. It is well that you
+sit together beside a fire and talk of these things."
+
+Again that boom-boom broke her speech, coming from farther out in the
+open land.
+
+"You will do this?" She made of it a half question, half statement.
+
+Travis glanced about him. He could dodge back into the misty valley of
+the towers before the Tatars could ride him down. However, if he could
+patch up some kind of truce between his people and the outlaws, the
+Apaches would have only the Reds from the settlement to watch. Too many
+times in Terran past had war on two fronts been disastrous.
+
+"I come--carrying this--and not pulled by your ropes." He held up his
+bow in an exaggerated gesture so that Hulagur could understand.
+
+Coiling the lariat, the Mongol looked from the Apache bow to Travis.
+Slowly, and with obvious reluctance, he nodded agreement.
+
+At Hulagur's call the lancer rode up to the waiting Apache, stretched
+out a booted foot in the heavy stirrup, and held down a hand to bring
+Travis up behind him riding double. Kaydessa mounted in the same fashion
+behind her brother.
+
+Travis looked at the coyotes. Together the animals stood in the door to
+the tower valley, and neither made any move to follow as the horses
+trotted off. He beckoned with his hand and called to them.
+
+Heads up, they continued to watch him go in company with the Mongols.
+Then without any reply to his coaxing, they melted back into the mists.
+For a moment Travis was tempted to slide down and run the risk of taking
+a lance point between the shoulders as he followed Naginlta and
+Nalik'ideyu into retreat. He was startled, jarred by the new awareness
+of how much he had come to depend on the animals. Ordinarily, Travis Fox
+was not one to be governed by the wishes of a _mba'a_, intelligent and
+un-animallike as it might be. This was an affair of men, and coyotes had
+no part in it!
+
+Half an hour later Travis sat in the outlaw camp. There were fifteen
+Mongols in sight, a half dozen women and two children adding to the
+count. On a hillock near their yurts, the round brush-and-hide
+shelters--not too different from the wickiups of Travis' own people--was
+a crude drum, a hide stretched taut over a hollowed section of log. And
+next to that stood a man wearing a tall pointed cap, a red robe, and a
+girdle from which swung a fringe of small bones, tiny animal skulls, and
+polished bits of stone and carved wood.
+
+It was this man's efforts which sent the boom-boom sounding at intervals
+over the landscape. Was this a signal--part of a ritual? Travis was not
+certain, though he guessed that the drummer was either medicine man or
+shaman, and so of some power in this company. Such men were credited
+with the ability to prophesy and also endowed with mediumship between
+man and spirit in the old days of the great Hordes.
+
+The Apache evaluated the rest of the company. As was true of his own
+party, these men were much the same age--young and vigorous. And it was
+also apparent that Hulagur held a position of some importance among
+them--if he were not their chief.
+
+After a last resounding roll on the drum, the shaman thrust the sticks
+into his girdle and came down to the fire at the center of the camp. He
+was taller than his fellows, pole thin under his robes, his face narrow,
+clean-shaven, with brows arched by nature to give him an unchanging
+expression of scepticism. He strode along, his tinkling collection of
+charms providing him with a not unmusical accompaniment, and came to
+stand directly before Travis, eying him carefully.
+
+Travis copied his silence in what was close to a duel of wills. There
+was that in the shaman's narrowed green eyes which suggested that if
+Hulagur did in fact lead these fighting men, he had an advisor of
+determination and intelligence behind him.
+
+"This is Menlik." Kaydessa did not push past the men to the fireside,
+but her voice carried.
+
+Hulagur growled at his sister, but his admonition made no impression on
+her, and she replied in as hot a tone. The shaman's hand went up,
+silencing both of them.
+
+"You are--who?" Like Kaydessa, Menlik spoke a heavily accented English.
+
+"I am Travis Fox, of the Apaches."
+
+"The Apaches," the shaman repeated. "You are of the West, the American
+West, then."
+
+"You know much, man of spirit talk."
+
+"One remembers. At times one remembers," Menlik answered almost
+absently. "How does an Apache find his way across the stars?"
+
+"The same way Menlik and his people did," Travis returned. "You were
+sent to settle this planet, and so were we."
+
+"There are many more of you?" countered Menlik swiftly.
+
+"Are there not many of the Horde? Would one man, or three, or four, be
+sent to hold a world?" Travis fenced. "You hold the north, we the south
+of this land."
+
+"But _they_ are not governed by a machine!" Kaydessa cut in. "They are
+free!"
+
+Menlik frowned at the girl. "Woman, this is a matter for warriors. Keep
+your tongue silent between your jaws!"
+
+She stamped one foot, standing with her fists on her hips.
+
+"I am a Daughter of the Blue Wolf. And we are all warriors--men and
+women alike--so shall we be as long as the Horde is not free to ride
+where we wish! These men have won their freedom; it is well that we
+learn how."
+
+Menlik's expression did not change, but his lids drooped over his eyes
+as a murmur of what might be agreement came from the group. More than
+one of them must have understood enough English to translate for the
+others. Travis wondered about that. Had these men and women who had
+outwardly reverted to the life of their nomad ancestors once been well
+educated in the modern sense, educated enough to learn the basic
+language of the nation their rulers had set up as their principal enemy?
+
+"So you ride the land south of the mountains?" the shaman continued.
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Then why did you come hither?"
+
+Travis shrugged. "Why does anyone ride or travel into new lands? There
+is a desire to see what may lie beyond----"
+
+"Or to scout before the march of warriors!" Menlik snapped. "There is no
+peace between your rulers and mine. Do you ride now to take the herds
+and pastures of the Horde--or to try to do so?"
+
+Travis turned his head deliberately from side to side, allowing them all
+to witness his slow and openly contemptuous appraisal of their camp.
+
+"_This_ is your Horde, Shaman? Fifteen warriors? Much has changed since
+the days of Temujin, has it not?"
+
+"What do you know of Temujin--you, who are a man of no ancestors, out of
+the West?"
+
+"What do I know of Temujin? That he was a leader of warriors and became
+Genghis Khan, the great lord of the East. But the Apaches had their
+warlords also, rider of barren lands. And I am of those who raided over
+two nations when Victorio and Cochise scattered their enemies as a man
+scatters a handful of dust in the wind."
+
+"You talk bold, Apache...." There was a hint of threat in that.
+
+"I speak as any warrior, Shaman. Or are you so used to talking with
+spirits instead of men that you do not realize that?"
+
+He might have been alienating the shaman by such a sharp reply, but
+Travis thought he judged the temper of these people. To face them boldly
+was the only way to impress them. They would not treat with an inferior,
+and he was already at a disadvantage coming on foot, without any backing
+in force, into a territory held by horsemen who were suspicious and
+jealous of their recently acquired freedom. His only chance was to
+establish himself as an equal and then try to convince them that Apache
+and Tatar-Mongol had a common cause against the Reds who controlled the
+settlement on the northern plains.
+
+Menlik's right hand went to his sash-girdle and plucked out a carved
+stick which he waved between them, muttering phrases Travis could not
+understand. Had the shaman retreated so far along the road to his past
+that he now believed in his own supernatural powers? Or was this to
+impress his watching followers?
+
+"You call upon your spirits for aid, Menlik? But the Apache has the
+companionship of the _ga-n_. Ask of Kaydessa: Who hunts with the Fox in
+the wilds?" Travis' sharp challenge stopped that wand in mid-air.
+Menlik's head swung to the girl.
+
+"He hunts with wolves who think like men." She supplied the information
+the shaman would not openly ask for. "I have seen them act as his
+scouts. This is no spirit thing, but real and of this world!"
+
+"Any man may train a dog to his bidding!" Menlik spat.
+
+"Does a dog obey orders which are not said aloud? These brown wolves
+come and sit before him, look into his eyes. And then he knows what lies
+within their heads, and they know what he would have them do. This is
+not the way of a master of hounds with his pack!"
+
+Again the murmur ran about the camp as one or two translated. Menlik
+frowned. Then he rammed his sorcerer's wand back into his sash.
+
+"If you are a man of power--such powers," he said slowly, "then you may
+walk alone where those who talk with spirits go--into the mountains." He
+then spoke over his shoulder in his native tongue, and one of the women
+reached behind her into a hut, brought out a skin bag and a horn cup.
+Kaydessa took the cup from her and held it while the other woman poured
+a white liquid from the bag to fill it.
+
+Kaydessa passed the cup to Menlik. He pivoted with it in his hand,
+dribbling expertly over its brim a few drops at each point of the
+compass, chanting as he moved. Then he sucked in a mouthful of the
+contents before presenting the vessel to Travis.
+
+The Apache smelled the same sour scent that had clung to the emptied bag
+in the foothills. And another part of memory supplied him with the
+nature of the drink. This was kumiss, a fermented mare's milk which was
+the wine and water of the steppes.
+
+He forced himself to swallow a draft, though it was alien to his taste,
+and passed the cup back to Menlik. The shaman emptied the horn and,
+with that, set aside ceremony. With an upraised hand he beckoned Travis
+to the fire again, indicating a pot set on the coals.
+
+"Rest ... eat!" he bade abruptly.
+
+Night was gathering in. Travis tried to calculate how far Tsoay must
+have backtracked to the rancheria. He thought that he could have already
+made the pass and be within a day and a half from the Apache camp if he
+pushed on, as he would. As to where the coyotes were, Travis had no
+idea. But it was plain that he himself must remain in this encampment
+for the night or risk rousing the Mongols' suspicion once more.
+
+He ate of the stew, spearing chunks out of the pot with the point of his
+knife. And it was not until he sat back, his hunger appeased, that the
+shaman dropped down beside him.
+
+"The Khatun Kaydessa says that when she was slave to the caller, you did
+not feel its chains," he began.
+
+"Those who rule you are not my overlords. The bonds they set upon your
+minds do not touch me." Travis hoped that that was the truth and his
+escape that morning had not been just a fluke.
+
+"This could be, for you and I are not of one blood," Menlik agreed.
+"Tell me--how did you escape your bonds?"
+
+"The machine which held us so was broken," Travis replied with a portion
+of the truth, and Menlik sucked in his breath.
+
+"The machines, always the machines!" he cried hoarsely. "A thing which
+can sit in a man's head and make him do what it will against his will;
+it is demon sent! There are other machines to be broken, Apache."
+
+"Words will not break them," Travis pointed out.
+
+"Only a fool rides to his death without hope of striking a single blow
+before he chokes on the blood in his throat," Menlik retorted. "We
+cannot use bow or tulwar against weapons which flame and kill quicker
+than any storm lightning! And always the mind machines can make a man
+drop his knife and stand helplessly waiting for the slave collar to be
+set on his neck!"
+
+Travis asked a question of his own. "I know that they can bring a caller
+part way into this mountain, for this very day I saw its effect upon the
+maiden. But there are many places in the hills well set for ambushes,
+and those unaffected by the machine could be waiting there. Would there
+be many machines so that they could send out again and again?"
+
+Menlik's bony hand played with his wand. Then a slow smile curved his
+lips into the guise of a hunting cat's noiseless snarl.
+
+"There is meat in that pot, Apache, rich meat, good for the filling of a
+lean belly! So men whose minds the machine could not trouble--such men
+to be waiting in ambush for the taking of the men who use such a
+machine--yes. But here would have to be bait, very good bait for such a
+trap, Lord of Wiles. Never do those others come far into the mountains.
+Their flyer does not lift well here, and they do not trust traveling on
+horseback. They were greatly angered to come so far in to reach
+Kaydessa, though they could not have been too close, or you would not
+have escaped at all. Yes, strong bait."
+
+"Such bait as perhaps the knowledge that there were strangers across the
+mountains?"
+
+Menlik turned his wand about in his hands. He was no longer smiling, and
+his glance at Travis was sharp and swift.
+
+"Do you sit as Khan in your tribe, Lord?"
+
+"I sit as one they will listen to." Travis hoped that was so. Whether
+Buck and the moderates would hold clan leadership upon his return was a
+fact he could not count upon as certain.
+
+"This is a thing which we must hold council over," Menlik continued.
+"But it is an idea of power. Yes, one to think about, Lord. And I shall
+think...."
+
+He got up and moved away. Travis blinked at the fire. He was very tired,
+and he disliked sleeping in this camp. But he must not go without the
+rest his body needed to supply him with a clear head in the morning. And
+not showing uneasiness might be one way of winning Menlik's confidence.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+Travis settled his back against the spire of rock and raised his right
+hand into the path of the sun, cradling in his palm a disk of glistening
+metal. Flash ... flash ... he made the signal pattern just as his
+ancestors a hundred years earlier and far across space had used trade
+mirrors to relay war alerts among the Chiricahua and White Mountain
+ranges. If Tsoay had returned safely, and if Buck had kept the agreed
+lookout on that peak a mile or so ahead, then the clan would know that
+he was coming and with what escort.
+
+He waited now, rubbing the small metal mirror absently on the loose
+sleeve of his shirt, waiting for a reply. Mirrors were best, not smoke
+fires which would broadcast too far the presence of men in the hills.
+Tsoay must have returned....
+
+"What is it that you do?"
+
+Menlik, his shaman's robe pulled up so that his breeches and boots were
+dark against the golden rock, climbed up beside the Apache. Menlik,
+Hulagur, and Kaydessa were riding with Travis, offering him one of
+their small ponies to hurry the trip. He was still regarded warily by
+the Tatars, but he did not blame them for their cautious attitude.
+
+"Ah--" A flicker of light from the point ahead. One ... two ... three
+flashes, a pause, then two more together. He had been read. Buck had
+dispatched scouts to meet them, and knowing his people's skill at the
+business, Travis was certain the Tatars would never suspect their
+flanking unless the Apaches purposefully revealed themselves. Also the
+Tatars were not to go to the rancheria, but would be met at a mid-point
+by a delegation of Apaches. This was no time for the Tatars to learn
+just how few the clan numbered.
+
+Menlik watched Travis flash an acknowledgment to the sentry ahead. "In
+this way you speak to your men?"
+
+"This way I speak."
+
+"A thing good and to be remembered. We have the drum, but that is for
+the ears of all with hearing. This is for the eyes only of those on
+watch for it. Yes, a good thing. And your people--they will meet with
+us?"
+
+"They wait ahead," Travis confirmed.
+
+It was close to midday and the heat, gathered in the rocky ways, was
+like a heaviness in the air itself. The Tatars had shucked their heavy
+jackets and rolled the fur brims of their hats far up their heads away
+from their sweat-beaded faces. And at every halt they passed from hand
+to hand the skin bag of kumiss.
+
+Now even the ponies shuffled on with drooping heads, picking a way in a
+cut which deepened into a canyon. Travis kept a watch for the scouts.
+And not for the first time he thought of the disappearance of the
+coyotes. Somehow, back in the Tatar camp, he had counted confidently on
+the animals' rejoining him once he had started his return over the
+mountains.
+
+But he had seen nothing of either beast, nor had he felt that
+unexplainable mental contact with them which had been present since his
+first awakening on Topaz. Why they had left him so unceremoniously after
+defending him from the Mongol attack, and why they were keeping
+themselves aloof now, he did not know. But he was conscious of a thread
+of alarm for their continued absence, and he hoped he would find they
+had gone back to the rancheria.
+
+The ponies thudded dispiritedly along a sandy wash which bottomed the
+canyon. Here the heat became a leaden weight and the men were panting
+like four-footed beasts running before hunters. Finally Travis sighted
+what he had been seeking, a flicker of movement on the wall well above.
+He flung up his hand, pulling his mount to a stand. Apaches stood in
+full view, bows ready, arrows on cords. But they made no sound.
+
+Kaydessa cried out, booted her mount to draw equal with Travis.
+
+"A trap!" Her face, flushed with heat, was also stark with anger.
+
+Travis smiled slowly. "Is there a rope about you, Wolf Daughter?" he
+inquired softly. "Are you now dragged across this sand?"
+
+Her mouth opened and then closed again. The quirt she had half raised to
+slash at him, flopped across her pony's neck.
+
+The Apache glanced back at the two men. Hulagur's hand was on his sword
+hilt, his eyes darting from one of those silent watchers to the next.
+But the utter hopelessness of the Tatar position was too plain. Only
+Menlik made no move toward any weapon, even his spirit wand. Instead, he
+sat quietly in the saddle, displaying no emotion toward the Apaches save
+his usual self-confident detachment.
+
+"We go on." Travis pointed ahead.
+
+Just as suddenly as they had appeared from the heart of the golden
+cliffs, so did the scouts vanish. Most of them were already on their way
+to the point Buck had selected for the meeting place. There had been
+only six men up there, but the Tatars had no way of knowing just how
+large a portion of the whole clan that number was.
+
+Travis' pony lifted his head, nickered, and achieved a stumbling trot.
+Somewhere ahead was water, one of those oases of growth and life which
+pocked the whole mountain range--to the preservation of all animals and
+all men.
+
+Menlik and Hulagur pushed on until their mounts were hard on the heels
+of the two ridden by the girl and Travis. Travis wondered if they still
+waited for some arrow to strike home, though he saw that both men rode
+with outward disregard for the patrolling scouts.
+
+A grass-leaf bush beckoned them on and again the ponies quickened pace,
+coming out into a tributary canyon which housed a small pool and a good
+stand of grass and brush. To one side of the water Buck stood, his arms
+folded across his chest, armed only with his belt knife. Grouped behind
+him were Deklay, Tsoay, Nolan, Manulito--Travis tabulated hurriedly.
+Manulito and Deklay were to be classed together--or had been when he was
+last in the rancheria. On Buck's stairway from the past, both had
+halted more than halfway down. Nolan was a quiet man who seldom spoke,
+and whose opinion Travis could not foretell. Tsoay would back Buck.
+
+Probably such a divided party was the best Travis could have hoped to
+gather. A delegation composed entirely of those who were ready to leave
+the past of the Redax--a collection of Bucks and Jil-Lees--was outside
+the bounds of possibility. But Travis was none too happy to have Deklay
+in on this.
+
+Travis dismounted, letting the pony push forward by himself to dip nose
+into the pool.
+
+"This is," Travis pointed politely with his chin--"Menlik, one who talks
+with spirits.... Hulagur, who is son to a chief ... and Kaydessa, who is
+daughter to a chief. They are of the horse people of the north." He made
+the introduction carefully in English.
+
+Then he turned to the Tatars. "Buck, Deklay, Nolan, Manulito, Tsoay," he
+named them all, "these stand to listen, and to speak for the Apaches."
+
+But sometime later when the two parties sat facing each other, he
+wondered whether a common decision could come from the clansmen on his
+side of that irregular circle. Deklay's expression was closed; he had
+even edged a short way back, as if he had no desire to approach the
+strangers. And Travis read into every line of Deklay's body his distrust
+and antagonism.
+
+He himself began to speak, retelling his adventures since they had
+followed Kaydessa's trail, sketching in the situation at the
+Tatar-Mongol settlement as he had learned it from her and from Menlik.
+He was careful to speak in English so that the Tatars could hear all he
+was reporting to his own kind. And the Apaches listened blank-faced,
+though Tsoay must already have reported much of this. When Travis was
+done it was Deklay who asked a question:
+
+"What have we to do with these people?"
+
+"There is this--" Travis chose his words carefully, thinking of what
+might move a warrior still conditioned to riding with the raiders of a
+hundred years earlier, "the Pinda-lick-o-yi (whom we call 'Reds,') are
+never willing to live side by side with any who are not of their mind.
+And they have weapons such as make our bow cords bits of rotten string,
+our knives slivers of rust. They do not kill; they enslave. And when
+they discover that we live, then they will come against us--"
+
+Deklay's lips moved in a wolf grin. "This is a large land, and we know
+how to use it. The Pinda-lick-o-yi will not find us--"
+
+"With their eyes maybe not," Travis replied. "With their machines--that
+is another matter."
+
+"Machines!" Deklay spat. "Always these machines.... Is that all you can
+talk about? It would seem that you are bewitched by these machines,
+which we have not seen--none of us!"
+
+"It was a machine which brought you here," Buck observed. "Go you back
+and look upon the spaceship and remember, Deklay. The knowledge of the
+Pinda-lick-o-yi is greater than ours when it deals with metal and wire
+and things which can be made with both. Machines brought us along the
+road of the stars, and there is no tracker in the clan who could hope to
+do the same. But now I have this to ask: Does our brother have a plan?"
+
+"Those who are Reds," Travis answered slowly, "they do not number many.
+But more may later come from our own world. Have you heard of such
+arriving?" he asked Menlik.
+
+"Not so, but we are not told much. We live apart and no one of us goes
+to the ship unless he is summoned. For they have weapons to guard them,
+or long since they would have been dead. It is not proper for a man to
+eat from the pot, ride in the wind, sleep easy under the same sky with
+him who has slain his brother."
+
+"They have then killed among your people?"
+
+"They have killed," Menlik returned briefly.
+
+Kaydessa stirred and muttered a word or two to her brother. Hulagur's
+head came up, and he exploded into violent speech.
+
+"What does he say?" Deklay demanded.
+
+The girl replied: "He speaks of our father who aided in the escape of
+three and so afterward was slain by the leader as a lesson to us--since
+he was our 'white beard,' the Khan."
+
+"We have taken the oath in blood--under the Wolf Head Standard--that
+they will also die," Menlik added. "But first we must shake them out of
+their ship-shell."
+
+"That is the problem," Travis elaborated for the benefit of his
+clansmen. "We must get these Reds away from their protected camp--out
+into the open. When they now go they are covered by this 'caller' which
+keeps the Tatars under their control, but it has no effect on us."
+
+"So, again I say: What is all this to us?" Deklay got to his feet. "This
+machine does not hunt us, and we can make our camps in this land where
+no Pinda-lick-o-yi can find them----"
+
+"We are not _dobe-gusndhe-he_--invulnerable. Nor do we know the full
+range of machines they can use. It does no one well to say
+'_doxa-da_'--this is not so--when he does not know all that lies in an
+enemy's wickiup."
+
+To Travis' relief he saw agreement mirrored on Buck's face, Tsoay's,
+Nolan's. From the beginning he had had little hope of swaying Deklay; he
+could only trust that the verdict of the majority would be the accepted
+one. It went back to the old, old Apache institution of prestige. A
+_nantan_-chief had the _go'ndi_, the high power, as a gift from birth.
+Common men could possess horse power or cattle power; they might have
+the gift of acquiring wealth so they could make generous gifts--be
+_ikadntl'izi_, the wealthy ones who spoke for their family groups within
+the loose network of the tribe. But there was no hereditary
+chieftainship or even an undivided rule within a rancheria. The
+_nagunlka-dnat'an_, or war chief, often led only on the warpath and had
+no voice in clan matters save those dealing with a raid.
+
+And to have a split now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklay
+and those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the rest
+could deny him that right.
+
+"We shall think on this," Buck said. "Here is food, water, pasturage for
+horses, a camp for our visitors. They will wait here." He looked at
+Travis. "You will wait with them, Fox, since you know their ways."
+
+Travis' immediate reaction was objection, but then he realized Buck's
+wisdom. To offer the proposition of alliance to the Apaches needed an
+impartial spokesman. And if he himself did it, Deklay might
+automatically oppose the idea. Let Buck talk and it would be a statement
+of fact.
+
+"It is well," Travis agreed.
+
+Buck looked about, as if judging time from the lie of sun and shadow on
+the ground. "We shall return in the morning when the shadow lies here."
+With the toe of his high moccasin he made an impression in the soft
+earth. Then, without any formal farewell, he strode off, the others fast
+on his heels.
+
+"He is your chief, that one?" Kaydessa asked, pointing after Buck.
+
+"He is one having a large voice in council," Travis replied. He set
+about building up the cooking fire, bringing out the body of a
+split-horn calf which had been left them. Menlik sat on his heels by the
+pool, dipping up drinking water with his hand. Now he squinted his eyes
+against the probe of the sun.
+
+"It will require much talking to win over the short one," he observed.
+"That one does not like us or your plan. Just as there will be those
+among the Horde who will not like it either." He flipped water drops
+from his fingers. "But this I do know, man who calls himself Fox, if we
+do not make a common cause, then we have no hope of going against the
+Reds. It will be for them as a man crushing fleas." He brought his hand
+down on his knee in emphatic slaps. "So ... and so ... and so!"
+
+"This do I think also," Travis admitted.
+
+"So let us both hope that all men will be as wise as we," Menlik said,
+smiling. "And since we can take a hand in that decision, this remains a
+time for rest."
+
+The shaman might be content to sleep the afternoon away, but after he
+had eaten, Hulagur wandered up and down the valley, making a lengthy
+business of rubbing down their horses with twists of last season's
+grass. Now and then he paused beside Kaydessa and spoke, his uneasiness
+plain to Travis although he could not understand the words.
+
+Travis had settled down in the shade, half dozing, yet alert to every
+movement of the three Tatars. He tried not to think of what might be
+happening in the rancheria by switching his mind to that misty valley of
+the towers. Did any of those three alien structures contain such a grab
+bag of the past as he, Ashe, and Murdock had found on that other world
+where the winged people had gathered together for them the artifacts of
+an older civilization? At that time he had created for their hosts a new
+weapon of defense, turning metal tubes into blow-guns. It had been
+there, too, where he had chanced upon the library of tapes, one of which
+had eventually landed Travis and his people here on Topaz.
+
+Even if he did find racks of such tapes in one of those towers, there
+would be no way of using them--with the ship wrecked on the mountain
+side. Only--Travis' fingers itched where they lay quiet on his
+knees--there might be other things waiting. If he were only free to
+explore!
+
+He reached out to touch Menlik's shoulder. The shaman half turned,
+opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the spark
+of intelligence awoke in them quickly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+For a moment Travis hesitated, already regretting his impulse. He did
+not know how much Menlik remembered of the present. Remember of the
+present--one part of the Apache's mind was wryly amused at that snarled
+estimate of their situation. Men who had been dropped into their racial
+and ancestral pasts until the present time was less real than the
+dreams conditioning them had a difficult job evaluating any situation.
+But since Menlik had clung to his knowledge of English, he must be less
+far down that stairway.
+
+"When we met you, Kaydessa and I, it was outside that valley." Travis
+was still of two minds about this questioning, but the Tatar camp had
+been close to the towers and there was a good chance the Mongols had
+explored them. "And inside were buildings ... very old...."
+
+Menlik was fully alert now. He took his wand, played with it as he
+spoke:
+
+"That is, or was, a place of much power, Fox. Oh, I know that you
+question my kinship with the spirits and the powers they give. But one
+learns not to dispute what one feels here--and here--" His long,
+somewhat grimy fingers went to his forehead and then to the bare brown
+chest where his shirt fell open. "I have walked the stone path in that
+valley, and there have been the whispers--"
+
+"Whispers?"
+
+Menlik twirled the wand. "Whispers which are too low for many ears to
+distinguish. You can hear them as one hears the buzzing of an insect,
+but never the words--no, never the words! But that is a place of great
+power!"
+
+"A place to explore!"
+
+But Menlik watched only his wand. "That I wonder, Fox, truly do I
+wonder. This is not our world. And here there may be that which does not
+welcome us."
+
+Tricks-in-trade of a shaman? Or was it true recognition of something
+beyond human description? Travis could not be sure, but he knew that he
+must return to the valley and see for himself.
+
+"Listen," Menlik said, leaning closer, "I have heard your tale, that
+you were on that first ship, the one which brought you unwilling along
+the old star paths. Have you ever seen such a thing as this?"
+
+He smoothed a space of soft earth and with the narrow tip of his wand
+began to draw. Whatever role Menlik had played in the present before he
+had been reconditioned into a shaman of the Horde, he had had the
+ability of an artist, for with a minimum of lines he created a figure in
+that sketch.
+
+It was a man or at least a figure with general human outlines. But the
+round, slightly oversized skull was bare, the clothing skintight to
+reveal unnaturally thin limbs. There were large eyes, small nose and
+mouth, rather crowded into the lower third of the head, giving an
+impression of an over-expanded brain case above. And it was familiar.
+
+Not the flying men of the other world, certainly not the nocturnal
+ape-things. Yet for all its alien quality Travis was sure he had seen
+its like before. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it apart from
+lines in the soil.
+
+Such a head, white, almost like the bone of a skull laid bare, such a
+head lying face down on a bone-thin arm clad in a blue-purple skintight
+sleeve. Where had he seen it?
+
+The Apache gave a sharp exclamation as he remembered fully. The derelict
+spaceship as he had first found it--the dead alien officer had still
+been seated at its controls! The alien who had set the tape which took
+them out into that forgotten empire--he was the subject of Menlik's
+drawing!
+
+"Where? When did you see such a one?" The Apache bent down over the
+Tatar.
+
+Menlik looked troubled. "He came into my mind when I walked the valley.
+I thought I could almost see such a face in one of the tower windows,
+but of that I am not sure. Who is it?"
+
+"Someone from the old days--those who once ruled the stars," Travis
+answered. But were they still here then, the remnant of a civilization
+which had flourished ten thousand years ago? Were the Baldies, who
+centuries ago had hunted down so ruthlessly the Russians who had dared
+to loot their wrecked ships, still on Topaz?
+
+He remembered the story of Ross Murdock's escape from those aliens in
+the far past of Europe, and he shivered. Murdock was tough, steel tough,
+yet his own description of that epic chase and the final meeting had
+carried with it his terror. What could a handful of primitively armed
+and almost primitively minded Terrans do now if they had to dispute
+Topaz with the Baldies?
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+"Beyond this--" Menlik worked his way to the very lip of a drop, raising
+a finger cautiously--"beyond this we do not go."
+
+"But you say that the camp of your people lies well out in the plains--"
+Jil-Lee was up on one knee, using the field glasses they had brought
+from the stores of the wrecked ship. He passed them along to Travis.
+There was nothing to be sighted but the rippling amber waves of the tall
+grasses, save for an occasional break of a copse of trees near the
+foothills.
+
+They had reached this point in the early morning, threading through the
+pass, making their way across the section known to the outlaws. From
+here they could survey the debatable land where their temporary allies
+insisted the Reds were in full control.
+
+The result of the conference in the south had been this uneasy alliance.
+From the start Travis realized that he could not hope to commit the clan
+to any set plan, that even to get this scouting party to come against
+the stubborn resistance of Deklay and his reactionaries was a major
+achievement. There was now an opening wedge of six Apaches in the
+north.
+
+"Beyond this," Menlik repeated, "they keep watch and can control us with
+the caller."
+
+"What do you think?" Travis passed the glasses to Nolan.
+
+If they were ever to develop a war chief, this lean man, tall for an
+Apache and slow to speak, might fill that role. He adjusted the lenses
+and began a detailed study-sweep of the open territory. Then he
+stiffened; his mouth, below the masking of the glasses, was tight.
+
+"What is it?" Jil-Lee asked.
+
+"Riders--two ... four ... five.... Also something else--in the air."
+
+Menlik jerked back and grabbed at Nolan's arm, dragging him down by the
+weight of his body.
+
+"The flyer! Come back--back!" He was still pulling at Nolan, prodding at
+Travis with one foot, and the Apaches stared at him with amazement.
+
+The shaman sputtered in his own language, and then, visibly regaining
+command of himself, spoke English once more.
+
+"Those are hunters, and they carry a caller. Either some others have
+escaped or they are determined to find our mountain camp."
+
+Jil-Lee looked at Travis. "You did not feel anything when the woman was
+under that spell?"
+
+Travis shook his head. Jil-Lee nodded and then said to the shaman: "We
+shall stay here and watch. But since it is bad for you--do you go. And
+we shall meet you near this place of the towers. Agreed?"
+
+For a moment Menlik's face held a shadowy expression Travis tried to
+read. Was it resentment--resentment that he was forced to retreat when
+the others could stand their ground? Did the Tatar believe that he lost
+face this way? But the shaman gave a grunt of what they took as assent
+and slipped over the edge of the lookout point. A moment later they
+heard him speaking the Mongol tongue, warning Hulagur and Lotchu, his
+companions on the scout. Then came the clatter of pony hoofs as they
+rode their mounts away.
+
+The Apaches settled back in the cup, which gave them a wide view over
+the plains. Soon it was not necessary to use the glasses in order to
+sight the advancing party of hunters--five riders, four wearing Tatar
+dress. The fifth had such an odd outline that Travis was reminded of
+Menlik's sketch of the alien. Under the sharper vision of the glasses he
+saw that the rider was equipped with a pack strapped between his
+shoulders and a bulbous helmet covering most of his head. Highly
+specialized equipment for communication, Travis guessed.
+
+"That is a 'copter up above," Nolan said. "Different shape from ours."
+
+They had been familiar with helicopters back on Terra. Ranchers used
+them for range inspection, and all of the Apache volunteers had flown in
+them. But Nolan was correct; this one possessed several unfamiliar
+features.
+
+"The Tatars say they don't bring those very far into the mountains,"
+Jil-Lee mused. "That could explain their man on horseback; he gets in
+where they don't fly."
+
+Nolan fingered his bow. "If these Reds depend upon their machine to
+control what they seek, then they may be taken by surprise----"
+
+"But not yet!" Travis spoke sharply. Nolan frowned at him.
+
+Jil-Lee chuckled. "The way is not so dark for us, younger brother, that
+we need your torch held for our feet!"
+
+Travis swallowed back any retort, accepting the fairness of that rebuke.
+He had no right to believe that he alone knew the best way of handling
+the enemy. Biting on the sourness of that realization, he lay quietly
+with the others, watching the riders enter the foothills perhaps a
+quarter of a mile to the west.
+
+The helicopter was circling now over the men riding into a cut between
+two rises. When they were lost to view, the pilot made wider casts, and
+Travis thought the flyer's crew were probably in communication with the
+helmeted one of the quintet on the ground.
+
+He stirred. "They are heading for the Tatar camp, just as if they know
+exactly where it is--"
+
+"That also may be true," Nolan replied. "What do we know of these
+Tatars? They have freely said that the Reds can hold them in mind ropes
+when they wish. Already they may be so bound. I say--let us go back to
+our own country." He added to the decisiveness of that by handing
+Jil-Lee the glasses and sliding down from their perch.
+
+Travis looked at the other. In a way he could understand the wisdom of
+Nolan's suggestion. But he was sure that withdrawal now would only
+postpone trouble. Sooner or later the Apaches would have to stand
+against the Reds, and if they could do it now while the enemy was
+occupied with trouble from the Tatars, so much the better.
+
+Jil-Lee was following Nolan. But something in Travis rebelled. He
+watched the circling helicopter. If it was overhanging the action area
+of the horsemen, they had either reined in or were searching a
+relatively small section of the foothills.
+
+Reluctantly Travis descended to the hollow where Jil-Lee stood with
+Nolan. Tsoay and Lupe and Rope were a little to one side as if the final
+orders would come from their seniors.
+
+"It would be well," Jil-Lee said slowly, "if we saw what weapons they
+have. I want a closer look at the equipment of that one in the helmet.
+Also," he smiled straight at Nolan--"I do not think that they can detect
+the presence of warriors of the People unless we will it so."
+
+Nolan ran a finger along the curve of his bow, shot a measuring glance
+right and left at the general contours of the country.
+
+"There is wisdom in what you say, elder brother. Only this is a trail we
+shall take alone, not allowing the men with fur hats to know where we
+walk." He looked pointedly in Travis' direction.
+
+"That is wisdom, _Ba'is'a_," Travis promptly replied, giving Nolan the
+old title accorded the leader of a war party. Travis was grateful for
+that much of a concession.
+
+They swung into action, heading southeast at an angle which should bring
+them across the track of the enemy hunting party. The path was theirs at
+last, only moments after the passing of their quarry. None of the five
+riders was taking any precautions to cover his trail. Each moved with
+the confidence of one not having to fear any attack.
+
+From cover the Apaches looked aloft. They could hear the faint hum of
+the helicopter. It was still circling, Tsoay reported from a higher
+check point, but those circles remained close over the plains area--the
+riders had already passed beyond the limits of that aerial sentry.
+
+Three to a side, the Apaches advanced with the trail between them. They
+were carefully hidden when they caught up with the hunters. The four
+Tatars were grouped together; the fifth man, heavily burdened by his
+pack, had climbed from the saddle and was sitting on the ground, his
+hands busy with a flat plate which covered him from upper chest to belt.
+
+Now that he had a chance to see them closely, Travis noted the lack of
+expression on the broad Tatar faces. The four men were blank of eye,
+astride their mounts with no apparent awareness of their present
+surroundings. Then as one, their heads swung around to the helmeted
+leader before they dismounted and stood motionless for a long moment in
+a way which reminded Travis of the coyotes' attitude when they
+endeavored to pass some message to him. But these men even lacked the
+signs of thinking intelligence the animals had.
+
+The helmeted man's hand moved across his chest plate, and instantly his
+followers came into a measure of life. One put his hand to his forehead
+with an odd, half-dazed gesture. Another half crouched, his lips
+wrinkling back in a snarl. And the leader, watching him, laughed. Then
+he snapped an order, his hand poised over his control plate.
+
+One of the four took the horse reins, made the mounts fast to near-by
+bushes. Then as one they began to walk forward, the Red bringing up the
+rear several paces behind the nearest Tatar. They were going upslope to
+the crest of a small ridge.
+
+The Tatar who first reached the crest put his hands to cup his mouth,
+sent a ringing cry southward, and the faint "hu-hu-hu" echoed on and on
+through the hills.
+
+Either Menlik had reached the camp in time, or his people were not to be
+so easily enticed. For though the hunters waited for a long time, there
+was no answer to that hail. At last the helmeted man called his
+captives, bringing them sullenly down to mount and ride again--a move
+which suited the Apaches.
+
+They could not tell how close was the communication between the rider
+and the helicopter. And they were still too near the plains to attack
+unless it was necessary for their own protection. Travis dropped back to
+join Nolan.
+
+"He controls them by that plate on his chest," he said. "If we would
+take them, we must get at that--"
+
+"These Tatars use lariats in fighting. Did they not rope you as a calf
+is roped for branding? Then why do they not so take this Red, binding
+his arms to his sides?" The suspicion in Nolan's voice was plain.
+
+"Perhaps in them is some conditioned control making it so that they
+cannot attack their rulers--"
+
+"I do not like this matter of machines which can play this way and that
+with minds and bodies!" flared Nolan. "A man should only _use_ a weapon,
+not be one!"
+
+Travis could agree to that. Had they by the wreck of their own ship and
+the death of Ruthven, escaped just such an existence as these Tatars now
+endured? If so, why? He and all the Apaches were volunteers, eager and
+willing to form new world colonies. What had happened back on Terra that
+they had been so ruthlessly sent out without warning and under Redax?
+Another small piece of that puzzle, or maybe the heart of the whole
+picture snapped into place. Had the project learned in some way of the
+Tatar settlement on Topaz and so been forced to speed up that
+translation from late twentieth-century Americans to primitives? That
+would explain a lot!
+
+Travis returned abruptly to the matter now at hand as he saw a peak
+ahead. The party they were trailing was heading directly for the outlaw
+hide-out. Travis hoped Menlik had warned them in time. There--that wall
+of cliff to his left must shelter the valley of the towers, though it
+was still miles ahead. Travis did not believe the hunters would be able
+to reach their goal unless they traveled at night. They might not know
+of the ape-things which could menace the dark.
+
+But the enemy, whether he knew of such dangers or not, did not intend to
+press on. As the sun pulled away, leaving crevices and crannies shadow
+dark, the hunters stopped to make camp. The Apaches, after their custom
+on the war trail, gathered on the heights above.
+
+"This Red seems to think that he shall find those he seeks sitting
+waiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoay
+remarked.
+
+"It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe they
+are greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking into
+the arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.
+
+"A man with a rifle does not fear a man armed only with a stick," Travis
+cut in quickly. "This one is armed with a weapon which he has good
+reason to believe makes him invulnerable to attack. If he rests tonight,
+he probably leaves his machine on guard."
+
+"At least we are sure of one thing," Nolan said in half agreement. "This
+one does not suspect that there are any in these hills save those he can
+master. And his machine does not work against us. Thus at dawn--" He
+made a swift gesture, and they smiled in concert.
+
+At dawn--the old time of attack. An Apache does not attack at night.
+Travis was not sure that any of them could break that old taboo and
+creep down upon the camp before the coming of new light.
+
+But tomorrow morning they would take over this confident Red, strip him
+of his enslaving machine.
+
+Travis' head jerked. It had come as suddenly as a blow between his
+eyes--to half stun him. What ... what was it? Not any physical
+impact--no, something which was dazing but still immaterial. He braced
+his whole body, awaiting its return, trying frantically to understand
+what had happened in that instant of vertigo and seeming disembodiment.
+Never had he experienced anything like it--or had he? Two years or more
+ago when he had gone through the time transfer to enter the Arizona of
+the Folsom Men some ten thousand years earlier--that moment of transfer
+had been something like this, a sensation of being awry in space and
+time with no stable footing to be found.
+
+Yet he was lying here on very tangible rock and soil, and nothing about
+him in the shadow-hung landscape of Topaz had changed in the slightest.
+But that blow had left behind it a quivering residue of panic buried far
+inside him, a tender spot like an open wound.
+
+Travis drew a deep breath which was almost a sob, levered himself up on
+one elbow to stare intently down into the enemy camp. Was this some
+attack from the other's unknown weapon? Suddenly he was not at all sure
+what might happen when the Apaches made that dawn rush.
+
+Jil-Lee was in station on his right. Travis must compare notes with him
+to be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now than
+to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the
+chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in
+a cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect.
+
+"Did you feel something just now--in your head?" Travis found it
+difficult to put that sensation into words.
+
+"Not so. But you did?"
+
+He had--of course, he had! The remains of it were still in him, that
+point of panic. "Yes."
+
+"The machine?"
+
+"I don't know." Travis' confusion grew. It might be that he alone of the
+party had been struck. If so, he could be a danger to his own kind.
+
+"This is not good. I think we had better hold council, away from here."
+Jil-Lee's whisper was the merest ghost of sound. He chirped again to be
+answered from Tsoay upslope, who passed on the signal.
+
+The first moon was high in the sky as the Apaches gathered together.
+Again Travis asked his question: Had any of the others felt that odd
+blow? He was met by negatives.
+
+But Nolan had the final word: "This is not good," he echoed Jil-Lee's
+comment. "If it was the Red machine at work, then we may all be swept
+into his net along with those he seeks. Perhaps the longer one remains
+close to that thing, the more influence it gains over him. We shall stay
+here until dawn. If the enemy would reach the place they seek, then they
+must pass below us, for that is the easiest road. Burdened with his
+machine, that Red has ever taken the easiest way. So, we shall see if he
+also has a defense against these when they come without warning." He
+touched the arrows in his quiver.
+
+To kill from ambush meant that they might never learn the secret of the
+machine, but after his experience Travis was willing to admit that
+Nolan's caution was the wise way. Travis wanted no part of a second
+attack like that which had shaken him so. And Nolan had not ordered a
+general retreat. It must be in the war chief's thoughts as it was in
+Travis' that if the machine could have an influence over Apaches, it
+must cease to function.
+
+They set their ambush with the age-old skill the Redax had grafted into
+their memories. Then there was nothing to do but wait.
+
+It was an hour after dawn when Tsoay signaled that the enemy was coming,
+and shortly after, they heard the thud of ponies' hoofs. The first Tatar
+plodded into view, and by the stance of his body in the saddle, Travis
+knew the Red had him under full control. Two, then three Tatars passed
+between the teeth of the Apache trap. The fourth one had allowed a wider
+gap to open between himself and his fellows.
+
+Then the Red leader came. His face below the bulge of the helmet was not
+happy. Travis believed the man was not a horseman by inclination. The
+Apache set arrow to bow cord, and at the chirp from Nolan, fired in
+concert with his clansmen.
+
+Only one of those arrows found a target. The Red's pony gave a shrill
+scream of pain and terror, reared, pawing at the air, toppled back,
+pinning its shouting rider under it.
+
+The Red had had a defense right enough, one which had somehow deflected
+the arrows. But he neither had protection against his own awkward seat
+in the saddle nor the arrow which had seriously wounded the now
+threshing pony.
+
+Ahead the Tatars twisted and writhed, mouthed tortured cries, then
+dropped out of their saddles to lie limply on the ground as if the
+arrows aimed at the master had instead struck each to the heart.
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+Either the Red was lucky, or his reactions were quick. He had somehow
+rolled clear of the struggling horse as Lupe leaped from behind a
+boulder, knife out and ready. To the eyes of the Apaches the helmeted
+man lay easy prey to Lupe's attack. Nor did he raise an arm to defend
+himself, though one hand lay free across the plate on his chest.
+
+But the young Apache stumbled, rebounding back as if he had run into an
+unseen wall--when his knife was still six inches away from the other.
+Lupe cried out, shook under a second impact as the Red fired an
+automatic with his other hand.
+
+Travis dropped his bow, returned to the most primitive weapon of all.
+His hand closed around a stone and he hurled the fist-sized oval
+straight at the helmet so clearly outlined against the rocks below.
+
+But even as Lupe's knife had never touched flesh, so was the rock
+deflected; the Red was covered by some protective field. This was
+certainly nothing the Apaches had seen before. Nolan's whistle summoned
+them to draw back.
+
+The Red fired again, the sharp bark of the hand gun harsh and loud. He
+did not have any real target, for with the exception of Lupe the Apaches
+had gone to earth. Between the rocks the Red was struggling to his feet,
+but he moved slowly, favoring his side and one leg; he had not come
+totally unharmed from his tumble with the pony.
+
+An armed enemy who could not be touched--one who knew there were more
+than outlaws in this region. The Red leader was far more of a threat to
+the Apaches now than he had ever been. He must not be allowed to escape.
+
+He was holstering his gun, moving along with one hand against the rocks
+to steady himself, trying to reach one of the ponies that stood with
+trailing reins beside the inert Tatars.
+
+But when the enemy reached the far side of that rock he would have to
+sacrifice either his steadying hold, or his touch on the chest plate
+where his other hand rested. Would he, then, for an instant be
+vulnerable?
+
+The pony!
+
+Travis put an arrow on bow cord and shot. Not at the Red, who had
+released his hold of the rock, preferring to totter instead of lose
+control of the chest plate--but into the air straight before the nose of
+the mount.
+
+The pony neighed wildly, tried to turn, and its shoulder caught the
+free, groping hand of the Red and spun the man around and back, so that
+he flung up both hands in an effort to ward himself off the rocks. Then
+the pony stampeded down the break, its companions catching the same
+fever, trailing in a mad dash which kept the Red hard against the
+boulders.
+
+He continued to stand there until the horses, save for the wounded one
+still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve.
+They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two
+strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the Apaches could
+handle.
+
+Apparently the other was also aware of that, for now he pushed out from
+the rocks and stumbled along after the ponies. But he went only a step
+or two. Then, settling back once more against a convenient boulder, he
+began to work at the plate on his chest.
+
+Nolan appeared noiselessly beside Travis. "What does he do?" His lips
+were very close to the younger man's ear, his voice hardly more than a
+breath.
+
+Travis shook his head slightly. The Red's actions were a complete
+mystery. Unless, now disabled and afoot, he was trying to summon aid.
+Though there was no landing place for a helicopter here.
+
+Now was the time to try and reach Lupe. Travis had seen a slight
+movement in the fallen Apache's hand, the first indication that the
+enemy's shot had not been as fatal as it had looked. He touched Nolan's
+arm, pointed to Lupe; and then, discarding his bow and quiver beside the
+war leader, he stripped for action. There was cover down to the wounded
+Apache which would aid him. He must pass one of the Tatars on the way,
+but none of the tribesmen had shown any signs of life since they had
+fallen from their saddles at the first attack.
+
+With infinite care, Travis lowered himself into a narrow passage, took a
+lizard's way between brush and boulder, pausing only when he reached the
+Tatar for a quick check on the potential enemy.
+
+The lean brown face was half turned, one cheek in the sand, but the
+slack mouth, the closed eyes were those, Travis believed, of a dead man.
+By some action of his diabolic machine the Red must have snuffed out his
+four captives--perhaps in the belief that they were part of the Apache
+attack.
+
+Travis reached the rock where Lupe lay. He knew that Nolan was watching
+the Red and would give him warning if he suddenly showed an interest in
+anything but his machine. The Apache reached out, his hands closing on
+Lupe's ankles. Beneath his touch, flesh and muscle tensed. Lupe's eyes
+were open, focused now on Travis. There was a bleeding furrow above his
+right ear. The Red had tried a difficult head shot, failing in his aim
+by a mere fraction of an inch.
+
+Lupe made a swift move for which Travis was ready. His grip on the
+other's body helped to tumble them both around a rock which lay between
+them and the Red. There was the crack of another shot and dust spurted
+from the side of the boulder. But they lay together, safe for the
+present, as Travis was sure the enemy would not risk an open attack on
+their small fortress.
+
+With Travis' aid Lupe struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited.
+Jil-Lee was there to make competent examination of the boy's wound.
+
+"Creased," he reported. "A sore head, but no great damage. Perhaps a
+scar later, warrior!" He gave Lupe an encouraging thump on the shoulder,
+before plastering an aid pack over the cut.
+
+"Now we go!" Nolan spoke with emphatic decision.
+
+"He saw enough of us to know we are not Tatars."
+
+Nolan's eyes were cold, his mouth grim as he faced Travis.
+
+"And how can we fight him--?"
+
+"There is a wall--a wall you cannot see--about him," Lupe broke in.
+"When I would strike at him, I could not!"
+
+"A man with invisible protection and a gun," Jil-Lee took up the
+argument. "How would you deal with him, younger brother?"
+
+"I don't know," Travis admitted. Yet he also believed that if they
+withdrew, left the Red here to be found by his own people, the enemy
+would immediately begin an investigation of the southern country.
+Perhaps, pushed by their need for learning more about the Apaches, they
+would bring the helicopter in over the mountains. The answer to all
+Apache dangers, for now, lay in the immediate future of this one man.
+
+"He is hurt, he cannot go far on foot. And even if he calls the 'copter,
+there is no landing place. He will have to move elsewhere to be picked
+up." Travis thought aloud, citing the thin handful of points in their
+favor.
+
+Tsoay nodded toward the rim of the ravine. "Rocks up there and rocks can
+roll. Start an earthslide...."
+
+Something within Travis balked at that. From the first he had been
+willing enough to slug it out with the Red, weapon to weapon, man to
+man. Also, he had wanted to take a captive, not stand over a body. But
+to use the nature of the country against the enemy, that was the oldest
+Apache trick of all and one they would have to be forced to employ.
+
+Nolan had already nodded in assent, and Tsoay and Jil-Lee started off.
+Even if the Red did possess a protective wall device, could it operate
+in full against a landslide? They all doubted that.
+
+The Apaches reached the cliff rim without exposing themselves to the
+enemy's fire. The Red still sat there calmly, his back against the rock,
+his hands busy with his equipment as if he had all the time in the
+world.
+
+Then suddenly came a scream from more than one throat.
+
+"_Dar-u-gar_!" The ancient war cry of the Mongol Hordes.
+
+Then over the lip of the other slope rose a wave of men--their curved
+swords out, a glazed set to their eyes--heading for the Amerindians with
+utter disregard for any personal safety. Menlik in the lead, his
+shaman's robe flapping wide below his belt like the wings of some
+oversized predatory bird. Hulagur ... Jagatai ... men from the outlaws'
+camp. And they were not striving to destroy their disabled overlord in
+the vale below, but to wipe out the Apaches!
+
+Only the fact that the Apaches were already sheltered behind the rocks
+they were laboring to dislodge gave them a precious few moments of
+grace. There was no time to use their bows. They could only use knives
+to meet the swords of the Tatars, knives and the fact that they could
+fight with unclouded minds.
+
+"He has them under control!" Travis pawed at Jil-Lee's shoulder. "Get
+him--they'll stop!"
+
+He did not wait to see if the other Apache understood. Instead, he threw
+the full force of his own body against the rock they had made the center
+stone of their slide. It gave, rolled, carrying with it and before it
+the rest of the piled rubble. Travis stumbled, fell flat, and then a
+body thudded down upon him, and he was fighting for his life to keep a
+blade from his throat. Around him were the shouts and cries of embroiled
+warriors; then all was silenced by a roar from below.
+
+Glazed eyes in a face only a foot from his own, the twisted, panting
+mouth sending gusts of breath into his nostrils. Suddenly there was
+reason back in those eyes, a bewilderment, which became fear ...
+panic.... The Tatar's body twisted in Travis' hold, striving now not to
+attack, but to win free. As the Apache loosened his grip the other
+jerked away, so that for a moment or two they lay gasping, side by side.
+
+Men sat up to look at men. There was a spreading stain down Jil-Lee's
+side and one of the Tatars sprawled near him, both his hands on his
+chest, coughing violently.
+
+Menlik clawed at the trunk of a wind-twisted mountain tree, pulled
+himself to his feet, and stood swaying as might a man long ill and
+recovering from severe exertion.
+
+Insensibly both sides drew apart, leaving a space between Tatar and
+Apache. The faces of the Amerindians were grim, those of the Mongols
+bewildered and then harsh as they eyed their late opponents with dawning
+reason. What had begun in compulsion for the Tatars might well flare now
+into rational combat--and from that to a campaign of extermination.
+
+Travis was on his feet. He looked over the lip of the drop. The Red was
+still in his place down there, a pile of rubble about him. His
+protection must have failed, for his head was back at an unnatural angle
+and the dent in his helmet could be easily seen.
+
+"That one is dead--or helpless!" Travis cried out. "Do you still wish to
+fight for him, Shaman?"
+
+Menlik came away from the tree and walked to the edge of the drop. The
+others, too, were moving forward. After the shaman looked down he
+stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it at the motionless Red.
+There was a crack of sound. They all saw the tiny spurt of flame, a curl
+of smoke from the plate on the Red's chest. Not only the man, but his
+control was finished now.
+
+A wolfish growl and two of the Tatars swung over, started down to the
+Red. Menlik shouted and they slackened pace.
+
+"We want that," he cried in English. "Perhaps so we can learn--"
+
+"The learning is yours," Jil-Lee replied. "Just as this land is yours,
+Shaman. But I warn you, from this day do not ride south!"
+
+Menlik turned, the charms on his belt clicking. "So that is the way it
+is to be, Apache?"
+
+"That is the way it shall be, Tatar! We do not ride to war with allies
+who may turn their knives against our backs because they are slaves to a
+machine the enemy controls."
+
+The Tatar's long, slender-fingered hands opened and closed. "You are a
+wise man, Apache, but sometimes more than wisdom alone is needed----"
+
+"We are wise men, Shaman, let it rest there," Jil-Lee replied somberly.
+
+Already the Apaches were on their way, putting two cliff ridges behind
+them before they halted to examine and cover their wounds.
+
+"We go." Nolan's chin lifted, indicating the southern route. "Here we
+do not come again; there is too much witchcraft in this place."
+
+Travis stirred, saw that Jil-Lee was frowning at him.
+
+"Go--?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes, younger brother? You would continue to run with these who are
+governed by a machine?"
+
+"No. Only, eyes are needed on this side of the mountains."
+
+"Why?" This time Jil-Lee was plainly on the side of the conservatives.
+"We have now seen this machine at work. It is fortunate that the Red is
+dead. He will carry no tales of us back to his people as you feared.
+Thus, if we remain south from now on, we are safe. And this fight
+between Tatar and Red is none of ours. What do you seek here?"
+
+"I must go again to the place of the towers," Travis answered with the
+truth. But his friends were facing him with heavy disapproval--now a
+full row of Deklays.
+
+"Did you not tell us that you felt this strange thing during the night
+we waited about the camp? What if you become one with these Tatars and
+are also controlled by the machine? Then you, too, can be made into a
+weapon against us--your clansmen!" Jil-Lee was almost openly hostile.
+
+Sense was on his side. But in Travis was this other desire of which he
+was becoming more conscious by the minute. There was a reason for those
+towers, perhaps a reason important enough for him to discover and run
+the risk of angering his own people.
+
+"There may be this--" Nolan's voice was remote and cold, "you may
+already be a piece of this thing, bound to the machines. If so, we do
+not want you among us."
+
+There it was--an open hostility with more power behind it than Deklay's
+motiveless disapproval had carried. Travis was troubled. The family, the
+clan--they were important. If he took the wrong step now and was
+outlawed from that tight fortress, then as an Apache he would indeed be
+a lost man. In the past of his people there had been renegades from the
+tribe--men such as the infamous Apache Kid who had killed and killed
+again, not only white men but his own people. Wolf men living wolves'
+lives in the hills. Travis was threatened with that. Yet--up the ladder
+of civilization, down the ladder--why did this feverish curiosity ride
+him so cruelly now?
+
+"Listen," Jil-Lee, his side padded with bandages, stepped closer--"and
+tell me, younger brother, what is it that you seek in these towers?"
+
+"On another world there were secrets of the old ones to be found in such
+ancient buildings. Here that might also be true."
+
+"And among the secrets of those old ones," Nolan's voice was still
+harsh--"were those which brought us to this world, is that not so?"
+
+"Did any man drive you, Nolan, or you, Tsoay, or you, Jil-Lee, or any of
+us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done,
+and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers!"
+
+"Save for this voyage when we were told nothing," Jil-Lee answered,
+cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Yet, Nolan, I do not
+believe that it is for more voyage tapes that our younger brother now
+searches, nor would those do us any good--as our ship will not rise
+again from here. What is it that you do seek?"
+
+"Knowledge--weapons, maybe. Can we stand against these machines of the
+Reds? Yet many of the devices they now use are taken from the star ships
+they have looted through time. To every weapon there is a defense."
+
+Nolan blinked and for the first time a hint of interest touched the mask
+of his face. "To the bow, the rifle," he said softly, "to the rifle, the
+machine gun, to the cannon, the big bomb. The defense can be far worse
+than the first weapon. So you think that in these towers there may be
+things which shall be to the Reds' machines as the bomb is to the cannon
+of the Horse Soldiers?"
+
+Travis had an inspiration. "Did not our people lay aside the bow for the
+rifle when we went up against the Bluecoats?"
+
+"We do not so go up against these Reds!" protested Lupe.
+
+"Not now. But what if they come across the mountains, perhaps driving
+the Tatars before them to do their fighting--?"
+
+"And you believe that if you find weapons in these towers, you will know
+how to use them?" Jil-Lee asked. "What will give you that knowledge,
+younger brother?"
+
+"I do not claim such knowledge," Travis countered. "But this much I do
+have: Once I studied to be an archaeologist and I have seen other
+storehouses of these star people. Who else among us can say as much as
+that?"
+
+"That is the truth," Jil-Lee acknowledged. "Also there is good sense in
+this seeking out of the tower things. Let the Reds find such first--if
+they exist at all--and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with
+only death at our heels."
+
+"And you would go to these towers now?" Nolan demanded.
+
+"I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the
+pass!" The feeling of urgency which had been mounting in Travis was now
+so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was
+surprised when Jil-Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger
+man.
+
+"Take care, younger brother! This is not a lucky business. And remember,
+if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no
+returning--"
+
+"We shall wait on the other side of the pass for one day," Nolan added.
+"Then--" he shrugged--"where you go will be your own affair."
+
+Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two
+steps down his chosen path.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+Travis had taken a direct cross route through the heights, but not
+swiftly enough to reach his objective before nightfall. And he had no
+wish to enter the tower valley by moonlight. In him two emotions now
+warred. There was the urge to invade the towers, to discover their
+secret, and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was
+he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the
+Redax and his modern education in the Pinda-lick-o-yi world--half Apache
+brave of the past, half modern archaeologist with a thirst for
+knowledge? Or was the fear rooted more deeply and for another reason?
+
+Travis crouched in a hollow, trying to understand what he felt. Why was
+it suddenly so overwhelmingly important for him to investigate the
+towers? If he only had the coyotes with him.... Why and where had they
+gone?
+
+He was alive to every noise out of the night, every scent the wind
+carried to him. The night had its own life, just as the daylight hours
+held theirs. Only a few of those sounds could he identify, even less did
+he see. There was one wide-winged, huge flying thing which passed
+across the green-gold plate of the nearer moon. It was so large that for
+an instant Travis believed the helicopter had come. Then the wings
+flapped, breaking the glide, and the creature merged in the shadows of
+the night--a hunter large enough to be a serious threat, and one he had
+never seen before.
+
+Relying on his own small defense, the strewing of brittle sticks along
+the only approach to the hollow, Travis dozed at intervals, his head
+down on his forearm across his bent knees. But the cold cramped him and
+he was glad to see the graying sky of pre-dawn. He swallowed two ration
+tablets and a couple of mouthfuls of water from his canteen and started
+on.
+
+By sunup he had reached the ledge of the waterfall, and he hurried along
+the ancient road at a pace which increased to a run the closer he drew
+to the valley. Deliberately he slowed, his native caution now in
+control, so that he was walking as he passed through the gateway into
+the swirling mists which alternately exposed and veiled the towers.
+
+There was no change in the scene from the time he had come there with
+Kaydessa. But now, rising from a comfortable sprawl on the
+yellow-and-green pavement, was a welcoming committee--Nalik'ideyu and
+Naginlta showing no more excitement at his coming than if they had
+parted only moments before.
+
+Travis went down on one knee, holding out his hand to the female, who
+had always been the more friendly. She advanced a step or two, touched a
+cold nose to his knuckles, and whined.
+
+"Why?" He voiced that one word, but behind it was a long list of
+questions. Why had they left him? Why were they here where there was no
+hunting? Why did they meet him now as if they had calmly expected his
+return?
+
+Travis glanced from the animals to the towers, those windows set in
+diamond pattern. And again he was visited by the impression that he was
+under observation. With the mist floating across those openings, it
+would be easy for a lurker to watch him unseen.
+
+He walked slowly on into the valley, his moccasins making no sound on
+the pavement, but he could hear the faint click of the coyotes' claws as
+they paced beside him, on each hand. The sun did not penetrate here,
+making merely a gilt fog of the mist. As he approached within touching
+distance of the first tower, it seemed to Travis that the mist was
+curling about him; he could no longer see the archway through which he
+had entered the valley.
+
+"Naye'nezyani--Slayer of Monsters--give strength to the bow arm, to the
+knife wrist!" Out of what long-buried memory did that ancient plea come?
+Travis was hardly aware of the sense of the words until he spoke them
+aloud. "You who wait--_shi inday to-dah ishan_--an Apache is not food
+for you! I am Fox of the Itcatcudnde'yu--the Eagle People; and beside me
+walk _ga'ns_ of power...."
+
+Travis blinked and shook his head as one waking. Why had he spoken so,
+using words and phrases which were not part of any modern speech?
+
+He moved on, around the base of the first tower, to find no door, no
+break in its surface below the second-story windows--to the next
+structure and the next, until he had encircled all three. If he were to
+enter any, he must find a way of reaching the lowest windows.
+
+On he went to the other opening of the valley, the one which gave upon
+the territory of the Tatar camp. But he did not sight any of the Mongols
+as he hacked down a sapling, trimmed, and smoothed it into a
+blunt-pointed lance. His sash-belt, torn into even strips and knotted
+together, gave him a rope which he judged would be barely long enough
+for his purpose.
+
+Then Travis made a chancy cast for the lower window of the nearest
+tower. On the second try the lance slipped in, and he gave a quick jerk,
+jamming the lance as a bar across the opening. It was a frail ladder but
+the best he could improvise. He climbed until the sill of the window was
+within reach and he could pull himself up and over.
+
+The sill was a wide one, at least a twenty-four-inch span between the
+inner and outer surface of the tower. Travis sat there for a minute,
+reluctant to enter. Near the end of his dangling scarf-rope the two
+coyotes lay on the pavement, their heads up, their tongues lolling from
+their mouths, their expressions ones of detached interest.
+
+Perhaps it was the width of the outer wall that subdued the amount of
+light in the room. The chamber was circular, and directly opposite him
+was a second window, the lowest of the matching diamond pattern. He took
+the four-foot drop from the sill to the floor but lingered in the light
+as he surveyed every inch of the room. There were no furnishings at all,
+but in the very center sank a well of darkness. A smooth pillar, glowing
+faintly, rose from its core. Travis' adjusting eyes noted how the light
+came in small ripples--green and purple, over a foundation shade of dark
+blue.
+
+The pillar seemed rooted below and it extended up through a similar
+opening in the ceiling, providing the only possible exit up or down,
+save for climbing from window to window outside. Travis moved slowly to
+the well. Underfoot was a smooth surface overlaid with a velvet carpet
+of dust which arose in languid puffs as he walked. Here and there he
+sighted prints in the dust, strange triangular wedges which he thought
+might possibly have been made by the claws of birds. But there were no
+other footprints. This tower had been undisturbed for a long, long time.
+
+He came to the well and looked down. There was dark there, dark in which
+the pulsations of light from the pillar shown the stronger. But that
+glow did not extend beyond the edge of the well through which the thick
+rod threaded. Even by close examination he could detect no break in the
+smooth surface of the pillar, nothing remotely resembling hand- or
+footholds. If it did serve the purpose of a staircase, there were no
+treads.
+
+At last Travis put out his hand to touch the surface of the pillar. And
+then he jerked back--to no effect. There was no breaking contact between
+his fingers and an unknown material which had the sleekness of polished
+metal but--and the thought made him slightly queasy--the warmth and very
+slight give of flesh!
+
+He summoned all his strength to pull free and could not. Not only did
+that hold grip him, but his other hand and arm were being drawn to join
+the first! Inside Travis primitive fears awoke full force, and he threw
+back his head, voicing a cry of panic as wild as that of a hunting
+beast.
+
+An instant later, his left palm was as tight a prisoner as his right.
+And with both hands so held, his whole body was suddenly snapped
+forward, off the safe foundation of the floor, tight to the pillar.
+
+In this position he was sucked down into the well. And while unable to
+free himself from the pillar, he did slip along its length easily
+enough. Travis shut his eyes in an involuntary protest against this
+weird form of capture, and a shiver ran through his body as he continued
+to descend.
+
+After the first shock had subsided the Apache realized that he was not
+truly falling at all. Had the pillar been horizontal instead of
+vertical, he would have gauged its speed that of a walk. He passed
+through two more room enclosures; he must already be below the level of
+the valley floor outside. And he was still a prisoner of the pillar, now
+in total darkness.
+
+His feet came down against a level surface, and he guessed he must have
+reached the end. Again he pulled back, arching his shoulders in a final
+desperate attempt at escape, and stumbled away as he was released.
+
+He came up sideways against a wall and stood there panting. The light,
+which might have come from the pillar but which seemed more a part of
+the very air, was bright enough to reveal that he was in a corridor
+running into greater dark both right and left.
+
+Travis took two strides back to the pillar, fitted his palms once again
+to its surface, with no result. This time his flesh did not adhere and
+there was no possible way for him to climb that slick pole. He could
+only hope that at some point the corridor would give him access to the
+surface. But which way to go--?
+
+At last he chose the right-hand path and started along it, pausing every
+few steps to listen. But there was no sound except the soft pad of his
+own feet. The air was fresh enough, and he thought he could detect a
+faint current coming toward him from some point ahead--perhaps an exit.
+
+Instead, he came into a room and a small gasp of astonishment was wrung
+out of him. The walls were blank, covered with the same ripples of
+blue-purple-green light which colored the pillar. Just before him was a
+table and behind it a bench, both carved from the native yellow-red
+mountain rock. And there was no exit except the doorway in which he now
+stood.
+
+Travis walked to the bench. Immovable, it was placed so that whoever sat
+there must face the opposite wall of the chamber with the table before
+him. And on the table was an object Travis recognized immediately from
+his voyage in the alien star ship, one of the reader-viewers through
+which the involuntary explorers had learned what little they knew of the
+older galactic civilization.
+
+A reader--and beside it a box of tapes. Travis touched the edge of that
+box gingerly, half expecting it to crumble into nothingness. This was a
+place long deserted. Stone table, bench, the towers could survive
+through centuries of abandonment, but these other objects....
+
+The substance of the reader was firm under the film of dust; there was
+less dust here than had been in the upper tower chamber. Hardly knowing
+why, Travis threw one leg over the bench and sat down behind the table,
+the reader before him, the box of tapes just beyond his hand.
+
+He surveyed the walls and then looked away hurriedly. The rippling
+colors caught at his eyes. He had a feeling that if he watched that ebb
+and flow too long, he would be captured in some subtle web of
+enchantment just as the Reds' machine had caught and held the Tatars. He
+turned his attention to the reader. It was, he believed, much like the
+one they had used on the ship.
+
+This room, table, bench, had all been designed with a set purpose. And
+that purpose--Travis' fingers rested on the box of tapes he could not
+yet bring himself to open--that purpose was to use the reader, he would
+swear to that. Tapes so left must have had a great importance for those
+who left them. It was as if the whole valley was a trap to channel a
+stranger into this underground chamber.
+
+Travis snapped open the box, fed the first disk into the reader, and
+applied his eyes to the vision tube at its apex.
+
+The rippling walls looked just the same when he looked up once more, but
+the cramp in his muscles told Travis that time had passed--perhaps hours
+instead of minutes--since he had taken out the first disk. He cupped his
+hands over his eyes and tried to think clearly. There had been sheets of
+meaningless symbol writing, but also there had been many clear,
+three-dimensional pictures, accompanied by a singsong commentary in an
+alien tongue, seemingly voiced out of thin air. He had been stuffed with
+ragged bits and patches of information, to be connected only by guesses,
+and some wild guesses, too. But this much he did know--these towers had
+been built by the bald spacemen, and they were highly important to that
+vanished stellar civilization. The information in this room, as
+disjointed as it had been for him, led to a treasure trove on Topaz
+greater than he had dreamed.
+
+Travis swayed on the bench. To know so much and yet so little! If Ashe
+were only here, or some other of the project technicians! A treasure
+such as Pandora's box had been, peril for one who opened it and did not
+understand. The Apache studied the three walls of blue-purple-green in
+turn and with new attention. There were ways through those walls; he was
+fairly sure he could unlock at least one of them. But not now--certainly
+not now!
+
+And there was another thing he knew: The Reds must _not_ find this. Such
+a discovery on their part would not only mean the end of his own people
+on Topaz, but the end of Terra as well. This could be a new and alien
+Black Death spread to destroy whole nations at a time!
+
+If he could--much as his archaeologist's training would argue against
+it--he would blot out this whole valley above and below ground. But
+while the Reds might possess a means of such destruction, the Apaches
+did not. No, he and his people must prevent its discovery by the enemy
+by doing what he had seen as necessary from the first--wiping out the
+Red leaders! And that must be done before they chanced upon the towers!
+
+Travis arose stiffly. His eyes ached, his head felt stuffed with
+pictures, hints, speculations. He wanted to get out, back into the open
+air where perhaps the clean winds of the heights would blow some of
+this frightening half knowledge from his benumbed mind. He lurched down
+the corridor, puzzled now by the problem of getting back to the window
+level.
+
+Here, before him, was the pillar. Without hope, but still obeying some
+buried instinct, Travis again set his hands to its surface. There was a
+tug at his cramped arms; once more his body was sucked to the pillar.
+This time he was rising!
+
+He held his breath past the first level and then relaxed. The principle
+of this weird form of transportation was entirely beyond his
+understanding, but as long as it worked in reverse he didn't care to
+find out. He reached the windowed chamber, but the sunlight had left it;
+instead, the clean cut of moon sweep lay on the dusty floor. He must
+have been hours in that underground place.
+
+Travis pulled away from the embrace of the pillar. The bar of his wooden
+lance was still across the window and he ran for it. To catch the
+scouting party at the pass he must hurry. The report they would make to
+the clan now had to be changed radically in the face of his new
+discoveries. The Apaches dared not retreat southward and withdraw from
+the fight, leaving the Reds to use what treasure lay here.
+
+As he hit the pavement below he looked about for the coyotes. Then he
+tried the mind call. But as mysteriously as they had met him in the
+valley, so now were they gone again. And Travis had no time to hunt for
+them. With a sigh, he began his race to the pass.
+
+In the old days, Travis remembered, Apache warriors had been able to
+cover forty-five or fifty miles a day on foot and over rough territory.
+But perhaps his modern breeding had slowed him. He had been so sure he
+could catch up before the others were through the pass. But he stood now
+in the hollow where they had camped, read the sign of overturned stone
+and bent twig left for him, and knew they would reach the rancheria and
+report the decision Deklay and the others wanted before he could head
+them off.
+
+Travis slogged on. He was so tired now that only the drug from the
+sustenance tablets he mouthed at intervals kept him going at a dogged
+pace, hardly more than a swift walk. And always his mind was haunted by
+fragments of pictures, pictures he had seen in the reader. The big bomb
+had been the nightmare of his own world for so long, and what was that
+against the forces the bald star rovers had been able to command?
+
+He fell beside a stream and slept. There was sunshine about him as he
+arose to stagger on. What day was this? How long had he sat in the tower
+chamber? He was not sure of time any more. He only knew that he must
+reach the rancheria, tell his story, somehow win over Deklay and the
+other reactionaries to prove the necessity for invading the north in
+force.
+
+A rocky point which was a familiar landmark came into focus. He padded
+on, his chest heaving, his breath whistling through parched, sun-cracked
+lips. He did not know that his face was now a mask of driven resolution.
+
+"Hahhhhhh--"
+
+The cry reached his dulled ears. Travis lifted his head, saw the men
+before him and tried to think what that show of weapons turned toward
+him could mean.
+
+A stone thudded to earth only inches before his feet, to be followed by
+another. He wavered to a stop.
+
+"_Ni'ilgac_--!"
+
+Witch? Where was a witch? Travis shook his head. There was no witch.
+
+"_Do ne'ilka da_'!"
+
+The old death threat, but why--for whom?
+
+Another stone, this one hitting him in the ribs with force enough to
+send him reeling back and down. He tried to get up again, saw Deklay
+grin widely and take aim--and at last Travis realized what was
+happening.
+
+Then there was a bursting pain in his head and he was falling--falling
+into a well of black, this time with no pillar of blue to guide him.
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+The rasp of something wet and rough, persistent against his cheek;
+Travis tried to turn his head to avoid the contact and was answered by a
+burst of pain which trailed off into a giddiness, making him fear
+another move, no matter how minor. He opened his eyes and saw the
+pointed ears, the outline of a coyote head between him and a dull gray
+sky, was able to recognize Nalik'ideyu.
+
+A wetness other than that from the coyote's tongue slid down his
+forehead now. The dull clouds overhead had released the first heavy rain
+Travis had experienced since their landing on Topaz. He shivered as the
+chill damp of his clothes made him aware that he must have been lying
+out in the full force of the downpour for some time.
+
+It was a struggle to get to his knees, but Nalik'ideyu mouthed a hold on
+his shirt, tugging and pulling so that somehow he crept into a hollow
+beneath the branches of a tree where the spouting water was lessened to
+a few pattering drops.
+
+There the Apache's strength deserted him again and he could only hunch
+over, his bent knees against his chest, trying to endure the throbbing
+misery in his head, the awful floating sensation which followed any
+movement. Fighting against that, he tried to remember just what had
+happened.
+
+The meeting with Deklay and at least four or five others ... then the
+Apache accusation of witchcraft, a serious thing in the old days. Old
+days! To Deklay and his fellows, these _were_ the old days! And the
+threat that Deklay or some other had shouted at him--"_Do ne'ilka
+da'_"--meant literally: "It won't dawn for you--death!"
+
+Stones, the last thing Travis remembered were the stones. Slowly his
+hands went out to explore his body. There was more than one bruised area
+on his shoulders and ribs, even on his thighs. He must still have been a
+target after he had fallen under the stone which had knocked him
+unconscious. Stoned ... outlawed! But why? Surely Deklay's hostility
+could not have swept Buck, Jil-Lee, Tsoay, even Nolan, into agreeing to
+that? Now he could not think straight.
+
+Travis became aware of warmth, not only of warmth and the soft touch of
+a furred body by his side, but a comforting communication of mind, a
+feeling he had no words to describe adequately. Nalik'ideyu was sitting
+crowded against him, her nose thrust up to rest on his shoulder. She
+breathed in soft puffs which stirred the loose locks of his rain-damp
+hair. And now he flung one arm about her, a gesture which brought a
+whisper of answering whine.
+
+He was past wondering about the actions of the coyotes, only supremely
+thankful for Nalik'ideyu's present companionship. And a moment later
+when her mate squeezed under the low loop of a branch and joined them
+in this natural wickiup, Travis held out his other hand, drew it
+lovingly across Naginlta's wet hide.
+
+"Now what?" he asked aloud. Deklay could only have taken such a drastic
+action with the majority of the clan solidly behind him. It could well
+be that this reactionary was the new chief, this act of Travis'
+expulsion merely adding to Deklay's growing prestige.
+
+The shivering which had begun when Travis recovered consciousness, still
+shook him at intervals. Back on Terra, like all the others in the team,
+he had had every inoculation known to the space physicians, including
+several experimental ones. But the cold virus could still practically
+immobilize a man, and this was no time to give body room to chills and
+fever.
+
+Catching his breath as his movements touched to life the pain in one
+bruise after another, Travis peeled off his soaked clothing, rubbed his
+body dry with handfuls of last year's leaves culled from the thick
+carpet under him, knowing there was nothing he could do until the
+whirling in his head disappeared. So he burrowed into the leaves until
+only his head was uncovered, and tried to sleep, the coyotes curling up
+one on either side of his nest.
+
+He dreamed but later could not remember any incident from those dreams,
+save a certain frustration and fear. When he awoke, again to the sound
+of steady rain, it was dark. He reached out--both coyotes were gone. His
+head was clearer and suddenly he knew what must be done. As soon as his
+body was strong enough, he, too, would return to instincts and customs
+of the past. This situation was desperate enough for him to challenge
+Deklay.
+
+In the dark Travis frowned. He was slightly taller, and three or four
+years younger than his enemy. But Deklay had the advantage in a stouter
+build and longer reach. However, Travis was sure that in his present
+life Deklay had never fought a duel--Apache fashion. And an Apache duel
+was not a meeting anyone entered into lightly. Travis had the right to
+enter the rancheria and deliver such a challenge. Then Deklay must meet
+him or admit himself in the wrong. That part of it was simple.
+
+But in the past such duels had just one end, a fatal one for at least
+one of the fighters. If Travis took this trail, he must be prepared to
+go the limit. And he didn't want to kill Deklay! There were too few of
+them here on Topaz to make any loss less than a real catastrophe. While
+he had no liking for Deklay, neither did he nurse any hatred. However,
+he must challenge the other or remain a tribal outcast; and Travis had
+no right to gamble with time and the future, not after what he had
+learned in the tower. It might be his life and skill, or Deklay's,
+against the blotting out of them all--and their home world into the
+bargain.
+
+First, he must locate the present camp of the clan. If Nolan's arguments
+had counted, they would be heading south away from the pass. And to
+follow would draw him farther from the tower valley. Travis' battered
+face ached as he grinned bitterly. This was another time when a man
+could wish he were two people, a scout on sentry duty at the valley, the
+fighter heading in the opposite direction to have it out with Deklay.
+But since he was merely one man he would have to gamble on time, one of
+the trickiest risks of all.
+
+Before dawn Nalik'ideyu returned, carrying with her a bird--or at least
+birds must have been somewhere in the creature's ancestry, but the
+present representative of its kind had only vestigial remnants of wings,
+its trailing feet and legs well developed and far more powerful.
+
+Travis skinned the corpse, automatically putting aside some spine quills
+to feather future arrows. Then he ate slivers of dusky meat raw,
+throwing the bones to Nalik'ideyu.
+
+Though he was still stiff and sore, Travis was determined to be on his
+way. He tried mind contact with the coyote, picturing the Apaches,
+notably Deklay, as sharply as he could by mental image. And her assent
+was clear in return. She and her mate were willing to lead him to the
+tribe. He gave a light sigh of relief.
+
+As he slogged on through the depressing drizzle, the Apache wondered
+again why the coyotes had left him before and waited in the tower
+valley. What link was there between the animals of Terra and the remains
+of the long-ago empire of the stars? For he was certain it was not by
+chance that Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta had lingered in that misty place.
+He longed to communicate with them directly, to ask questions and be
+answered.
+
+Without their aid, Travis would never have been able to track the clan.
+The drizzle alternated with slashing bursts of rain, torrential enough
+to drive the trackers to the nearest cover. Overhead the sky was either
+dull bronze or night black. Even the coyotes paced nose to ground, often
+making wide casts for the trail while Travis waited.
+
+The rain lasted for three days and nights, filling watercourses with
+rapidly rising streams. Travis could only hope that the others were
+having the same difficulty traveling that he was, perhaps the more so
+since they were burdened with packs. The fact that they kept on meant
+that they were determined to get as far from the northern mountains as
+they could.
+
+On the fourth morning the bronze of the clouds slowly thinned into the
+usual gold, and the sun struck across hills where mist curled like steam
+from a hundred bubbling pots. Travis relaxed in the welcome warmth,
+feeling his shirt dry on his shoulders. It was still a waterlogged
+terrain ahead which should continue to slow the clan. He had high
+expectations of catching up with them soon, and now the worst of his
+bruises had faded. His muscles were limber, and he had worked out his
+plan as best he could.
+
+Two hours later he sat in ambush, waiting for the scout who was walking
+into his hands. Under the direction of the coyotes, Travis had circled
+the line of march, come in ahead of the clan. Now he needed an emissary
+to state his challenge, and the fact that the scout he was about to jump
+was Manulito, one of Deklay's supporters, suited Travis' purpose
+perfectly. He gathered his feet under him as the other came opposite,
+and sprang.
+
+The rush carried Manulito off his feet and face down on the sod while
+Travis made the best of his advantage and pinned the wildly fighting man
+under him. Had it been one of the older braves he might not have been so
+successful, but Manulito was still a boy by Apache standards.
+
+"Lie still!" Travis ordered. "Listen well--so you can say to Deklay the
+words of the Fox!"
+
+The frenzied struggles ceased. Manulito managed to wrench his head to
+the left so he could see his captor. Travis loosened his grip, got to
+his feet. Manulito sat up, his face darkly sullen, but he did not reach
+for his knife.
+
+"You will say this to Deklay: The Fox says he is a man of little sense
+and less courage, preferring to throw stones rather than meet knife to
+knife as does a warrior. If he thinks as a warrior, let him prove
+it--his strength against my strength--after the ways of the People!"
+
+Some of the sullenness left Manulito's expression. He was eager,
+excited.
+
+"You would duel with Deklay after the old custom?"
+
+"I would. Say this to Deklay, openly so that all men may hear. Then
+Deklay must also give answer openly."
+
+Manulito flushed at that implication concerning his leader's courage,
+and Travis knew that he would deliver the challenge openly. To keep his
+hold on the clan the latter must accept it, and there would be an
+audience of his people to witness the success or defeat of their new
+chief and his policies.
+
+As Manulito disappeared Travis summoned the coyotes, putting full effort
+into getting across one message. Any tribe led by Deklay would be
+hostile to the mutant animals. They must go into hiding, run free in the
+wilderness if the gamble failed Travis. Now they withdrew into the
+bushes but not out of reach of his mind.
+
+He did not have too long to wait. First came Jil-Lee, Buck, Nolan,
+Tsoay, Lupe--those who had been with him on the northern scout. Then the
+others, the warriors first, the women making a half circle behind,
+leaving a free space in which Deklay walked.
+
+"I am the Fox," Travis stated. "And this one has named me witch and
+_natdahe_, outlaw of the mountains. Therefore do I come to name names in
+my turn. Hear me, People: This Deklay--he would walk among you as
+_'izesnantan_, a great chief--but he does not have the _go'ndi_, the
+holy power of a chief. For this Deklay is a fool, with a head filled by
+nothing but his own wishes, not caring for his clan brothers. He says he
+leads you into safety; I say he leads you into the worst danger any
+living man can imagine--even in peyote dreams! He is one twisted in his
+thoughts, and he would make you twisted also----"
+
+Buck cut in sharply, hushing the murmur of the massed clan.
+
+"These are bold words, Fox. Will you back them?"
+
+Travis' hands were already peeling off his shirt. "I will back them," he
+stated between set teeth. He had known since his awakening after the
+stoning that this next move was the only one left for him to make. But
+now that the testing of his action came, he could not be certain of the
+outcome, of anything save that the final decision of this battle might
+affect more than the fate of two men. He stripped, noting that Deklay
+was doing the same.
+
+Having stepped into the center of the glade, Nolan was using the point
+of his knife to score a deep-ridged circle there. Naked except for his
+moccasins, with only his knife in his hand, Travis took the two strides
+which put him in the circle facing Deklay. He surveyed his opponent's
+finely muscled body, realizing that his earlier estimate of Deklay's
+probable advantages were close to the mark. In sheer strength the other
+outmatched him. Whether Deklay was skillful with his knife was another
+question, one which Travis would soon be able to answer.
+
+They circled, eyes intent upon each move, striving to weigh and measure
+each other's strengths and weaknesses. Knife dueling among the
+Pinda-lick-o-yi, Travis remembered, had once been an art close to
+finished swordplay, with two evenly matched fighters able to engage for
+a long time without seriously marking each other. But this was a far
+rougher and more deadly game, with none of the niceties of such a
+meeting.
+
+He evaded a vicious thrust from Deklay.
+
+"The bull charges," he laughed. "And the Fox snaps!" By some incredible
+stroke of good fortune, the point of his weapon actually grazed Deklay's
+arm, drawing a thin, red inch-long line across the skin.
+
+"Charge again, bull. Feel once more the Fox's teeth!"
+
+He strove to goad Deklay into a crippling loss of temper, knowing how
+the other could explode into violent rage. It was dangerous, that rage,
+but it could also make a man blindly careless.
+
+There was an inarticulate sound from Deklay, a dusky swelling in the
+man's face. He spat, as might an enraged puma, and rushed at Travis who
+did not quite manage to avoid the lunge, falling back with a smarting
+slash across the ribs.
+
+"The bull gores!" Deklay bellowed. "Horns toss the Fox!"
+
+He rushed again, elated by the sight of the trickling wound on Travis'
+side. But the slighter man slipped away.
+
+Travis knew he must be careful in such evasions. One foot across the
+ridged circle and he was finished as much as if Deklay's blade had found
+its mark. Travis tried a thrust of his own, and his foot came down hard
+on a sharp pebble. Through the sole of his moccasin pain shot upward,
+caused him to stumble. Again the scarlet flame of a wound, down his
+shoulder and forearm this time.
+
+Well, there was one trick, he knew. Travis tossed the knife into the
+air, caught it with his left hand. Deklay was now facing a left-handed
+fighter and must adjust to that.
+
+"Paw, bull, rattle your horns!" Travis cried. "The Fox still shows his
+teeth!"
+
+Deklay recovered from his instant of surprise. With a cry which was
+indeed like the bellow of an old range bull, he rushed into grapple,
+sure of his superior strength against a younger and already wounded man.
+
+Travis ducked, one knee thumping the ground. He groped out with his
+right hand, caught up a handful of earth, and flung it into the dusky
+brown face. Again it seemed that luck was on his side. That handful
+could not be as blinding as sand, but some bit of the shower landed in
+Deklay's eye.
+
+For a space of seconds Deklay was wide open--open for a blow which would
+rip him up the middle, the blow Travis could not and would not deliver.
+
+Instead, he took the offensive recklessly, springing straight for his
+opponent. As the earth-grimed fingers of one hand clawed into Deklay's
+face, he struck with the other, not with the point of the knife but with
+its shaft. But Deklay, already only half conscious from the blow, had
+his own chance. He fell to the ground, leaving his knife behind, two
+inches of steel between Travis' ribs.
+
+Somehow--he didn't know from where he drew that strength--Travis kept
+his feet and took one step and then another, out of the circle until the
+comforting brace of a tree trunk was against his bare back. Was he
+finished--?
+
+He fought to nurse his rags of consciousness. Had he summoned Buck with
+his eyes? Or had the urgency of what he had to say reached somehow from
+mind to mind? The other was at his side, but Travis put out a hand to
+ward him off.
+
+"Towers--" He struggled to keep his wits through the pain and billowing
+weakness beginning to creep through him. "Reds mustn't get to the
+towers! Worse than the bomb ... end us all!"
+
+He had a hazy glimpse of Nolan and Jil-Lee closing in about him. The
+desire to cough tore at him, but they had to know, to believe....
+
+"Reds get to the towers--everything finished. Not only here ... maybe
+back home too...."
+
+Did he read comprehension on Buck's face? Would Nolan and Jil-Lee and
+the rest believe him? Travis could not suppress the cough any longer,
+and the ripping pain which followed was the worst he had ever
+experienced. But still he kept his feet, tried to make them understand.
+
+"Don't let them get to the towers. Find that storehouse!"
+
+Travis stood away from the tree, reached out to Buck his earth and
+bloodstained hand. "I swear ... truth ... this must be done!"
+
+He was going down, and he had a queer thought that once he reached the
+ground everything would end, not only for him but also for his mission.
+Trying to see the faces of the men about him was like attempting to
+identify the people in a dream.
+
+"Towers!" He had meant to shout it, but he could not even hear for
+himself that last word as he fell.
+
+
+
+
+14
+
+
+Travis' back was braced against blanketed packs as he steadied a piece
+of light-yellow bark against one bent knee scowling at the lines drawn
+on it in faint green.
+
+"We are here then ... and the ship there--" His thumb was set on one
+point of the crude map, forefinger on the other. Buck nodded.
+
+"That is so. Tsoay, Eskelta, Kawaykle, they watch the trails. There is
+the pass, two other ways men can come on foot. But who can watch the
+air?"
+
+"The Tatars say the Reds dare not bring the 'copter into the mountains.
+After they first landed they lost a flyer in a tricky air-current flow
+up there. They have only one left and won't risk it. If only they aren't
+reinforced before we can move!" There it was again, that constant
+gnawing fear of time, time shortening into a rope to strangle them all.
+
+"You think that the knowledge of our ship will bring them into the
+open?"
+
+"That--or information about the towers would be the only things
+important enough to pull out their experts. They could send a controlled
+Tatar party to explore the ship, sure. But that wouldn't give them the
+technical reports they need. No, I think if they knew a wrecked Western
+Confederation ship was here, it would bring them--or enough of them to
+lessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open. Otherwise, they can
+hole up forever in that ship-fort of theirs."
+
+"And just how do we let them know our ship is here? Send out another
+scouting party and let them be trailed back?"
+
+"That's our last resource." Travis continued to frown at the map. Yes,
+it would be possible to let the Reds sight and trail an Apache party.
+But there was none in the clan who were expendable. Surely there was
+some other way of laying the trap with the wrecked ship for bait.
+Capture one of the Reds, let him escape again, having seen what they
+wanted him to see? Again a time-wasting business. And how long would
+they have to wait and what risks would they take to pick up a Red
+prisoner?
+
+"If the Tatars were dependable...." Buck was thinking aloud.
+
+But that "if" was far too big. They could not trust the Tatars. No
+matter how much the Mongols wanted to aid in pulling down the Reds, as
+long as they could be controlled by the caller they were useless. Or
+were they?
+
+"Thought of something?" Buck must have caught Travis' change of
+expression.
+
+"Suppose a Tatar saw our ship and then was picked up by a Red hunting
+patrol and they got the information out of him?"
+
+"Do you think any outlaw would volunteer to let himself be picked up
+again? And if he did, wouldn't the Reds also be able to learn that he
+had been set up for the trap?"
+
+"An escaped prisoner?" Travis suggested.
+
+Now Buck was plainly considering the possibilities of such a scheme. And
+Travis' own spirits rose a little. The idea was full of holes, but it
+could be worked out. Suppose they capture, say, Menlik, bring him here
+as a prisoner, let him think they were about to kill him because of that
+attack back in the foothills. Then let him escape, pursue him northward
+to a point where he could be driven into the hands of the Reds? Very
+chancy, but it just might work. Travis was favoring a gamble now, since
+his desperate one with the duel had paid off.
+
+The risk he had accepted then had cost him two deep wounds, one of which
+might have been serious if Jil-Lee's project-sponsored medical training
+had not been to hand. But it had also made Travis one of the clan again,
+with his people willing to listen to his warning concerning the tower
+treasury.
+
+"The girl--the Tatar girl!"
+
+At first Travis did not understand Buck's ejaculation.
+
+"We get the girl," the other elaborated, "let her escape, then hunt her
+to where they'll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship to
+begin with."
+
+Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for the
+leading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck's
+choice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures.
+The Tatars themselves had found wives that way in the past, just as the
+Apache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wickiups. Yes,
+for raiders to steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as such
+by the Reds. For the same woman to endeavor to escape and be hunted by
+her captors also was reasonable. And for such a woman, cut off from her
+outlaw kin, to eventually head back toward the Red settlement as the
+only hope of evading her enemies--logical all the way!
+
+"She would have to be well frightened," Travis observed with reluctance.
+
+"That can be done for us--"
+
+Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certain
+games out of their common past to be played with Kaydessa. But Buck had
+something very different from old-time brutality in mind.
+
+"Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Deklay and I
+went back to the ship--"
+
+"Deklay?"
+
+"You beat him openly, so he must restore his honor in his own sight. And
+the council has forbidden another duel or challenge," Buck replied.
+"Therefore he will continue to push for recognition in another way. And
+now that he has heard your story and knows we must face the Reds, not
+run from them, he is eager to take the war trail--too eager. So we
+returned to the ship to make another search for weapons----"
+
+"There were none there before except those we had...."
+
+"Nor now either. But we discovered something else." Buck paused and
+Travis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by a
+note in the other's voice. It was as if Buck had come upon something he
+could not summon the right words to describe.
+
+"First," Buck continued, "there was this dead thing there, near where
+we found Dr. Ruthven. It was something like a man ... but all silvery
+hair----"
+
+"The ape-things! The ape-things from the other worlds! What else did you
+see?" Travis had dropped the map. His side gave him a painful twinge as
+he caught at Buck's sleeve. The bald space rovers--did they still exist
+here somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the pattern
+of their own but manned by Terrans?
+
+"Nothing except tracks, a lot of them, in every open cabin and hole. I
+think there must have been a sizable pack of the things."
+
+"What killed the dead one?"
+
+Buck wet his lips. "I think--fear...." His voice dropped a little,
+almost apologetically, and Travis stared.
+
+"The ship is changed. Inside, there is something wrong. When you walk
+the corridors your skin crawls, you think there is something behind you.
+You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes.... When you
+turn, there's nothing, nothing at all! And the higher you climb into the
+ship, the worse it is. I tell you, Travis, never have I felt anything
+like it before!"
+
+"It was a ship of many dead," Travis reminded him. Had the age-old
+Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute
+phobia--to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck?
+
+"No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it was
+worst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in the
+Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but running
+in a wrong way--so that it does not awaken old memories of our
+ancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have ever
+haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I came
+out of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were a
+child. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There
+is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl,
+were she only to stay there a very short time, would be well
+frightened--so frightened that any trained scientist examining her later
+would know there was a mystery to be explored."
+
+"The ape-things--could they have tried to run the Redax?" Travis
+wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure
+folly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old
+civilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent the
+degenerate remnants of a once intelligent species.
+
+"That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out and
+killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now."
+
+"But for us to use the girl...." Travis had seen the logic in Buck's
+first suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship was
+as terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, even
+temporarily, was still wrong.
+
+"She need not remain long. Suppose we should do this: We shall enter
+with her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. We
+could run, leave her alone. When she left the ship, we could then take
+up the chase, shepherding her back to the country she knows. Within the
+ship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long."
+
+Travis could see a good prospect in that plan. There was one thing he
+would insist on--if Kaydessa was to be in that ship, he himself would be
+one of the "captors." He said as much, and Buck accepted his
+determination as final.
+
+They dispatched a scouting party to infiltrate the territory to the
+north, to watch and wait their chance of capture. Travis strove to
+regain his feet, to be ready to move when the moment came.
+
+Five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay the
+wrecked ship. With him were Jil-Lee, Lupe, and Manulito. They satisfied
+themselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Deklay;
+there was no sign that the ape-things had returned.
+
+"From here," Travis said, "the ship doesn't look too bad, almost as if
+it might be able to take off again."
+
+"It might lift," Jil-Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve of
+the globe--"about that far. The tubes on this side are intact."
+
+"What would happen were the Reds to get inside and try to fly again?"
+Manulito wondered aloud.
+
+Travis was struck by a sudden idea, one perhaps just as wild as the
+other inspirations he had had since landing on Topaz, but one to be
+studied and explored--not dismissed without consideration. Suppose
+enough power remained to lift the ship partially and then blow it up?
+With the Red technicians on board at the time.... But he was no
+engineer, he had no idea whether any part of the globe might or might
+not work again.
+
+"They are not fools; a close look would tell them it is a wreck,"
+Jil-Lee countered.
+
+Travis walked on. Not too far ahead a yellow-brown shape moved out of
+the brush, stood stiff-legged in his path, facing the ship and growling
+in a harsh rumble of sound. Whatever moved or operated in that wreck was
+picked up by the acute sense of the coyote, even at this distance.
+
+"On!" Travis edged around the snarling animal. With one halting step and
+then another, it followed him. There was a sharp warning yelp from the
+brush, and a second coyote head appeared. Naginlta followed Travis, but
+Nalik'ideyu refused to approach the grounded globe.
+
+Travis surveyed the ship closely, trying to remember the layout of its
+interior. To turn the whole sphere into a trap--was it possible? How had
+Ashe said the Redax worked? Something about high-frequency waves
+stimulating certain brain and nerve centers.
+
+What if one were shielded from those rays? That tear in the side--he
+himself must have climbed through that the night they crashed. And the
+break was not too far from the space lock. Near the lock was a storage
+compartment. And if it had not been jammed, or its contents crushed,
+they might have something. He beckoned to Jil-Lee.
+
+"Give me a hand--up there."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I want to see if the space suits are intact."
+
+Jil-Lee regarded Travis with open bewilderment, but Manulito pushed
+forward. "We do not need those suits to walk here, Travis. This air we
+can breathe--"
+
+"Not for the air, and not in the open." Travis advanced at a deliberate
+pace. "Those suits may be insulated in more ways than one----"
+
+"Against a mixed-up Redax broadcast, you mean!" Jil-Lee exclaimed.
+"Yes, but you stay here, younger brother. This is a risky climb, and you
+are not yet strong."
+
+Travis was forced to accede to that, waiting as Manulito and Lupe
+climbed up to the tear and entered. At least Buck and Deklay's
+experience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weird
+ghosts haunting the interior.
+
+But when they returned, pulling between them the limp space suit, both
+men were pale, the shiny sheen of sweat on their foreheads, their hands
+shaking. Lupe sat down on the ground before Travis.
+
+"Evil spirits," he said, giving to this modern phenomenon the old name.
+"Truly ghosts and witches walk in there."
+
+Manulito had spread the suit on the ground and was examining it with a
+care which spoke of familiarity.
+
+"This is unharmed," he reported. "Ready to wear."
+
+The suits were all tailored for size, Travis knew. And this fitted a
+slender, medium-sized man. It would fit him, Travis Fox. But Manulito
+was already unbuckling the fastenings with practiced ease.
+
+"I shall try it out," he announced. And Travis, seeing the awkward climb
+to the entrance of the ship, had to agree that the first test should be
+carried out by someone more agile at the moment.
+
+Sealed into the suit, with the bubble helmet locked in place, the Apache
+climbed back into the globe. The only form of communication with him was
+the rope he had tied about him, and if he went above the first level, he
+would have to leave that behind.
+
+In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along the
+rope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, to
+find it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and was
+climbing to the control cabin.
+
+They continued to wait with what patience they could muster. Naginlta,
+pacing up and down a good distance from the ship, whined at intervals,
+the warning echoed each time by his mate upslope.
+
+"I don't like it--" Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared
+again at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulito
+reached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and then
+stood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.
+
+"Well?" Travis demanded.
+
+"I see no ghosts," Manulito said, grinning. "This is ghost-proof!" He
+slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. "There is
+also this--from what I know of these ships--some of the relays still
+work. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Reds
+in and then...." His hand moved in a quick upward flip.
+
+"But we don't know anything about the engines," Travis replied.
+
+"No? Listen--you, Fox, are not the only one to remember useful
+knowledge." Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. "Do you think we are
+just the savages those big brains back at the project wished us to be?
+They have played a trick on us with their Redax. So, we can play a few
+tricks, too. Me--? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you no
+longer remember, Fox?"
+
+Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until this
+very minute. From the beginning, the Apache team had been carefully
+selected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was their
+basic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Just
+as Travis' grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so had
+Manulito's technical training made a valuable, though different,
+contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smothered
+that training, perhaps the effects were now fading.
+
+"You can do something, then?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"I can try. There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least.
+And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be
+tough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?"
+
+"Not until after we use it on our captive," Jil-Lee decided. "Then there
+would be some time before the Reds come----"
+
+"You talk as if they _will_ come," cut in Lupe. "How can you be sure?"
+
+"We can't," Travis agreed. "But we can count on this much, judging from
+the past. Once they know that there is a wrecked ship here, they will be
+forced to explore it. They cannot afford an enemy settlement on this
+side of the mountains. That would be, according to their way of
+thinking, an eternal threat."
+
+Jil-Lee nodded. "That is true. This is a complicated plan, yes, and one
+in which many things may go wrong. But it is also one which covers all
+the loopholes we know of."
+
+With Lupe's aid Manulito crawled out of the suit. As he leaned it
+carefully against a supporting rock he said:
+
+"I have been thinking of this treasure house in the towers. Suppose we
+could find new weapons there...."
+
+Travis hesitated. He still shrank from the thought of opening the secret
+places behind those glowing walls, to loose a new peril.
+
+"If we took weapons from there and lost the fight...." He advanced his
+first objection and was glad to see the expression of comprehension on
+Jil-Lee's face.
+
+"It would be putting the weapons straight into Red hands," the other
+agreed.
+
+"We may have to chance it before we're through," Manulito warned.
+"Suppose we do get some of their technicians into this trap. That isn't
+going to open up their main defense for us. We may need a bigger
+nutcracker than we've ever seen."
+
+With a return of that queasy feeling he had known in the tower, Travis
+knew Manulito was speaking sense. They might have to open Pandora's box
+before the end of this campaign.
+
+
+
+
+15
+
+
+They camped another two days near the wrecked ship while Manulito
+prowled the haunted corridors and cabins in his space suit, planning his
+booby trap. At night he drew diagrams on pieces of bark and discussed
+the possibility of this or that device, sometimes lapsing into
+technicalities his companions could not follow. But Travis was well
+satisfied that Manulito knew what he was doing.
+
+On the morning of the third day Nolan slipped into their midst. He was
+dust-grimed, his face gaunt, the signs of hard travel plain to read.
+Travis handed him the nearest canteen, and they watched him drink
+sparingly in small sips before he spoke.
+
+"They come ... with the girl--"
+
+"You had trouble?" asked Jil-Lee.
+
+"The Tatars had moved their camp, which was only wise, since the Reds
+must have had a line on the other one. And they are now farther to the
+west. But--" he wiped his lips with the back of his hand--"also we saw
+your towers, Fox. And that is a place of power!"
+
+"No sign that the Reds are prowling there?"
+
+Nolan shook his head. "To my mind the mists there conceal the towers
+from aerial view. Only one coming on foot could tell them from the
+natural crags of the hills."
+
+Travis relaxed. Time still granted them a margin of grace. He glanced up
+to see Nolan smiling faintly.
+
+"This maiden, she is a kin to the puma of the mountains," he announced.
+"She has marked Tsoay with her claws until he looks like the ear-clipped
+yearling fresh from the branding chute----"
+
+"She is not hurt?" Travis demanded.
+
+This time Nolan chuckled openly. "Hurt? No, we had much to do to keep
+her from hurting us, younger brother. That one is truly as she claims, a
+daughter of wolves. And she is also keen-witted, marking a return trail
+all the way, though she does not know that is as we wish. Did we not
+pick the easiest way back for just that reason? Yes, she plans to
+escape."
+
+Travis stood up. "Let us finish this quickly!" His voice came out on a
+rough note. This plan had never had his full approval. Now he found it
+less and less easy to think about taking Kaydessa into the ship,
+allowing the emotional torment lurking there to work upon her. Yet he
+knew that the girl would not be hurt, and he had made sure he would be
+beside her within the globe, sharing with her the horror of the unseen.
+
+A rattling of gravel down the narrow valley opening gave warning to
+those by the campfire. Manulito had already stowed the space suit in
+hiding. To Kaydessa they must have seemed reverted entirely to savagery.
+
+Tsoay came first, an angry raking of four parallel scratches down his
+left cheek. And behind him Buck and Eskelta shoved the prisoner, urging
+her on with a show of roughness which did not descend to actual
+brutality. Her long braids had shaken loose, and a sleeve was torn,
+leaving one slender arm bare. But none of the fighting spirit had left
+her.
+
+They thrust her out into the circle of waiting men and she planted her
+feet firmly apart, glaring at them all indiscriminately until she
+sighted Travis. Then her anger became hotter and more deadly.
+
+"Pig! Rooter in the dirt! Diseased camel--" she shouted at him in
+English and then reverted to her own tongue, her voice riding up and
+down the scale. Her hands were tied behind her back, but there were no
+bonds on her tongue.
+
+"This is one who can speak thunders, and shoot lightnings from her
+mouth," Buck commented in Apache. "Put her well away from the wood, lest
+she set it aflame."
+
+Tsoay held his hands over his ears. "She can deafen a man when she
+cannot set her mark on him otherwise. Let us speedily get rid of her."
+
+Yet for all their jeering comments, their eyes held respect. Often in
+the past a defiant captive who stood up boldly to his captors had
+received more consideration than usual from Apache warriors; courage was
+a quality they prized. A Pinda-lick-o-yi such as Tom Jeffords, who rode
+into Cochise's camp and sat in the midst of his sworn enemies for a
+parley, won the friendship of the very chief he had been fighting.
+Kaydessa had more influence with her captors than she could dream of
+holding.
+
+Now it was time for Travis to play his part. He caught the girl's
+shoulder and pushed her before him toward the wreck.
+
+Some of the spirit seemed to have left her thin, tense body, and she
+went without any more fight. Only when they came into full view of the
+ship did she falter. Travis heard her breathe a gasp of surprise.
+
+As they had planned, four of the Apaches--Jil-Lee, Tsoay, Nolan, and
+Buck--fanned out toward the heights about the ship. Manulito had already
+gone to cover, to don the space suit and prepare for any accident.
+
+Resolutely Travis continued to propel Kaydessa ahead. At the moment he
+did not know which was worse, to enter the ship expecting the fear to
+strike, or to meet it unprepared. He was ready to refuse to enter, not
+to allow the girl, sullenly plodding on under his compulsion, to face
+that unseen but potent danger.
+
+Only the memory of the towers and the threat of the Reds finding and
+exploiting the treasure there kept him going. Eskelta went first,
+climbing to the tear. Travis cut the ropes binding Kaydessa's wrists and
+gave her a slight slap between the shoulders.
+
+"Climb, woman!" His anxiety made that a harsh order and she climbed.
+
+Eskelta was inside now, heading for the cabin which might reasonably be
+selected as a prison. They planned to get the girl as far as that point
+and then stage their act of being overcome by fear, allowing her to
+escape.
+
+Stage an act? Travis was not two feet along that corridor before he knew
+that there would be little acting needed on his part. The thing which
+pervaded the ship did not attack sharply, rather it seeped into his mind
+and body as if he drew in poison with every breath, sent it racing
+along his veins with every beat of a laboring heart. Yet he could not
+put any name to his feelings, except an awful, weakening fear which
+weighted him heavier with every step he took.
+
+Kaydessa screamed. Not this time in rage, but with such fervor that
+Travis lost his hold, staggered back to the wall. She whirled about, her
+face contorted, and sprang at him.
+
+It was indeed like trying to fight a wildcat and after the first second
+or two he was hard put to protect his eyes, his face, his side, without
+injuring her in return. She scrambled over him, running for the break in
+the wall, and disappeared. Travis gasped, and started to crawl for the
+break. Eskelta loomed over him, pulled him up in haste.
+
+They reached the opening but did not climb through. Travis was uncertain
+as to whether he could make that descent yet, and Eskelta was obeying
+orders in not venturing out too soon.
+
+Below, the ground was bare. There was no sign of the Apaches, though
+they were in hiding there--and none of Kaydessa. Travis was amazed that
+she had vanished so quickly.
+
+Still uneasy from the emanation within, they perched within the shadow
+of the break until Travis thought that the fugitive had a good
+five-minute start. Then he nodded a signal to Eskelta.
+
+By the time they reached ground level Travis felt a warm wetness
+spreading under his shielding palm and he knew the wound had opened. He
+spoke a word or two in hot protest against that mishap, knowing it would
+keep him from the trail. Kaydessa must be covered all the way back
+across the pass, not only to be shepherded away from her people and
+toward the plains where she could be picked up by a Red patrol, but also
+to keep her from danger. And he had planned from the first to be one of
+those shepherds.
+
+Now he was about as much use as a trail-lame pony. However, he could
+send deputies. He thought out his call, and Nalik'ideyu's head appeared
+in a frame of bush.
+
+"Go, both of you and run with her! Guard--!" He said the words in a
+whisper, thought them with a fierce intensity as he centered his gaze on
+the yellow eyes in the pointed coyote face. There was a feeling of
+assent, and then the animal was gone. Travis sighed.
+
+The Apache scouts were subtle and alert, but the coyotes could far outdo
+any man. With Nalik'ideyu and Naginlta flanking her flight, Kaydessa
+would be well guarded. She would probably never see her guards or know
+that they were running protection for her.
+
+"That was a good move," Jil-Lee said, coming out of concealment. "But
+what have you done to yourself?" He stepped closer, pulling Travis' hand
+away from his side. By the time Lupe came to report, Travis was again
+wound in a strapping bandage pulled tightly about his lower ribs, and
+reconciled to the fact that any trailing he would do must be well to the
+rear of the first party.
+
+"The towers," he said to Jil-Lee. "If our plan works, we can catch part
+of the Reds here. But we still have their ship to take, and for that we
+need help which we may find at the towers. Or at least we can be on
+guard there if they return with Kaydessa on that path."
+
+Lupe dropped down lightly from an upper ledge. He was grinning.
+
+"That woman is one who thinks. She runs from the ship first as a rabbit
+with a wolf at her heels. Then she begins to think. She climbs--" He
+lifted one finger to the slope behind them. "She goes behind a rock to
+watch under cover. When Fox comes from the ship with Eskelta, again she
+climbs. Buck lets himself be seen, so she moves east, as we wish--"
+
+"And now?" questioned Travis.
+
+"She is keeping to the high ways; almost she thinks like one of the
+People on the war trail. Nolan believes she will hole up for the night
+somewhere above. He will make sure."
+
+Travis licked his lips. "She has no food or water."
+
+Jil-Lee's lips shaped a smile. "They will see that she comes upon both
+as if by chance. We have planned all of this, as you know, younger
+brother."
+
+That was true. Travis knew that Kaydessa would be guided without her
+knowledge by the "accidental" appearance now and then of some
+pursuer--just enough to push her along.
+
+"Then, too, she is now armed," Jil-Lee added.
+
+"How?" demanded Travis.
+
+"Look to your own belt, younger brother. Where is your knife?"
+
+Startled, Travis glanced down. His sheath was empty, and he had not
+needed that blade since he had drawn it to cut meat at the morning meal.
+Lupe laughed.
+
+"She had steel in her hand when she came out of that ghost ship."
+
+"Took it from me while we struggled!" Travis was openly surprised. He
+had considered the frenzy displayed by the Tatar girl as an outburst of
+almost mindless terror. Yet Kaydessa had had wit enough to take his
+knife! Could this be another case where one race was less affected by a
+mind machine than the other? Just as the Apaches had not been governed
+by the Red caller, so the Tatars might not be as sensitive to the Redax.
+
+"She is a strong one, that woman--one worth many ponies." Eskelta
+reverted to the old measure of a wife's value.
+
+"That is true!" Travis agreed emphatically and then was annoyed at the
+broadening of Jil-Lee's smile. Abruptly he changed the subject.
+
+"Manulito is setting the booby trap in the ship."
+
+"That is well. He and Eskelta will remain here, and you with them."
+
+"Not so! We must go to the towers----" Travis protested.
+
+"I thought," Jil-Lee cut in, "that you believed the weapons of the old
+ones too dangerous for us to use."
+
+"Maybe they will be forced into our hands. But we must be sure the
+towers are not entered by the Reds on their way here."
+
+"That is reasonable. But for you, younger brother, no trailing today,
+perhaps not tomorrow. If that wound opens again, you might have much bad
+trouble."
+
+Travis was forced to accept that, in spite of his worry and impatience.
+And the next day when he did move on he had only the report that
+Kaydessa had sheltered beside a pool for the night and was doggedly
+moving back across the mountains.
+
+Three days later Travis, Jil-Lee, and Buck came into the tower valley.
+Kaydessa was in the northern foothills, twice turned back from the west
+and the freedom of the outlaws by the Apache scouts. And only half an
+hour before, Tsoay had reported by mirror what should have been welcome
+news: the Red helicopter was cruising as it had on the day they watched
+the hunters enter the uplands. There was an excellent chance of the
+fugitive's being sighted and picked up soon.
+
+Tsoay had also spotted a party of three Tatars watching the helicopter.
+But after one wide sweep of the flyer they had taken to their ponies and
+ridden away at the fastest pace their mounts could manage in this rough
+territory.
+
+On a stretch of smooth earth Buck scratched a trail, and they studied
+it. The Reds would have to follow this route to seek the wrecked ship--a
+route covered by Apache sentinels. And following the chain of
+communication the result of the trap would be reported to the party at
+the towers.
+
+The waiting was the most difficult; too many imponderables did not allow
+for unemotional thinking. Travis was down to the last shred of patience
+when word came on the second morning at the hidden valley that Kaydessa
+had been picked up by a Red patrol--drawn out to meet them by the
+caller.
+
+"Now--the tower weapons!" Buck answered the report with an imperative
+order to Travis. And the other knew he could no longer postpone the
+inevitable. And only by action could he blot out the haunting mental
+picture of Kaydessa once more drawn into the bondage she so hated.
+
+Flanked by Jil-Lee and Buck, he climbed back through the tower window
+and faced the glowing pillar.
+
+He crossed the room, put out both hands to the sleek pole, uncertain if
+the weird transport would work again. He heard the sharp gasp from the
+others as his body was sucked against the pillar and carried downward
+through the well. Buck followed him, and Jil-Lee came last. Then Travis
+led the way along the underground corridor to the room with the table
+and the reader.
+
+He sat down on the bench, fumbled with the pile of tape disks, knowing
+that the other two were watching him with almost hostile intentness. He
+snapped a disk into the reader, hoping he could correctly interpret the
+directions it gave.
+
+He looked up at the wall before him. Three ... four steps, the correct
+move--and then an unlocking....
+
+"You know?" Buck demanded.
+
+"I can guess----"
+
+"Well?" Jil-Lee moved to the table. "What do we do?"
+
+"This--" Travis came from behind the table, walked to the wall. He put
+out both hands, flattened his palms against the green-blue-purple
+surface and slid them slowly along. Under his touch, the material of the
+wall was cool and hard, unlike the live feel the pillar had. Cool
+until--
+
+One palm, held at arm's length had found the right spot. He slid the
+other hand along in the opposite direction until his arms were level
+with his shoulders. His fingers were able now to press on those points
+of warmth. Travis tensed and pushed hard with all ten fingers.
+
+
+
+
+16
+
+
+At first, as one second and then two passed and there was no response to
+the pressure, Travis thought he had mistaken the reading of the tape.
+Then, directly before his eyes, a dark line cut vertically down the
+wall. He applied more pressure until his fingers were half numb with
+effort. The line widened slowly. Finally he faced a slit some eight feet
+in height, a little more than two in width, and there the opening
+remained.
+
+Light beyond, a cold, gray gleam--like that of a cloudy winter day on
+Terra--and with it the chill of air out of some arctic wasteland.
+Favoring his still bandaged side, Travis scraped through the door ahead
+of the others, and came into the place of gray cold.
+
+"Wauggh!" Travis heard that exclamation from Jil-Lee, could have echoed
+it himself except that he was too astounded by what he had seen to say
+anything at all.
+
+The light came from a grid of bars set far above their heads into the
+native rock which roofed this storehouse, for storehouse it was. There
+were orderly lines of boxes, some large enough to contain a tank, others
+no bigger than a man's fist. Symbols in the same blue-green-purple
+lights of the outer wall shone from their sides.
+
+"What--?" Buck began one question and then changed it to another: "Where
+do we begin to look?"
+
+"Toward the far end." Travis started down the center aisle between rows
+of the massed spoils of another time and world--or worlds. The same tape
+which had given him the clue to the unlocking of the door, emphasized
+the importance of something stored at the far end, an object or objects
+which must be used first. He had wondered about that tape. A sensation
+of urgency, almost of despair, had come through the gabble of alien
+words, the quick sequence of diagrams and pictures. The message might
+have been taped under a threat of some great peril.
+
+There was no dust on the rows of boxes or on the floor underfoot. A
+current of cold, fresh air blew at intervals down the length of the huge
+chamber. They could not see the next aisle across the barriers of stored
+goods, but the only noise was a whisper and the faint sounds of their
+own feet. They came out into an open space backed by the wall, and
+Travis saw what had been so important.
+
+"No!" His protest was involuntary, but his denial loud enough to echo.
+
+Six--six of them--tall, narrow cases set upright against the wall; and
+from their depths, five pairs of dark eyes staring back at him in cold
+measurement. These were the men of the ships--the men Menlik had dreamed
+of--their bald white heads, their thin bodies with the skintight
+covering of the familiar blue-green-purple. Five of them were here,
+alive--watching ... waiting....
+
+Five men--and six boxes. That small fact broke the spell in which those
+eyes held Travis. He looked again at the sixth box to his right.
+Expecting to meet another pair of eyes this time, he was disconcerted to
+face only emptiness. Then, as his gaze traveled downward, he saw what
+lay on the floor there--a skull, a tangle of bones, tattered material
+cobwebbed into dusty rags by time. Whatever had preserved five of the
+star men intact, had failed the sixth of their company.
+
+"They are alive!" Jil-Lee whispered.
+
+"I do not think so," Buck answered. Travis took another step, reached
+out to touch the transparent front of the nearest coffin case. There was
+no change in the eyes of the alien who stood within, no indication that
+if the Apaches could see him, he would be able to return their interest.
+The five stares which had bemused the visitors at first, did not break
+to follow their movements.
+
+But Travis knew! Whether it was some message on the tape which the sight
+of the sleepers made clear, or whether some residue of the driving
+purpose which had set them there now reached his mind, was immaterial.
+He knew the purpose of this room and its contents, why it had been made
+and the reason its six guardians had been left as prisoners--and what
+they wanted from anyone coming after them.
+
+"They sleep," he said softly.
+
+"Sleep?" Buck caught him up.
+
+"They sleep in something like deep freeze."
+
+"Do you mean they can be brought to life again!" Jil-Lee cried.
+
+"Maybe not now--it must be too long--but they were meant to wait out a
+period and be restored."
+
+"How do you know that?" Buck asked.
+
+"I don't know for certain, but I think I understand a little. Something
+happened a long time ago. Maybe it was a war, a war between whole star
+systems, bigger and worse than anything we can imagine. I think this
+planet was an outpost, and when the supply ships didn't come any more,
+when they knew they might be cut off for some length of time, they
+closed down. Stacked their supplies and machines here and then went to
+sleep to wait for their rescuers...."
+
+"For rescuers who never came," Jil-Lee said softly. "And there is a
+chance they could be revived even now?"
+
+Travis shivered. "Not one I would want to take."
+
+"No," Buck's tone was somber, "that I agree to, younger brother. These
+are not men as we know them, and I do not think they would be good
+_dalaanbiyat'i_--allies. They had _go'ndi_ in plenty, these star men,
+but it is not the power of the People. No one but a madman or a fool
+would try to disturb this sleep of theirs."
+
+"The truth you speak," Jil-Lee agreed. "But where in this," he turned
+his shoulder to the sleeping star men and looked back at the filled
+chamber--"do we find anything which will serve us here and now?"
+
+Again Travis had only the scrappiest information to draw upon. "Spread
+out," he told them. "Look for the marking of a circle surrounding four
+dots set in a diamond pattern."
+
+They went, but Travis lingered for a moment to look once more into the
+bleak and bitter eyes of the star men. How many planet years ago had
+they sealed themselves into those boxes? A thousand, ten thousand? Their
+empire was long gone, yet here was an outpost still waiting to be
+revived to carry on its mysterious duties. It was as if in Saxon-invaded
+Britain long ago a Roman garrison had been frozen to await the return of
+the legions. Buck was right; there was no common ground today between
+Terran man and these unknowns. They must continue to sleep undisturbed.
+
+Yet when Travis also turned away and went back down the aisle, he was
+still aware of a persistent pull on him to return. It was as though
+those eyes had set locking cords to will him back to release the
+sleepers. He was glad to turn a corner, to know that they could no
+longer watch him plunder their treasury.
+
+"Here!" That was Buck's voice, but it echoed so oddly across the big
+chamber that Travis had difficulty in deciding what part of the
+warehouse it was coming from. And Buck had to call several times before
+Travis and Jil-Lee joined him.
+
+There was the circle-dot-diamond symbol shining on the side of a case.
+They worked it out of the pile, setting it in the open. Travis knelt to
+run his hands along the top. The container was an unknown alloy, tough,
+unmarked by the years--perhaps indestructible.
+
+Again his fingers located what his eyes could not detect--the
+impressions on the edge, oddly shaped impressions into which his finger
+tips did not fit too comfortably. He pressed, bearing down with the full
+strength of his arms and shoulders, and then lifted up the lid.
+
+The Apaches looked into a set of compartments, each holding an object
+with a barrel, a hand grip, a general resemblance to the sidearms of
+their own world and time, but sufficiently different to point up the
+essential strangeness. With infinite care Travis worked one out of the
+vise-support which held it. The weapon was light in weight, lighter than
+any automatic he had ever held. Its barrel was long, a good eighteen
+inches--the grip alien in shape so that it didn't fit comfortably into
+his hand, the trigger nonexistent, but in its place a button on the
+lower part of the barrel which could be covered by an outstretched
+finger.
+
+"What does it do?" asked Buck practically.
+
+"I'm not sure. But it is important enough to have a special mention on
+the tape." Travis passed the weapon along to Buck and worked another
+loose from its holder.
+
+"No way of loading I can see," Buck said, examining the weapon with care
+and caution.
+
+"I don't think it fires a solid projectile," Travis replied. "We'll have
+to test them outside to find out just what we do have."
+
+The Apaches took only three of the weapons, closing the box before they
+left. And as they wriggled back through the crack door, Travis was
+visited again by that odd flash of compelling, almost possessive power
+he had experienced when they had lain in ambush for the Red hunting
+party. He took a step or two forward until he was able to catch the edge
+of the reading table and steady himself against it.
+
+"What is the matter?" Both Buck and Jil-Lee were watching him;
+apparently neither had felt that sensation. Travis did not reply for a
+second. He was free of it now. But he was sure of its source; it had not
+been any backlash of the Red caller! It was rooted here--a compulsion
+triggered to make the original intentions of the outpost obeyed, a last
+drag from the sleepers. This place had been set up with a single
+purpose: to protect and preserve the ancient rulers of Topaz. And
+perhaps the very presence here of the intruding Terrans had released a
+force, started an unseen installation.
+
+Now Travis answered simply: "They want out...."
+
+Jil-Lee glanced back at the slit door, but Buck still watched Travis.
+
+"They call?" he asked.
+
+"In a way," Travis admitted. But the compulsion had already ebbed; he
+was free. "It is gone now."
+
+"This is not a good place," Buck observed somberly. "We touch that which
+should not be held by men of our earth." He held out the weapon.
+
+"Did not the People take up the rifles of the Pinda-lick-o-yi for their
+defense when it was necessary?" Jil-Lee demanded. "We do what we must.
+After seeing that," his chin indicated the slit and what lay behind
+it--"do you wish the Reds to forage here?"
+
+"Still," Buck's words came slowly, "this is a choice between two evils,
+rather than between an evil and a good--"
+
+"Then let us see how powerful this evil is!" Jil-Lee headed for the
+corridor leading to the pillar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late afternoon when they made their way through the swirling
+mists of the valley under the archway giving on the former site of the
+outlaw Tatar camp. Travis sighted the long barrel of the weapon at a
+small bush backed by a boulder, and he pressed the firing button. There
+was no way of knowing whether the weapon was loaded except to try it.
+
+The result of his action was quick--quick and terrifying. There was no
+sound, no sign of any projectile ... ray-gas ... or whatever might have
+issued in answer to his finger movement. But the bush--the bush was no
+more!
+
+A black smear made a ragged outline of the extinguished branches and
+leaves on the rock which had stood behind. The earth might still enclose
+roots under a thin coating of ash, but the bush was gone!
+
+"The breath of Naye'nezyani--powerful beyond belief!" Buck broke their
+horrified silence first. "In truth evil is here!"
+
+Jil-Lee raised his gun--if gun it could be called--aimed at the rock
+with the bush silhouette plain to see and fired.
+
+This time they were able to witness disintegration in progress, the
+crumble of the stone as if its substance was no more than sand lapped by
+river water. A pile of blackened rubble remained--nothing more.
+
+"To use this on a living thing?" Buck protested, horror basing the doubt
+in his voice.
+
+"We do not use it against living things," Travis promised, "but against
+the ship of the Reds--to cut that to pieces. This will open the shell of
+the turtle and let us at its meat."
+
+Jil-Lee nodded. "Those are true words. But now I agree with your fears
+of this place, Travis. This is a devil thing and must not be allowed to
+fall into the hands of those who--"
+
+"Will use it more freely than we plan to?" Buck wanted to know. "We
+reserve to ourselves that right because we hold our motives higher? To
+think that way is also a crooked trail. We will use this means because
+we must, but afterward...."
+
+Afterward that warehouse must be closed, the tapes giving the entrance
+clue destroyed. One part of Travis fought that decision, right though he
+knew it to be. The towers were the menace he had believed. And what was
+more discouraging than the risk they now ran, was the belief that the
+treasure was a poison which could not be destroyed but which might
+spread from Topaz to Terra.
+
+Suppose the Western Conference had discovered that storehouse and
+explored its riches, would they have been any less eager to exploit
+them? As Buck had pointed out, one's own ideals could well supply
+reasons for violence. In the past Terra had been racked by wars of
+religion, one fanatically held opinion opposed to another. There was no
+righteousness in such struggles, only fatal ends. The Reds had no right
+to this new knowledge--but neither did they. It must be locked against
+the meddling of fools and zealots.
+
+"Taboo--" Buck spoke that word with an emphasis they could appreciate.
+Knowledge must be set behind the invisible barriers of taboo, and that
+could work.
+
+"These three--no more--we found no other weapons!" Jil-Lee added a
+warning suggestion.
+
+"No others," Buck agreed and Travis echoed, adding:
+
+"We found tombs of the space people, and these were left with them.
+Because of our great need we borrowed them, but they must be returned to
+the dead or trouble will follow. And they may only be used against the
+fortress of the Reds by us, who first found them and have taken unto
+ourselves the wrath of disturbed spirits."
+
+"Well thought! That is an answer to give the People. The towers are the
+tombs of dead ones. When we return these they shall be taboo. We are
+agreed?" Buck asked.
+
+"We are agreed!"
+
+Buck tried his weapon on a sapling, saw it vanish into nothingness. None
+of the Apaches wanted to carry the strange guns against their bodies;
+the power made them objects of fear, rather than arms to delight a
+warrior. And when they returned to their temporary camp, they laid all
+three on a blanket and covered them up. But they could not cover up the
+memories of what had happened to bush, rock, and tree.
+
+"If such are their small weapons," Buck observed that evening, "then
+what kind of things did they have to balance our heavy armament? Perhaps
+they were able to burn up worlds!"
+
+"That may be what happened elsewhere," Travis replied. "We do not know
+what put an end to their empire. The capital-planet we found on the
+first voyage had not been destroyed, but it had been evacuated in haste.
+One building had not even been stripped of its furnishings." He
+remembered the battle he had fought there, he and Ross Murdock and the
+winged native, standing up to an attack of the ape-things while the
+winged warrior had used his physical advantage to fly above and bomb the
+enemies with boxes snatched from the piles....
+
+"And here they went to sleep in order to wait out some danger--time or
+disaster--they did not believe would be permanent," Buck mused.
+
+Travis thought he would flee from the eyes of the sleepers throughout
+his dreams that night, but on the contrary he slept heavily, finding it
+hard to rouse when Jil-Lee awakened him for his watch. But he was alert
+when he saw a four-footed shape flit out of the shadows, drink water
+from the stream, and shake itself vigorously in a spray of drops.
+
+"Naginlta!" he greeted the coyote. Trouble? He could have shouted that
+question, but he put a tight rein on his impatience and strove to
+communicate in the only method possible.
+
+No, what the coyote had come to report was not trouble but the fact that
+the one he had been set to guard was headed back into the mountains,
+though others came with her--four others. Nalik'ideyu still watched
+their camp. Her mate had come for further orders.
+
+Travis squatted before the animal, cupped the coyote's jowls between his
+palms. Naginlta suffered his touch with only a small whine of
+uneasiness. With all his power of mental suggestion, Travis strove to
+reach the keen brain he knew was served by the yellow eyes looking into
+his.
+
+The others with Kaydessa were to be led on, taken to the ship. But
+Kaydessa must not suffer harm. When they reached a spot near-by--Travis
+thought of a certain rock beyond the pass--then one of the coyotes was
+to go ahead to the ship. Let the Apaches there know....
+
+Manulito and Eskelta should also be warned by the sentry along the
+peaks, but additional alerting would not go amiss. Those four with
+Kaydessa--they must reach the trap!
+
+"What was that?" Buck rolled out of his blanket.
+
+"Naginlta--" The coyote sped back into the dark again. "The Reds have
+taken the bait, a party of at least four with Kaydessa are moving into
+the foothills, heading south."
+
+But the enemy party was not the only one on the move. In the light of
+day a sentry's mirror from a point in the peaks sent another warning
+down to their camp.
+
+Out in their mountain meadows the Tatar outlaws were on horseback,
+moving toward the entrance of the tower valley. Buck knelt by the
+blanket covering the alien weapons.
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"We'll have to stop them," Travis replied, but he had no idea of just
+how they would halt those determined Mongol horsemen.
+
+
+
+
+17
+
+
+There were ten of them riding on small, wiry steppe ponies--men and
+women both, and well armed. Travis recalled it was the custom of the
+Horde that the women fought as warriors when necessary. Menlik--there
+was no mistaking the flapping robe of their leader. And they were
+singing! The rider behind the shaman thumped with violent energy a drum
+fastened beside his saddle horn, its heavy boom, boom the same call the
+Apache had heard before. The Mongols were working themselves into the
+mood for some desperate effort, Travis deduced. And if they were too
+deeply under the Red spell, there would be no arguing with them. He
+could wait no longer.
+
+The Apache swung down from a ledge near the valley gate, moved into the
+open and stood waiting, the alien weapon resting across his forearm. If
+necessary, he intended to give a demonstration with it for an object
+lesson.
+
+"_Dar-u-gar_!" The war cry which had once awakened fear across a quarter
+of Terra. Thin here, and from only a few throats, but just as menacing.
+
+Two of the horsemen aimed lances, preparing to ride him down. Travis
+sighted a tree midway between them and pressed the firing button. This
+time there was a flash, a flicker of light, to mark the disappearance of
+a living thing.
+
+One of the lancers' ponies reared, squealed in fear. The other kept on
+his course.
+
+"Menlik!" Travis shouted. "Hold up your man! I do not want to kill!"
+
+The shaman called out, but the lancer was already level with the
+vanished tree, his head half turned on his shoulders to witness the
+blackened earth where it had stood. Then he dropped his lance, sawed on
+the reins. A rifle bullet might not have halted his charge, unless it
+killed or wounded, but what he had just seen was a thing beyond his
+understanding.
+
+The tribesmen sat their horses, facing Travis, watching him with the
+feral eyes of the wolves they claimed as forefathers, wolves that
+possessed the cunning of the wild, cunning enough not to rush breakneck
+into unknown danger.
+
+Travis walked forward. "Menlik, I would talk--"
+
+There was an outburst from the horsemen, protests from Hulagur and one
+or two of the others. But the shaman urged his mount into a walking pace
+toward the Apache until they stood only a few feet from each other--the
+warrior of the steppes and the Horde facing the warrior of the desert
+and the People.
+
+"You have taken a woman from our yurts," Menlik said, but his eyes were
+more on the alien gun than on the man who held it. "Brave are you to
+come again into our land. He who sets foot in the stirrup must mount
+into the saddle; he who draws blade free of the scabbard must be
+prepared to use it."
+
+"The Horde is not here--I see only a handful of people," Travis replied.
+"Does Menlik propose to go up against the Apaches so? Yet there are
+those who are his greater enemies."
+
+"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment under a
+general to face him."
+
+Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so
+little time.
+
+"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not your
+woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he pointed with
+his chin--"leading the Reds into a trap."
+
+Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him
+now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.
+
+"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.
+
+"_We_," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind
+in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.
+
+Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving,
+contemptuous appraisal.
+
+"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome
+machines?"
+
+"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis
+displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into
+shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not
+change, though his eyes narrowed.
+
+The shaman signaled his small company, and they dismounted. Travis was
+heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made
+a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in
+sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of
+knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen
+troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.
+
+"You would talk--then talk!" Menlik ordered.
+
+This time Travis outlined events with an absence of word embroidery.
+"Kaydessa leads the Reds into a trap we have set beyond the peaks--four
+of them ride with her. How many now remain in the ship near the
+settlement?"
+
+"There are at least two in the flyer, perhaps eight more in the ship.
+But there is no getting at them in there."
+
+"No?" Travis laughed softly, shifted the weapon on his arm. "Do you not
+think that this will crack the shell of that nut so that we can get at
+the meat?"
+
+Menlik's eyes flickered to the left, to the tree which was no longer a
+tree but a thin deposit of ash on seared ground.
+
+"They can control us with the caller as they did before. If we go up
+against them, then we are once more gathered into their net--before we
+reach their ship."
+
+"That is true for you of the Horde; it does not affect the People,"
+Travis returned. "And suppose we burn out their machines? Then will you
+not be free?"
+
+"To burn up a tree? Lightning from the skies can do that."
+
+"Can lightning," Buck asked softly, "also make rock as sand of the
+river?"
+
+Menlik's eyes turned to the second example of the alien weapon's power.
+
+"Give us proof that this will act against their machines!"
+
+"What proof, Shaman?" asked Jil-Lee. "Shall we burn down a mountain that
+you may believe? This is now a matter of time."
+
+Travis had a sudden inspiration. "You say that the 'copter is out.
+Suppose we use that as a target?"
+
+"That--that can sweep the flyer from the sky?" Menlik's disbelief was
+open.
+
+Travis wondered if he had gone too far. But they needed to rid
+themselves of that spying flyer before they dared to move out into the
+plain. And to use the destruction of the helicopter as an example, would
+be the best proof he could give of the invincibility of the new Apache
+arms.
+
+"Under the right conditions," he replied stoutly, "yes."
+
+"And those conditions?" Menlik demanded.
+
+"That it must be brought within range. Say, below the level of a
+neighboring peak where a man may lie in wait to fire."
+
+Silent Apaches faced silent Mongols, and Travis had a chance to taste
+what might be defeat. But the helicopter must be taken before they
+advanced toward the ship and the settlement.
+
+"And, maker of traps, how do you intend to bait this one?" Menlik's
+question was an open challenge.
+
+"You know these Reds better than we," Travis counterattacked. "How would
+you bait it, Son of the Blue Wolf?"
+
+"You say Kaydessa is leading the Reds south; we have but your word for
+that," Menlik replied. "Though how it would profit you to lie on such a
+matter--" He shrugged. "If you do speak the truth, then the 'copter will
+circle about the foothills where they entered."
+
+"And what would bring the pilot nosing farther in?" the Apache asked.
+
+Menlik shrugged again. "Any manner of things. The Reds have never
+ventured too far south; they are suspicious of the heights--with good
+cause." His fingers, near the hilt of his tulwar, twitched. "Anything
+which might suggest that their party is in difficulty would bring them
+in for a closer look--"
+
+"Say a fire, with much smoke?" Jil-Lee suggested.
+
+Menlik spoke over his shoulder to his own party. There was a babble of
+answer, two or three of the men raising their voices above those of
+their companions.
+
+"If set in the right direction, yes," the shaman conceded. "When do you
+plan to move, Apaches?"
+
+"At once!"
+
+But they did not have wings, and the cross-country march they had to
+make was a rough journey on foot. Travis' "at once" stretched into night
+hours filled with scrambling over rocks, and an early morning of
+preparations, with always the threat that the helicopter might not
+return to fly its circling mission over the scene of operations. All
+they had was Menlik's assurance that while any party of the Red
+overlords was away from their well-defended base, the flyer did just
+that.
+
+"Might be relaying messages on from a walkie-talkie or something like
+that," Buck commented.
+
+"They should reach our ship in two days ... three at the most ... if
+they are pushing," Travis said thoughtfully. "It would be a help--if
+that flyer is a link in any com unit--to destroy it before its crew
+picks up and relays any report of what happens back there."
+
+Jil-Lee grunted. He was surveying the heights above the pocket in which
+Menlik and two of the Mongols were piling brush. "There ... there ...
+and there...." The Apache's chin made three juts. "If the pilot swoops
+for a quick look, our cross fire will take out his blades."
+
+They held a last conference with Menlik and then climbed to the perches
+Jil-Lee had selected. Sentries on lookout reported by mirror flash that
+Tsoay, Deklay, Lupe, and Nolan were now on the move to join the other
+three Apaches. If and when Manulito's trap closed its jaws on the Reds
+at the western ship, the news would pass and the Apaches would move out
+to storm the enemy fort on the prairie. And should they blast any caller
+the helicopter might carry, Menlik and his riders would accompany them.
+
+There it was, just as Menlik had foretold: The wasp from the open
+country was flying into the hills. Menlik, on his knees, struck flint to
+steel, sparking the fire they hoped would draw the pilot to a closer
+investigation.
+
+The brush caught, and smoke, thick and white, came first in separate
+puffs and then gathered into a murky pillar to form a signal no one
+could overlook. In Travis' hands the grip of the gun was slippery. He
+rested the end of the barrel on the rock, curbing his rising tension as
+best he could.
+
+To escape any caller on the flyer, the Tatars had remained in the valley
+below the Apaches' lookout. And as the helicopter circled in, Travis
+sighted two men in its cockpit, one wearing a helmet identical to the
+one they had seen on the Red hunter days ago. The Reds' long undisputed
+sway over the Mongol forces would make them overconfident. Travis
+thought that even if they sighted one of the waiting Apaches, they would
+not take warning until too late.
+
+Menlik's bush fire was performing well and the flyer was heading
+straight for it. The machine buzzed the smoke once, too high for the
+Apaches to trust raying its blades. Then the pilot came back in a lower
+sweep which carried him only yards above the smoldering brush, on a
+level with the snipers.
+
+Travis pressed the button on the barrel, his target the fast-whirling
+blades. Momentum carried the helicopter on, but at least one of the
+marksmen, if not all three, had scored. The machine plowed through the
+smoke to crack up beyond.
+
+Was their caller working, bringing in the Mongols to aid the Reds
+trapped in the wreck?
+
+Travis watched Menlik make his way toward the machine, reach the cracked
+cover of the cockpit. But in the shaman's hand was a bare blade on which
+the sun glinted. The Mongol wrenched open the sprung door, thrust inward
+with the tulwar, and the howl of triumph he voiced was as worldless and
+wild as a wolf's.
+
+More Mongols flooding down ... Hulagur ... a woman ... centering on the
+helicopter. This time a spear plunged into the interior of the broken
+flyer. Payment was being extracted for long slavery.
+
+The Apaches dropped from the heights, waiting for Menlik to leave the
+wild scene. Hulagur had dragged out the body of the helmeted man and
+the Mongols were stripping off his equipment, smashing it with rocks,
+still howling their war cry. But the shaman came to the dying smudge
+fire to meet the Apaches.
+
+He was smiling, his upper lip raised in a curve suggesting the victory
+purr of a snow tiger. And he saluted with one hand.
+
+"There are two who will not trap men again! We believe you now, _andas_,
+comrades of battle, when you say you can go up against their fort and
+make it as nothing!"
+
+Hulagur came up behind the shaman, a modern automatic in his hand. He
+tossed the weapon into the air, caught it again, laughing--disclaiming
+something in his own language.
+
+"From the serpents we take two fangs," Menlik translated. "These weapons
+may not be as dangerous as yours, but they can bite deeper, quicker, and
+with more force than our arrows."
+
+It did not take the Mongols long to strip the helicopter and the Reds of
+what they could use, deliberately smashing all the other equipment which
+had survived the wreck. They had accomplished one important move: The
+link between the southbound exploring party and the Red headquarters--if
+that was the role the helicopter had played--was now gone. And the
+"eyes" operating over the open territory of the plains had ceased to
+exist. The attacking war party could move against the ship near the Red
+settlement, knowing they had only controlled Mongol scouts to watch for.
+And to penetrate enemy territory under those conditions was an old, old
+game the Apaches had played for centuries.
+
+While they waited for the signals from the peaks, a camp was established
+and a Mongol dispatched to bring up the rest of the outlaws and all
+extra mounts. Menlik carried to the Apaches a portion of the dried meat
+which had been transported Horde fashion--under the saddle to soften it
+for eating.
+
+"We do not skulk any longer like rats or city men in dark holes," he
+told them. "This time we ride, and we shall take an accounting from
+those out there--a fine accounting!"
+
+"They still have other controllers," Travis pointed out.
+
+"And you have that which is an answer to all their machines," blazed
+Menlik in return.
+
+"They will send against us your own people if they can," Buck warned.
+
+Menlik pulled at his upper lip. "That is also truth. But now they have
+no eyes in the sky, and with so many of their men away, they will not
+patrol too far from camp. I tell you, _andas_, with these weapons of
+yours a man could rule a world!"
+
+Travis looked at him bleakly. "Which is why they are taboo!"
+
+"Taboo?" Menlik repeated. "In what manner are these forbidden? Do you
+not carry them openly, use them as you wish? Are they not weapons of
+your own people?"
+
+Travis shook his head. "These are the weapons of dead men--if we can
+name them men at all. These we took from a tomb of the star race who
+held Topaz when our world was only a hunting ground of wild men wearing
+the skins of beasts and slaying mammoths with stone spears. They are
+from a tomb and are cursed, a curse we took upon ourselves with their
+use."
+
+There was a strange light deep in the shaman's eyes. Travis did not know
+who or what Menlik had been before the Red conditioner had returned him
+to the role of Horde shaman. He might have been a technician or
+scientist--and deep within him some remnants of that training could now
+be dismissing everything Travis said as fantastic superstition.
+
+Yet in another way the Apache spoke the exact truth. There was a curse
+on these weapons, on every bit of knowledge gathered in that warehouse
+of the towers. As Menlik had already noted, that curse was power, the
+power to control Topaz, and then perhaps to reach back across the stars
+to Terra.
+
+When the shaman spoke again his words were a half whisper. "It will take
+a powerful curse to keep these out of the hands of men."
+
+"With the Reds gone or powerless," Buck asked, "what need will anyone
+have for them?"
+
+"And if another ship comes from the skies--to begin all over again?"
+
+"To that we shall have an answer, also, if and when we must find it,"
+Travis replied. That could well be true ... other weapons in the
+warehouse powerful enough to pluck a spaceship out of the sky, but they
+did not have to worry about that now.
+
+"Arms from a tomb. Yes, this is truly dead men's magic. I shall say so
+to my people. When do we move out?"
+
+"When we know whether or not the trap to the south is sprung," Buck
+answered.
+
+The report came an hour after sunrise the next morning when Tsoay,
+Nolan, and Deklay padded into camp. The war chief made a slight gesture
+with one hand.
+
+"It is done?" Travis wanted confirmation in words.
+
+"It is done. The Pinda-lick-o-yi entered the ship eagerly. Then they
+blew it and themselves up. Manulito did his work well."
+
+"And Kaydessa?"
+
+"The woman is safe. When the Reds saw the ship, they left their machine
+outside to hold her captive. That mechanical caller was easily
+destroyed. She is now free and with the _mba'a_ she comes across the
+mountains, Manulito and Eskelta with her also. Now--" he looked from his
+own people to the Mongols, "why are you here with these?"
+
+"We wait, but the waiting is over," Jil-Lee said. "Now we go north!"
+
+
+
+
+18
+
+
+They lay along the rim of a vast basin, a scooping out of earth so wide
+they could not sight its other side. The bed of an ancient lake, Travis
+speculated, or perhaps even the arm of a long-dried sea. But now the
+hollow was filled with rolling waves of golden grass, tossing heavy
+heads under the flowing touch of a breeze with the exception of a space
+about a mile ahead where round domes--black, gray, brown--broke the
+yellow in an irregular oval around the globular silver bead of a spacer:
+a larger ship than that which had brought the Apaches, but of the same
+shape.
+
+"The horse herd ... to the west." Nolan evaluated the scene with the
+eyes of an experienced raider. "Tsoay, Deklay, you take the horses!"
+
+They nodded, and began the long crawl which would take them two miles or
+more from the party to stampede the horses.
+
+To the Mongols in those domelike yurts horses were wealth, life itself.
+They would come running to investigate any disturbance among the grazing
+ponies, thus clearing the path to the ship and the Reds there. Travis,
+Jil-Lee, and Buck, armed with the star guns, would spearhead that
+attack--cutting into the substance of the ship itself until it was a
+sieve through which they could shake out the enemy. Only when the
+installations it contained were destroyed, might the Apaches hope for
+any assistance from the Mongols, either the outlaw pack waiting well
+back on the prairie or the people in the yurts.
+
+The grass rippled and Naginlta poked out a nose, parting stems before
+Travis. The Apache beamed an order, sending the coyotes with the
+horse-raiding party. He had seen how the animals could drive hunted
+split-horns; they would do as well with the ponies.
+
+Kaydessa was safe, the coyotes had made that clear by the fact that they
+had joined the attacking party an hour earlier. With Eskelta and
+Manulito she was on her way back to the north.
+
+Travis supposed he should be well pleased that their reckless plan had
+succeeded as well as it had. But when he thought of the Tatar girl, all
+he could see was her convulsed face close to his in the ship corridor,
+her raking nails raised to tear his cheek. She had an excellent reason
+to hate him, yet he hoped....
+
+They continued to watch both horse herd and domes. There were people
+moving about the yurts, but no signs of life at the ship. Had the Reds
+shut themselves in there, warned in some way of the two disasters which
+had whittled down their forces?
+
+"Ah--!" Nolan breathed.
+
+One of the ponies had raised its head and was facing the direction of
+the camp, suspicion plain to read in its stance. The Apaches must have
+reached the point between the herd and the domes which had been their
+goal. And the Mongol guard, who had been sitting cross-legged, the
+reins of his mount dangling close to his hand, got to his feet.
+
+"Ahhhuuuuu!" The ancient Apache war cry that had sounded across deserts,
+canyons, and southwestern Terran plains to ice the blood, ripped just as
+freezingly through the honey-hued air of Topaz.
+
+The horses wheeled, racing upslope away from the settlement. A figure
+broke from the grass, flapped his arms at one of the mounts, grabbed at
+flying mane, and pulled himself up on the bare back. Only a master
+horseman would have done that, but the whooping rider now drove the herd
+on, assisted by the snapping and snarling coyotes.
+
+"Deklay--" Jil-Lee identified the reckless rider, "that was one of his
+rodeo tricks."
+
+Among the yurts it was as if someone had ripped up a rotten log to
+reveal an ants' nest and sent the alarmed insects into a frenzy. Men
+boiled out of the domes, the majority of them running for the horse
+pasture. One or two were mounted on ponies that must have been staked
+out in the settlement. The main war party of Apaches skimmed silently
+through the grass on their way to the ship.
+
+The three who were armed with the alien weapons had already tested their
+range by experimentation back in the hills, but the fear of exhausting
+whatever powered those barrels had curtailed their target practice. Now
+they snaked to the edge of the bare ground between them and the ladder
+hatch of the spacer. To cross that open space was to provide targets for
+lances and arrows--or the superior armament of the Reds.
+
+"A chance we can hit from here." Buck laid his weapon across his bent
+knee, steadied the long barrel of the burner, and pressed the firing
+button.
+
+The closed hatch of the ship shimmered, dissolved into a black hole.
+Behind Travis someone let out the yammer of a war whoop.
+
+"Fire--cut the walls to pieces!"
+
+Travis did not need that order from Jil-Lee. He was already beaming
+unseen destruction at the best target he could ask for--the side of the
+sphere. If the globe was armed, there was no weapon which could be
+depressed far enough to reach the marksmen at ground level.
+
+Holes appeared, irregular gaps and tears in the fabric of the ship. The
+Apaches were turning the side of the globe into lacework. How far those
+rays penetrated into the interior they could not guess.
+
+Movement at one of the holes, the chattering burst of machine-gun fire,
+spatters of soil and gravel into their faces; they could be cut to
+pieces by that! The hole enlarged, a scream ... cut off....
+
+"They will not be too quick to try that again," Nolan observed with cold
+calm from behind Travis' post.
+
+Methodically they continued to beam the ship. It would never be
+space-borne again; there were neither the skills nor materials here to
+repair such damage.
+
+"It is like laying a knife to fat," Lupe said as he crawled up beside
+Travis. "Slice, slice--!"
+
+"Move!" Travis reached to the left, pulled at Jil-Lee's shoulder.
+
+Travis did not know whether it was possible or not, but he had a heady
+vision of their combined fire power cutting the globe in half, slicing
+it crosswise with the ease Lupe admired.
+
+They scurried through cover just as someone behind yelled a warning.
+Travis threw himself down, rolled into a new firing position. An arrow
+sang over his head; the Reds were doing what the Apaches had known they
+would--calling in the controlled Mongols to fight. The attack on the
+ship must be stepped up, or the Amerindians would be forced to retreat.
+
+Already a new lacing of holes appeared under their concentrated efforts.
+With the gun held tight to his middle, Travis found his feet, zigzagged
+across the bare ground for the nearest of those openings. Another arrow
+clanged harmlessly against the fabric of the ship a foot from his goal.
+
+He made it in, over jagged metal shards which glowed faintly and reeked
+of ozone. The weapons' beams had penetrated well past both the outer
+shell and the wall of insulation webbing. He climbed a second and
+smaller break into a corridor enough like those of the western ship to
+be familiar. The Red spacer, based on the general plan of the alien
+derelict ship as his own had been, could not be very different.
+
+Travis tried to subdue his heavy breathing and listen. He heard a
+confused shouting and the burr of what might be an alarm system. The
+ship's brain was the control cabin. Even if the Reds dared not try to
+lift now, that was the core of their communication lines. He started
+along the corridor, trying to figure out its orientation in relation to
+that all-important nerve center.
+
+The Apache shoved open each door he passed with one shoulder, and twice
+he played a light beam on installations within cabins. He had no idea of
+their use, but the wholesale destruction of each and every machine was
+what good sense and logic dictated.
+
+There was a sound behind. Travis whirled, saw Jil-Lee and beyond him
+Buck.
+
+"Up?" Jil-Lee asked.
+
+"And down," Buck added. "The Tatars say they have hollowed a bunker
+beneath."
+
+"Separate and do as much damage as you can," Travis suggested.
+
+"Agreed!"
+
+Travis sped on. He passed another door and then backtracked hurriedly as
+he realized it had given on to an engine room. With the gun he blasted
+two long lines cutting the fittings into ragged lumps. Abruptly the
+lights went out; the burr of the alarms was silenced. Part of the ship,
+if not all, was dead. And now it might come to hunter and hunted in the
+dark. But that was an advantage as far as the Apaches were concerned.
+
+Back in the corridor again, Travis crept through a curiously lifeless
+atmosphere. The shouting was stilled as if the sudden failure of the
+machines had stunned the Reds.
+
+A tiny sound--perhaps the scrape of a boot on a ladder. Travis edged
+back into a compartment. A flash of light momentarily lighted the
+corridor; the approaching figure was using a torch. Travis drew his
+knife with one hand, reversed it so he could use the heavy hilt as a
+silencer. The other was hurrying now, on his way to investigate the
+burned-out engine cabin. Travis could hear the rasp of his fast
+breathing. Now!
+
+The Apache had put down the gun, his left arm closed about a shoulder,
+and the Red gasped as Travis struck with the knife hilt. Not clean--he
+had to hit a second time before the struggles of the man were over.
+Then, using his hands for eyes, he stripped the limp body on the floor
+of automatic and torch.
+
+With the Red's weapon in the front of his sash, the burner in one hand
+and the torch in the other, Travis prowled on. There was a good chance
+that those above might believe him to be their comrade returning. He
+found the ladder leading to the next level, began to climb, pausing now
+and then to listen.
+
+Shock preceded sound. Under him the ladder swayed and the globe itself
+rocked a little. A blast of some kind must have been set off at or under
+the level of the ground. The bunker Buck had mentioned?
+
+Travis clung to the ladder, waited for the vibrations to subside. There
+was a shouting above, a questioning.... Hurriedly he ascended to the
+next level, scrambled out and away from the ladder just in time to avoid
+the light from another torch flashed down the well. Again that call of
+inquiry, then a shot--the boom of the explosion loud in the confined
+space.
+
+To climb into the face of that light with a waiting marksman above was
+sheer folly. Could there be another way up? Travis retreated down one of
+the corridors raying out from the ladder well. A quick inspection of the
+cabins along that route told him he had reached a section of living
+quarters. The pattern was familiar; the control cabin would be on the
+next level.
+
+Suddenly the Apache remembered something: On each level there should be
+an emergency opening giving access to the insulation space between the
+inner and outer skins of the ship through which repairs could be made.
+If he could find that and climb up to the next level....
+
+The light shining down the well remained steady, and there was the
+echoing crack of another shot. But Travis was far enough away from the
+ladder now to dare use his own torch, seeking the door he needed on the
+wall surface. With a leap of heart he sighted the outline--his luck was
+in! The Russian and western ships were alike.
+
+Once the panel was open he flashed his torch up, finding the climbing
+rungs and, above, the shadow outline of the next level opening. Securing
+the alien gun in his sash beside the automatic and holding the torch in
+his mouth, Travis climbed, not daring to think of the deep drop below.
+Four ... five ... ten rungs, and he could reach the other door.
+
+His fingers slid over it, searching for the release catch. But there was
+no answering give. Balling his fist, he struck down at an awkward angle
+and almost lost his balance as the panel fell away beneath his blow. The
+door swung and he pulled through.
+
+Darkness! Travis snapped on the torch for an instant, saw about him the
+relays of a com system, and gave it a full spraying as he pivoted,
+destroying the eyes and ears of the ship--unless the burnout he had
+effected below had already done that. A flash of automatic fire from his
+left, a searing burn along his arm an inch or so below the shoulder--
+
+Travis' action was purely reflex. He swung the burner around, even as
+his mind gave a frantic No! To defend himself with automatic, knife,
+arrow--yes; but not this way. He huddled against the wall.
+
+An instant earlier there had been a man there, a living, breathing
+man--one of his own species, if not of his own beliefs. Then because his
+own muscles had unconsciously obeyed warrior training, there was this.
+So easy--to deal death without really meaning to. The weapon in his
+hands was truly the devil gift they were right to fear. Such weapons
+were not to be put into the hands of men--any men--no matter how well
+intentioned.
+
+Travis gulped in great mouthfuls of air. He wanted to throw the burner
+away, hurl it from him. But the task he could rightfully use it for was
+not yet done.
+
+Somehow he reeled on into the control cabin to render the ship truly a
+dead thing and free himself of the heavy burden of guilt and terror
+between his hands. That weight could be laid aside; memory could not.
+And no one of his kind must ever have to carry such memories again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The booming of the drums was like a pulse quickening the blood to a
+rhythm which bit at the brain, made a man's eyes shine, his muscles
+tense as if he held an arrow to bow cord or arched his fingers about a
+knife hilt. A fire blazed high and in its light men leaped and whirled
+in a mad dance with tulwar blades catching and reflecting the red gleam
+of flames. Mad, wild, the Mongols were drunk with victory and freedom.
+Beyond them, the silver globe of the ship showed the black holes of its
+death, which was also the death of the past--for all of them.
+
+"What now?" Menlik, the dangling of amulets and charms tinkling as he
+moved, came up to Travis. There was none of the wild fervor in the
+shaman's face; instead, it was as if he had taken several strides out of
+the life of the Horde, was emerging into another person, and the
+question he asked was one they all shared.
+
+Travis felt drained, flattened. They had achieved their purpose. The
+handful of Red overlords were dead, their machines burned out. There
+were no controls here any more; men were free in mind and body. What
+were they to do with that freedom?
+
+"First," the Apache spoke his own thoughts--"we must return these."
+
+The three alien weapons were lashed into a square of Mongol fabric,
+hidden from sight, although they could not be so easily shut out of
+mind. Only a few of the others, Apache or Mongol, had seen them; and
+they must be returned before their power was generally known.
+
+"I wonder if in days to come," Buck mused, "they will not say that we
+pulled lightning out of the sky, as did the Thunder Slayer, to aid us.
+But this is right. We must return them and make that valley and what it
+holds taboo."
+
+"And what if another ship comes--one of _yours_?" Menlik asked shrewdly.
+
+Travis stared beyond the Tatar shaman to the men about the fire. His
+nightmare dragged into the open.... What if a ship did come in, one with
+Ashe, Murdock, men he knew and liked, friends on board? What then of his
+guardianship of the towers and their knowledge? Could he be as sure of
+what to do then? He rubbed his hand across his forehead and said slowly:
+
+"We shall take steps when--or if--that happens--"
+
+But could they, would they? He began to hope fiercely that it would not
+happen, at least in his lifetime, and then felt the cold bleakness of
+the exile they must will themselves into.
+
+"Whether we like it or not," (was he talking to the others or trying to
+argue down his own rebellion?) "we cannot let what lies under the towers
+be known ... found ... used ... unless by men who are wiser and more
+controlled than we are in our time."
+
+Menlik drew his shaman's wand, twiddled it between his fingers, and
+beneath his drooping lids watched the three Apaches with a new kind of
+measurement.
+
+"Then I say to you this: Such a guardianship must be a double charge,
+shared by my people as well. For if they suspect that you alone control
+these powers and their secret, there will be envy, hatred, fear, a
+division between us from the first--war ... raids.... This is a large
+land and neither of our groups numbers many. Shall we split apart
+fatally from this day when there is room for all? If these ancient
+things are evil, then let us both guard them with a common taboo."
+
+He was right, of course. And they would have to face the truth squarely.
+To both Apache and Mongol any off-world ship, no matter from which side,
+would be a menace. Here was where they would remain and set roots. The
+sooner they began thinking of themselves as people with a common bond,
+the better it would be. And Menlik's suggestion provided a tie.
+
+"You speak well," Buck was saying. "This shall be a thing we share. We
+are three who know. Do you be three also, but choose well, Menlik!"
+
+"Be assured that I will!" the Tatar returned. "We start a new life here;
+there is no going back. But as I have said: The land is wide. We have no
+quarrel with one another, and perhaps our two peoples shall become one;
+after all, we do not differ too greatly...." He smiled and gestured to
+the fire and the dancers.
+
+Among the Mongols another man had gone into action, his head thrown back
+as he leaped and twirled, voicing a deep war cry. Travis recognized
+Deklay. Apache, Mongol--both raiders, horsemen, hunters, fighters when
+the need arose. No, there was no great difference. Both had been tricked
+into coming here, and they had no allegiance now for those who had sent
+them.
+
+Perhaps clan and Horde would combine or perhaps they would drift
+apart--time would tell. But there would be the bond of the guardianship,
+the determination that what slept in the towers would not be roused--in
+their lifetime or many lifetimes!
+
+Travis smiled a bit crookedly. A new religion of sorts, a priesthood
+with sacred and forbidden knowledge ... in time a whole new life and
+civilization stemming from this night. The bleak cold of his early
+thought cut less deep. There was a different kind of adventure here.
+
+He reached out and gathered up the bundle of the burners, glancing from
+Buck to Jil-Lee to Menlik. Then he stood up, the weight of the burden in
+his arms, the feeling of a greater weight inside him.
+
+"Shall we go?"
+
+To get the weapons back--that was of first importance. Maybe then he
+could sleep soundly, to dream of riding across the Arizona range at dawn
+under a blue sky with a wind in his face, a wind carrying the scent of
+pinon pine and sage, a wind which would never caress or hearten him
+again, a wind his sons and sons' sons would never know. To dream
+troubled dreams, and hope in time those dreams would fade and thin--that
+a new world would blanket out the old. Better so, Travis told himself
+with defiance and determination--better so!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Defiant Agents, by Andre Alice Norton
+
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