"Understand. But do you?" The brach's meaning was obscure. Perhaps he guessed that, for now he continued with the same desire to impress as Dane had used.

"I do this-you free. What you do then for me-for mine?"

A bargain! Dane was startled. He had forgotten that the brachs were cargo, that they really had no reason to join the crew. Come to think of it, they had not even asked the brach if he wanted to help them. They had used his particular talents as they would those of an animal as he had once been considered.

Dane explained to Tau and Meshler. The medic spoke.

"But, of course. Why should we think he would automatically go on running into danger for us?"

"He freed us in that camp," cut in Meshler. "If he didn't want to help us, then why that?"

"We were something he needed." Dane thought he had the answer. "He wanted our protection in the wilderness."

"Then he'll need it now." Meshler seized upon that triumphantly. "We're all in this together."

"The conditions," Tau pointed out, "are not quite the same. That was wilderness. There must be some kind of a camp or settlement near here. He doesn't need us as much as we need him now."

"What do you want?" Paying no attention to his companions, Dane came to the point with the brach.

"No cage-be free with own-" the alien replied promptly The brachs were still cargo. Dane had no right to make such a decision. But neither were intelligent beings cla.s.sed as cargo-they were pa.s.sengers, whether the authorities agreed or not. And pa.s.sengers, providing they had committed no crime on board the Queen, were free to go. Only he had no authority and could not make a bargain-nor give empty promises. There was expediency in trade to be sure, but there were limits past which one did not go, and the most fragile of these dealt with contacts with X-Tee races. He would stake his whole future career on any decision he made now. Perhaps Meshler did not realize that, but Dane thought Tau would when he pa.s.sed along the brach's request.

"If he's intelligent," Meshler snapped, "then he had no business in a cage. Tell him 'yes' and let him get us out of this cage!"

But was it that simple? Suppose Dane said "yes" and the legalities of trade later said "no"? The brachs were cargo, undischarged cargo. They had a consigner on Xecho, a consignee waiting at the port. And would those tamely accept such a bargain?

"What are you waiting for?" Meshler demanded even more sharply. "If this alien can find the controls and shut off the field, he'd better get at it. Do you realize what may be in here with us?"

But Dane was not going to be pushed into what might seem betrayal in the future. He was stubborn on that point.

"I would say go free"-he tried to choose his words with care, to make certain the brach understood-"but there are those greater than I who can say I am wrong. I cannot promise they will not do that."

Tau had switched off the beamer once the drawing had been studied, and Meshler was pulling on his jacket. Dane could not see the brach, only that its nose pointed in his direction. Then came the alien's answer.

"You feel for us. Will you speak for us?"

"I will. So will all of the ship."

"More is needed."

"I cannot promise freedom that another may say no to. That would be a wrong thing. But I shall speak for you."

"Then there shall be done what can be. If this box can be found-"

The brach went to the haze, nosing around for several paces, almost as if he were sniffing for some weak spot. Then he halted, his head down, and he stood very still. Tau gave a small exclamation and caught at Dane's arm to draw his attention. On the dimly lighted dial of the detect, the needle was moving, picking up speed until it was a blur. Meshler's half-choked cry brought their eyes back to the barrier.

To Dane's sight there was no thinning of the haze, yet the brach was already halfway through and a second or two later stood on the other side. He turned to look back as if to rea.s.sure them and then trotted away in the direction they had been going when the field trapped them.

"We stay by the perimeter," Meshler advised, "but get this as a screen around us." He nodded to the brush.

What more he might have added was never to be heard, for there was a shrill tearing of the night by noise, such a shriek of insanity as Dane had never heard, sending his hands to his ears, his shoulders hunching as if that sound were a lash laid across his body.

A second shriek and Dane saw against the faint light of the haze that he was not the only one cowering from that outbreak of audio violence.

"What-what was that?" Surely as a ranger, Meshler must know the source.

"Nothing that I know." The ranger's voice was that of a badly shaken man.

"The force field is not only a trap"-Tau gave them grim understanding of what might face them now-"but it is also probably a cage. And I don't think I care to meet what we share it with."

It would be far better, Dane decided in that instant, that the owners of this trap come and take them out as prisoners. They dared not get too far away from the barrier. If the brach was successful, they must be ready to make swift use of freedom. But what they were entrapped with-whatever prowled here-must also be faced. And they had no weapons.

"Fire-a torch-" That was Tau. Dane heard a crackling and saw a piece of well-leafed bush sway violently and then separate from the trunk as the medic broke it loose.

"Do you have a striker?" Tau asked Meshler.

"Green stuff-may not burn," the ranger returned. But once more he delved into the pack. "Hold it away from you-well away-"

What he did Dane could not see, but at last Meshler seemed satisfied.

"That's wet down with proto fuel. One spark and it will give you fire all right. You are right in believing that fire will hold off most beasts. Only we aren't sure what roams here. Light-the beamer-might have some effect also."

"The brach went that way," Dane said. "If we follow it along within the haze-"

"As good a way as any," Meshler agreed.

However, they did keep behind the screen of brush, and they went slowly and carefully. There had been no second outburst of the hideous screaming, yet Dane expected at any moment to confront some horror out of the night.

In a very short time the road made by the crawler treads swung away from the haze again. And they lingered at that point, not wanting to venture far from the one tie with freedom. Tau broke the silence first.

"Any camp must be over there-"

Dane saw the dark blot of Tau's arm against the haze. The medic was pointing along the curve of the road.

"Source of radiation that way."

"What I don't understand," Dane said slowly, "is how an establishment of this sort can exist and the government know nothing about it."

He expected some comment, probably an impatient one, from Meshler. When the ranger said nothing, suspicion was bom.

"You do know something!" Tau put Dane's thought into words. "Is this a government project then? And if so-"

"Yes, if so, you ought to be able to get us out!"

Meshler shifted weight from one foot to the other. They could not see his expression, but there was something about his silence that fed Dane's uneasiness.

"We're waiting," Tau said.

Tau, Tau ought to be able to get to the truth! The medic's interests lay in the field of native "magic," which was, many times, thought control. He had consorted with the esper-endowed (and charlatans who were able to deceive even the astute) on many worlds. On Khatka he had unleashed his own illusions to defeat a man who believed implicitly in his own witching powers. Dane had no explanation for what he had seen Tau do to save him and Captain Jellico-and perhaps the whole world-for Limbulo had been trying to s.n.a.t.c.h rule there.

Here the medic had no artificial aids for getting the truth out of Meshler. What he must or could do would be out of his own stock of learning. Tau could make Meshler talk if anyone on the Queen could.

"This territory's off limits." It seemed that Meshler would not need drastic persuasion.

"But you brought us here," Tau pointed out. "By orders?"

"No!" Meshler's denial was quick and emphatic. "It's the truth that I told you. We could not have gotten out on foot. This is the only way to survive, to try and find the experimental station."

"The Trosti station?"

But that, according to Meshler's own former statement, was northwest from here. Dane left the questioning wholly to Tau.

"Their secondary station, not the main one. It is a top priority secret. We only know it exists, not where it is-"

"Nor what they are doing there," Tau commented. "Could it be you used our dragon hunt for a chance to do some snooping? If so, by whose orders?"

"The Council is supposed to know, but my own department-we felt-"

"That you ought to be in on any secrets, too? I wonder," Tau said speculatively, "if this is more than just interdepartmental jealousy. No wonder there was trouble after we landed. Someone-someone important-expected us to be carrying what we dumped in the LB. Was that it?"

"I don't know." Meshler's voice was harsh. He might have been thinking furiously and didn't want to share his thoughts, or he might be truly baffled.

"What about that hunting party? And our flitter was beam-locked-or was it?"

"Yes! And I don't know any more about those hunters than you do." There was heat and energy in this burst. "I only know this is a top-security region."

"Yet you allowed us to send off the brach to cut out the force control, if he could," Tau persisted. "Which means one of two things: either you knew he would fail and you were buying time, or you have good suspicions about this-"

But the medic was never to complete that sentence. There was a crashing in the bush behind them and with it the same stench as that which had gagged them before. It was very apparent that the thing they had seen only momentarily was on the prowl and headed in their direction, though whether it could be definitely hunting them- "Back!" Meshler's hand caught Dane's arm and pulled him along. "Come on!"

Once more they must depend upon the ranger's night sight, though to the left the haze gave off its glow. They made the best pace they could, only it was away from the road.

Dane held up his other arm to keep the whip of tough branches out of his face and eyes. They had already ripped at his thermo jacket and drawn blood from a thorn tear on one cheek. Then they came out of that thick growth into an open s.p.a.ce where the moon gave them light, and the ground beneath them was smooth enough to run on.

"To the right!" That was Meshler's order. Dane obeyed, but only because he had seen it, too, something black and tall standing well above the ground. Plainly it was not growth but a st.u.r.dily based platform. Behind them, so close it a.s.saulted their ears to deafen them, came that horrible screeching.

Meshler reached the nearest support leg of the erection, leaped up, and got a good grip on some projection Dane could not see. He climbed with speed and then something thumped down with force, which might have pinned Dane to the ground had it been inches closer. Tau caught at it.

"Ladder!" He gasped out the single word, already making use of its aid. Dane was right on his heels. Then the medic was up and over the edge of the platform, Dane not long in wriggling after. A push sent him rolling to one side as the ranger grabbed the ladder, jerking it aloft.

Dane, still lying flat, wormed his way to the edge to watch for what might exit into the thin moonlight on their trail. It came, a hunched shape moving as a black blot. It was hard to gauge its bulk from their perch, but that it was several times his own size Dane would swear. Though it had exited from cover on four feet, it rose a little to shuffle on two, the forelimbs dangling loosely as it came.

The thing did not raise its head far enough for Dane to make out anything but a dark blob, and he was just as well pleased that this was so, for the very outlines suggested that it was a nightmare creature, while the stench of it made him sick.

Now and then it went to fours again, and he thought it did not hunt by sight but rather by scent, and it was nosing them out. Finally it came to the standards below the platform. If it could climb, how could they fight it off? Even though he had not been able to a.s.sess its natural weapons, there was that about it that suggested even to an armed man that it would prove a formidable opponent. Meshler had been able to climb without the ladder. Could it?

An appalling shriek broke from immediately under them, and the platform itself quivered-not from the sound, but because some heavy force beat at one of its supports. Dane dared not lean over far enough to see what was going on below, but it felt as if the creature was working to either pull down or push over the nearest pillar-leg of the four supporting their perch. The blows or jerks were enough to set it shuddering and swinging.

Thud-jerk-thud! The creature persisted. How long before that would pay off and the platform would collapse, taking them with it? They were cornered up here. Yet the move to climb had seemed the best escape.

"Look!" Tau's hand on him pulled Dane around a little. The medic was lying flat, too, as if he thought they had a better chance of not being shaken loose that way.

Look? Where? At what? Patrol men descending via grav belts to their rescue? This venture had already taken on so many of the incredible elements of a tridee show that Dane could expect that traditional ending to extreme danger to be a part of it.

But what he did see was a green-white glowing spot at or near where the monster had earlier emerged.

12. HIDDEN BASE.

The platform shuddered under them, and Dane wondered how long it would be before it gave way under the determined a.s.sault of the thing below. Meanwhile, that phosph.o.r.escent greenish blob flowed farther into the open.

Flowed was the best description of its progress. It was unstable in outline, as if it were a ma.s.s of some semi-liquid substance, and the closer it approached, the less it resembled any living creature Dane knew.

Now another odor warred with the stench of the first comer-as foul. There was a sudden halt in the thumping of the support. Once more came the screech. From their perch they could not see the monster below, but Dane guessed that what approached was no companion it welcomed.

The flowing ma.s.s was huge, and its glow gave it visibility in the night. It was, Dane speculated, about the size of the wrecked flitter. As it neared the platform, it now and then put out projections of quivering material, white and brighter than the main bulk of its body. All of these inclined one way, pointing at the monster under them. But none held position long, instead sinking back into the general ma.s.s, as if such effort was more than it could summon for any length of time.

Again the monster screeched, but it did not charge to do battle with the newcomer, nor did it flee. It was as if it hesitated, not quite sure of the safest course.

The blob made excellent time across the open. More and more of the projections appeared, to point tips forward. The projections grew thinner, developing distinct tips, taking on the style of tentacles, though still they did not stay aloft for long.

A third screech and the monster seemed to have made up its mind. It shot forward to the right with a speed that made it just a dark blur, a dark arm and limb streaking down across the blob as it pa.s.sed, cutting cleanly, and throwing off the stuff of at least three tentacles, which hit the ground and began a movement of its own, forming a small ma.s.s like the parent body. But the monster paid no attention to that. It faced about, its forelimbs up and whirling out, as the blob altered course, heading with less speed but with inexorable purpose for it.

Once more the first comer made a lightning-swift attack, shearing and tossing aside what it cut away from the blob. Again those fragments combined to become a smaller blob, moving as the first cutting had done toward the monster. The monster was facing now not one opponent but three, though the two small ones would seem to be far less dangerous than the main body. Twice more the thing struck, ripping at its opponent in a frenzy, and each time it only created a new, if much smaller, enemy.

"They have it ringed!" Meshler cried out. "It may think it's cutting that other thing to pieces, but it's really ringing itself in."

He was right. The first three blobs had become eighteen. The monster no longer attacked with the same speed. Either it was tiring, its energy perhaps already somewhat worn by its battle with the platform support, or else it was growing more wary, perhaps beginning to understand, if it had a mind to comprehend, that its efforts put it in more and more danger.

The blob now, the parent one, was less than half the size it had been when it oozed into the open. But as it shrank, its offspring increased. Now the larger of those were beginning to sprout short, wavering tentacles in turn. And always those pointed to the creature around which they had built a ring.

There came a pause in that weird struggle. The monster squatted motionless now, still facing the first blob. The others did not move. Instead the first tentacles they put forth, to point small fingers at their enemy, now waved to each side, spinning thinner and thinner, weaving back and forth aimlessly through the air. But that there was method in this was quickly demonstrated. Two weaving tentacles from separate smaller blobs touched. Instantly they united, so that the two became one, thin and closer to the ground. And as they had managed this unification, so did the rest. Thus the ring about their enemy was complete, save for directly before the monster, where the parent blob lay. Perhaps its inertia was meant to lull the victim. It would seem that way, for the first comer apparently did not see or care that three-quarters of the way around, it was now encircled by a ribbon band lying on the ground, momentarily quiescent.

What signal pa.s.sed to produce the next move in that struggle Dane did not know, but the two loose ends of that band flew to join themselves to the parent. As an overstretched piece of elastic material might do, the band itself snapped against the back of the squatting monster, pushing it forward, screeching and flailing wildly, until the front portion of the blob raised up, not tentacles but half its bulk, to come down with smashing finality on its captive. It heaved and rolled from side to side, the band now completely reunited.

Though engulfed, the monster had not surrendered. The rolling blob spun around, changing shape constantly as the struggle within it beat and tore at its heart. But that struggle gradually subsided. The blob tightened, drew in and in until it was a solid-looking sphere, and there was no more movement.

"Digesting," Tau said. "Well, we've seen how you don't fight that anyway."

"What is it?" Dane turned to Meshler for enlightenment He should know something of the native wildlife.

"I don't know." The ranger was still staring, bemused, at the ball. "It is not native here."

"That makes two-three, if you count what it ate," Dane said. "That antline and these two. The antline was certainly from off-world, maybe these, too."