Star Hunter (4 page)

Making contact stealthily, but with confidence, it explored after its
own fashion. Then, puzzled, it withdrew to report. And since that to
which it reported was governed by a set pattern which had not been
altered for eons, its only answer was a basic command reaffirmed.
Again it made contact, strove to carry out that order fruitlessly.
Where it should have found easy passage, a clear channel to carry
influence to the sleeper's brain, it found a jumble of impressions,
interwoven until they made a protective barrier.

The invader strove to find some pattern, or meaning—withdrew baffled.
But its invasion, as ghostly as that had been, loosened a knot here,
cleared a passage there.

Rynch awoke at dawn, slowly, dazedly, sorting out sounds, smells,
thoughts. There was a room, a man, trouble and fear, then there was
he, Rynch Brodie, who had lived in this wilderness on an unmapped
frontier world for the passage of many seasons. That world was about
him now, he could feel its winds, hear its sounds, taste, smell. It
was not a dream—the other was the dream. It had to be!

Prove it. Find the L-B, retrace the trail of yesterday past the point
of the fall which had started all this. Right there was the slope down
which he must have tumbled. Above, he would find the den he had been
exploring when the accident had occurred.

Only—he did not find it. His mind had produced a detailed picture of
that rounded depression, at the bottom of which the strong-jaw lurked.
But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight the
mounded earth of the pit's rim. He searched carefully for a good
length, both north and south. No den—no trace of one. Yet his memory
told him that there had been one here yesterday.

Had he fallen elsewhere and stumbled on, dazed, to fall a second time?

Some disputant inside him said no to that. This was where he had
regained consciousness yesterday and there was no den!

He faced away from the river, breathing fast. No den—was there also
no L-B? If he had passed this way dazed from a former fall, surely he
would have left some trace.

There was a crushed, browned plant flattened by weight. He stooped to
finger the wilted leaves. Something had come in this direction. He
would back-track. Rynch gave a hunter's attention to the ground.

A half-hour later he found nothing but some odd, almost obliterated
marks on grass too resilient to hold traces very long. And from them
he could make nothing.

He knew where he was, even if he did not know how he got here. The
L-B—if it did exist—was to the west. He had a vivid mental picture
of the rocket shape, its once silvery sides dulled by exposure, canted
crookedly amid trees. And he was going to find it!

Beyond the edge of any conscious sense there was a new stir. He was
contacted again, tested. A forest called delicately in its alien way.
Rynch had a fleeting thought of trees, was not aware of more than a
mild desire to see what lay in their shade.

For the present his own problem held him. That which beckoned was
defeated, repulsed by his indifference. While Rynch started at a
steady distance to trot towards the east, far away a process akin to a
relay clicked into a second set of impulse orders.

Well above the planet Hume spun a dial to bring in the image of the
wide stretches of continents, the small patches of seas. They would
set down on the western land mass. Its climate, geographical features
and surface provided the best site. And he had the very important
co-ordinates for their camp already taped in the directo.

"That's Jumala."

He did not glance around to see what effect that screen view had on
the other four men in the control cabin of the safari ship. Just now
he was striving to master his impatience. The slightest hint could
give birth to a suspicion which would blast their whole scheme. Wass
might have had a hand in the selection of the three clients, but they
would certainly be far from briefed on the truth of any discovery made
on Jumala—they had to be for the safety of the whole enterprise.

The fourth man, serving as his gearman for this trip, was Wass' own
insurance against any wrong move on Hume's part. And the Out-Hunter
respected him as being man enough to be wary of giving any suspicion
of going counter to the agreed plan.

Dawn was touching up the main points of the western continent, and he
must set this spacer down within a day's journey of the abandoned L-B.
Exploration in that direction would be the first logical move for his
party. They could not be openly steered to the find, but there were
ways of directing a hunt which would do as well.

Two days ago, according to schedule, their castaway had been deposited
here with a sub-conscious command to remain in the general area. There
had been a slight element of risk in leaving him alone, armed only
with the crude weapons he could manipulate, but that was part of the
gamble.

They were down—right on the mark. Hume saw to the unpacking and
activating of those machines and appliances which would protect and
serve his civ clients. He slapped the last inflate valve on a bubble
tent, watched it critically as it billowed from a small roll of fabric
into a weather resistant, one-room, air-conditioned and heated
shelter.

"Ready and waiting for you to move in, Gentlehomo," he reported to the
small man who stood gazing about him with a child's wondering interest
in the new and strange.

"Very ingenious, Hunter. Ah—now just what might that be?" His voice
was also eager as he pointed a finger to the east.

Hume glanced up alertly. There was a bare chance that "Brodie" might
have witnessed their arrival and might be coming in now to save them
all a great amount of time and trouble by acting the overjoyed,
rescued castaway.

But he could sight nothing at all in that direction to excite any
attention. The distant mountains provided a stark, dark blue
background. Up their foothills and lower slopes was a thick furring
of trees with foliage of so deep a green as to register black from
this distance. And on the level country was the lighter blue-green of
the other variety of wood edging the open country about the river. In
there rested the L-B.

"I don't see anything!" he snapped, so sharply the little man stared
at him in open surprise. Hume forced a quick smile.

"Just what did you sight, Gentlehomo Starns? There is no large game in
the woodlands."

"This was not an animal, Hunter. Rather a flash of light, just about
there." Again he pointed.

Sun, Hume thought, could have been reflected from some portion of the
L-B. He had believed that small spacer so covered with vines and
ringed in by trees that it could not have been so sighted. But a storm
might have disposed of some of nature's cloaking. If so Starns'
interest must be fed, he would make an ideal discoverer.

"Odd." Hume produced his distance glasses. "Just where, Gentlehomo?"

"There." Starns obligingly pointed a third time.

If there had been anything to see it was gone now. But it did lie in
the right direction. For a second or two Hume was uneasy. Things
seemed to be working too well; his cynical distrust was triggered by
fitting so smoothly.

"Might be the sun," he observed.

"Reflected from some object you mean, Hunter? But the flash was very
bright. And there could be no mirror surface in there, surely there
could not be?"

Yes, things were moving too fast. Hume might be overly cautious but he
was determined that no hint of any pre-knowledge of the L-B must ever
come to these civs. When they would find the Largo Drift's life boat
and locate Brodie, there would be a legal snarl. The castaway's
identity would be challenged by a half dozen distant and unloving
relatives, and there would be an intense inquiry. These civs must be
the impartial witnesses.

"No, I hardly believe in a mirror in an uninhabited forest,
Gentlehomo," he chuckled. "But we are on a hunting planet and not all
its life forms have yet been classified."

"You are thinking of an intelligent native race, Hunter?" Chambriss,
the most demanding of the civ party, strode up to join them.

Hume shook his head. "No native intelligence on a hunting world,
Gentlehomo. That is assured before the planet is listed for a safari.
However, a bird or flying thing, perhaps with metallic plumage or
scales to catch the sunlight, might under the right circumstances seem
a flash of light. That has happened before."

"It was
very
bright," Starns said doubtfully. "We might look over
there later."

"Nonsense!" Chambriss spoke briskly as one used to overriding the
conflicting wishes in any company. "I came here for a water-cat, and a
water-cat I'm going to have. You don't find those in wooded areas."

"There will be a schedule," Hume announced. "Each of you has signed
up, according to contract, for a different trophy. You for a
water-cat, Gentlehomo. And you, Gentlehomo Starns, want to make
tri-dees of the pit-dragons. While Gentlehomo Yactisi wishes to try
electo fishing in the deep holes. To alternate days is the fair way.
And, who knows, each of you may discover your own choice near the
other man's stake out."

"You are quite right, Hunter," Starns nodded. "And since my two
colleagues have chosen to try for a water creature, perhaps we should
start along the river."

It was two days, then, before they could work their way into the
woods. One part of Hume protested, the more cautious section of his
mind was appeased. He saw, beyond the three clients now turning over
and sorting space bags, Wass' man glanced at the woods and then back
to Starns. And, being acutely aware of all undercurrents here, Hume
wondered what the small civ had actually seen.

The camp was complete, a cluster of seven bubble tents not too far
from the ship. At least this crowd did not appear to consider that the
Hunter was there to do all the serious moving and storing of supplies.
All three of the clients pitched in to help, and Wass' man went down
to the river to return with half a dozen silver-fins cleaned and
threaded on a reed, ready to broil over the cook unit.

A fire in the night was not needed except to afford the proper stage
setting. But it was enjoyed. Hume leaned forward to feed the flames,
and Starns pushed some lengths of driftwood closer.

"You have said, Hunter, that hunting worlds never contain intelligent
native life. Unless the planet is minutely explored how can your
survey teams be sure of that fact?" His voice bordered on the
pedantic, but his interest was plain.

"By using the verifier." Hume sat crosslegged, his plasta-hand resting
on one knee. "Fifty years ago, we would have had to keep rather a
lengthy watch to be sure of a free world. Now, we plant verifiers at
suitable test points. Intelligence means mental activity of some
sort—any of which would be recorded on the verifier."

"Amazing!" Starns extended his plump hands to the flames in the
immemorial gesture of a human attracted not only to the warmth of the
burning wood, but to its promise of security against the forces of the
dark. "No matter how few, or how scattered your native thinkers may
be, you record them without missing any?"

Hume shrugged. "Maybe one or two," he grinned, "might get through such
a screening. But we have yet to discover a planet with such a sparse
native life as that at the level of intelligence."

Yactisi juggled a cup in and out of the firelight. "I agree, this is
most interesting." He was a thin man, with scanty drab gray hair and
dark skin, perhaps the result of the mingling of several human races.
His eyes were slightly sunken, so that it was difficult in this light
to read their expression. He was, Hume had already decided, a class
one brain and observant to a degree, which could either be a help or a
menace. "There have been no cases of failure?"

"None reported," Hume returned. All his life he had relied on machines
operating, of course, under the competent domination of men trained to
use them properly. He understood the process of the verifier, had seen
it at work. At the Guild Headquarters there were no records of its
failure; he was willing to believe it was infallible.

"A race residing in the sea now—could you be sure your machine would
discover its presence?" Starns continued to question.

Hume laughed. "Not to be found on Jumala, you may be sure of that—the
seas here are small and shallow. Such, not to be picked up by the
verifier, would have to exist at great depths and never venture on
land. So we need not fear any surprises here. The Guild takes no
chances."

"As it always continues to assure one," Yactisi replied. "The hour
grows late. I wish you rewarding dreams." He arose to go to his own
bubble tent.

"Yes, indeed!" Starns blinked at the fire and then scrambled up in
turn. "We hunt along the river, then, tomorrow?"

"For water-cat," Hume agreed. Of the three, he believed Chambriss the
most impatient. Might as well let him pot his trophy as soon as
possible. The ex-pilot deduced there would be little cooperation in
exploration from that client until he was satisfied in his own quest.

Rovald, Wass' man, lingered by the fire until the three civs were safe
in their bubbles.

"River range tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes. We can't rush the deal."

"Agreed." Rovald spoke with a curtness he did not use when the civs
were present. "Only don't delay too long. Remember, our boy's roaming
around out there. He might just be picked off by something before
these stumble-footed civs catch up with him."

"That's the chance we knew we'd have to take. We don't dare raise any
suspicion. Yactisi, for one, is no fool, neither is Starns. Chambriss
just wants to get his water-cat, but he could become nasty if anyone
tried to steer him."