The Game of Stars and Comets (3 page)

Then, with a sudden rush, the animal bumped against Kade, sending the man sprawling backward as the round head drove against his chest with force enough to bring a grunt of protest out of him. The Terran's hands went to the bear's ears as the moist nose, a rough tongue met his chin.

"Now, boy, take it easy! You're all right."

The man squirmed free of that half embrace, found himself sitting on the pavement with three-quarters of a heavy body resting on his thighs. Then he laughed and scratched behind the rounded ears. There was nothing wrong with this particular specimen of Terran wildlife except loneliness and fear. He fondled the bear and spoke to the hovering Ikkinni.

"Has the furred one from the stars eaten?"

"It gave the furred one food. But the furred one did not eat."

"Bring the food again."

Kade sat on the stone watching the round head bob, listening to the slurp of food disappearing as the bear now greedily dug into the contents of a bowl.

"The furred one wears no collar."

Kade glanced up. The Ikkinni's right fingers swept along his own haired shoulder inches away from the badge of his slave state.

"Only the one it was born with." Kade touched the white markings on the bear's dark coat.

"Yet the furred one obeys—"

The Terran understood the puzzlement behind the other's half-question. There were animals in plenty beside the musti known to the natives of Klor, but none were domesticated. To the Ikkinni a beast was either to be hunted for food, fought for protection, or without value at all, and so to be ignored. There were no dogs on Klor, no cats to guard a hearth, no horses—

No horses! Kade's mind caught at that, a faint glimmer, something—but he had no time to pursue it. Abu came across the courtyard.

"Everything all right?"

"Yes. Just a case of homesickness, I would say." The younger man got to his feet and the Ikkinni faded out of sight. Having finished licking his supper bowl the bear sat back on his haunches, rocking a little, round nose up to test new scents.

"What's a bear doing here anyway?" Kade asked.

"A new toy," the Commander snorted. "The High-Lord-Pac Scarkan is organizing a private zoo. It was Steel's project. He brought an assortment of animal tri-dee shots and showed them to Scarkan the last time he went to Cor for permit renewal. New things always enchant the Styor, but the enthusiasm probably won't last, it seldom does." Abu regarded his new Team recruit shrewdly, "Unless you can keep him stirred up to want some more. We won't transport elephants, remember. And no animal that cannot adapt to Klor."

The report on the grass made sense now. Steel had had another sale in mind when he had asked for that. Deer? Cattle? Some animal decorative enough to hold jaded Styor interest.

"If I could see his report tape," Kade ventured.

"There's one thing, Whitehawk. If you do deal directly with the Styor—" The Commander left that sentence hanging unfinished though Kade could provide the missing words. Dealing with the Styor, considering his past record, might be out of the question. He shrugged.

"You said it yourself, Commander, animals have been my special training. I can work up the sales pitch, let someone else deliver it."

Abu unfroze. "Fair enough. And, since animals are your business, you'd better take trap duty on the next expedition. Give you the lay of the land and break you in at that same time. Come along."

When Kade followed, the bear shuffled behind him. Abu glanced around once but did not suggest that the cage was a more fitting place than the corner of the room into which he led the younger man. Then both forgot the animal as they turned to the maps on the walls.

"We lease our hunting teams from three different lords. It makes for competition and prevents any monopoly of funds. And we rotate leases every other year, which spreads the credit around even farther. The locals may growl about the system, but the High-Lord-Pac agrees. He gets his cut as export duty regardless, and he doesn't want any other lord getting too prosperous."

"Some local trouble?"

"No more than usual. They're always trying to build up their own blast power at the expense of their neighbors. This is a scrap world where every district lord dreams of making a good run so he can emigrate into a bigger game elsewhere. It's the High-Lord-Pac's duty to keep the winnings fairly even—or that's the idea. Sometimes the scheme doesn't work. But so far on Klor there've been no favorites. Anyway, we take the hunting teams out in rotation, and Smohallo's is next. He's got a head tracker who's really expert, an Ikkinni of the Cliffs—"

"
A live one!
" Kade recalled his indoctrination on the
Marco Polo.
Of all the free natives on Klor the Cliff colonies of the highest and least accessible mountains were the hardest to enslave and had offered the Styor the most cunning and effective resistance.

"Yes, a live one. And Smohallo knows his value too. He's been offered what is equivalent to a small fortune for the fellow. Anyway, he put a double thick collar on the poor brute, and so is safe in working him even in the outback. He has a breed from Tadder for his Overman." Abu pulled at his long upper tip with thumb and forefinger. "Lik's a nasty blot on the landscape, but he's Smohallo's right hand and probably about two fingers on the left into the bargain. You'll remember that, Whitehawk."

The words were not a threat, just a stern reminder of fact, a fact which Kade must swallow. His outbreak on Tadder would undoubtedly continue to follow him for years to come.

"I'll remember," he replied shortly.

"So there'll be this tracker, Lik, and six net men, all from Smohallo's estate. You'll take one Ikkinni from here as carrier. Keep clear of Lik. He knows that the count sheet is your work, but because you're new, he may try to run in some half-growns."

Kade nodded. An old practice. To befool the Terrans was the hope of every Styor employee, openly expressed, of every Styor Lord, not so publicly admitted.

"You'll try new ground up north, into this district," Abu traced a map route with the nail of one dark finger. "Lik'll have a sonic which will ward off any attack by lurkers or animals. You may run into a slaver up there. If so, keep your eyes and ears shut and look the other way, understand me!"

"Yes." But he didn't have to pretend to like it, Kade added silently.

"They may be in tomorrow. In the meantime," the Commander went to a file, brought out a disc of tape. "Here's Steel's report. If you can get any ideas from it, they'll be welcome." It was plainly a dismissal but Kade did not leave. Tossing the disc from one hand to the other he looked straight into the harsh face of the other man.

"How did Steel die?"

"With a spear through his middle." The answer was curt.

"Wild Ikkinni?"

"It would seem so. He was out on a trapping trip. There is reason to believe that lurkers were in the neighborhood. So we reported officially."

But you don't believe it, Kade returned silently. And you're just as hot about it as any Lakota. He did not say that aloud for he guessed that the Team Commander was walking very quietly and cautiously along a path which might be mined. Every intonation in the other's voice suggested that. Yes, there was something wrong on Klor, and more than just the usual brutality and tyranny of the Styor.

As he tolled the bear back to its cage, a shadow moved. In the faint reflection of light from a window Kade saw an Ikkinni rise to his feet, wait for the Terran. Perhaps the courtyard watchman.

"It has waited."

"So? Why?" Kade led the bear into its quarters.

"To ask why does that animal which wears no collar answer to the words of the starwalker?"

"Because in the world of the Starwalker there is—" Kade sought for a word for friendship, could recall none in the limited trade language and substituted the nearest possible phrase. "There is a common night fire."

The bear whined, pawed at the barrier now between it and Kade. Kade made soothing noises and the animal curled up in the thick bedding.

"A common night fire for starwalker and furred one," the Ikkinni repeated. And then, with apparent irreverence, added, "It is Dokital."

Kade stood still. It took him a second to realize that the native had told him his name. His knowledge of the Ikkinni was limited to what he had learned from tapes. And he didn't know how to interpret this unusual confidence. Now he must feel his way.

"Swift is the spear arm of Dokital," he improvised. "It is Kade." He judged that his first name would mean more to the native.

"There is no spear in its hand," the words poured swiftly from the patch of darkness into which Dokital had stepped. "It wears a collar. It is no longer a man of spears." There was a note in that which brought an instant reaction from Kade.

"Swift is the spear arm of Dokital," he repeated without any emphasis, but firmly. Only that shadow in the shadows was gone. He stood alone by the bear cage.

A shadowy Ikkinni moved through the Terran's dreams that night and he awoke feeling stupid and thickheaded. But he applied himself doggedly to the study of previous trapping reports, striving to add all he could to his general knowledge before he went to the practical testing of the field.

He saw Dokital sweeping in the court, trailing in and out of warehouses pulling the supply carts. However, since the native ignored him, Kade made no move to speak to the other. There were quite a few leased slaves at the post. Kade counted more than a dozen throughout the day, and to them the Terrans paid no attention, except to give an order or two. He did not see any Overman and mentioned that fact to Che'in at lunch.

"Yes, we do not see Buk too often. He has a liking for cabal smoking and so keeps his quarters, except when he gets the signal for a Styor visit here. But that fact works to our advantage. Buk draws his pay and doesn't stir himself, we have no trouble with the Ikkinni, and the Styor get their lease credits on time. What they don't know doesn't hurt. Well—It looks as if I spoke a little too soon. There is the post Overman now."

He waved at the viewplate which afforded them a view of the courtyard. A corpulent humanoid, his yellowish skin stretched in a greasy band over a wobbling paunch, was standing beside the bear cage inspecting its occupant in bemused surprise. As all the Overmen, Buk was a half-breed, probably from Yogn, Kade decided. His hairless head had three horn-like bumps across the forehead, and his sharply pointed chin retreated as thick wattle of loose skin into his big neck. His scanty clothing—tight breeches, high boots, loose sleeveless vest—was a travesty of Styor hunting clothes, and he wore the long knife of an underofficer strapped tight to his left thigh. On the whole he was an ugly looking customer, until one saw the slight lurch with which he walked, noted the cloudiness of his pale eyes, and knew he was rotted by cabal addiction—but still to be counted dangerous if he had the advantage in an encounter.

The same gong which usually marked the passing hours at the post now rang a deep toned note and Che'in pushed back his stool.

"Visitors," he informed Kade. "Maybe Smohallo's come along with his gang to see what the
Marco
landed. They're always eager to get something new from off-world to show off first and there's a Dark Time Feast due in about a week where all the local brass will strut."

The Trade Team assembled in the courtyard, wearing red dress tunics, but also stunner clips in their weapons. Out-world Trade was not a collection of natives to be bent to Styor whims. And while the fact was never allowed to come to a test, both sides recognized it.

A second note from the gong was answered by a rasping squall which bit at Terran eardrums. Abu signalled and the force barrier guarding the post flashed off, to disclose an approaching party of some size. The Ikkinni with the nets were, of course, the hunters supplied to the post. Four more slaves pounded along at a trot, carrying on their bent shoulders poles supporting a small platform on which sat crosslegged an Overman who must be Lik. Yes, his big frame and handsome but cruel features were reminiscent of Tadder.

There came a line of Ikkinni bearing burdens, and behind them an elaborate half-curtained carry-chair in which a Styor lounged, his delicate, almost feminine features masked to lip level by a strip of gemmed lizard skin which matched the crested headdress he wore. He played with a needler, the most deadly side arm among the stars. His dress was the semi-military one of a reserve soldier though nothing about him suggested that he had ever seen service with the Fleet.

The Ikkinni hunters entered the courtyard, backed against the wall, their chests heaving with the exertion of their pace. Lik arose from the seat and stood watching the Terrans insolently, his thumbs hooked in his belt, his fingers playing about the edge of that control box which could lash out swift pain to any of the collared natives about him.

Abu stepped forward no more than two paces. That, too, was correct. The post was Terra, here Smohallo was a guest and, in a measure, an equal, which fact most of the Styor tried more or less successfully to ignore. Kade, who had been watching the entrance of the local lordling, suddenly noticed a slight movement on Lik's part. He did not quite touch the hilt of his thigh knife, but there was the murderous wish to do so mirrored for a hot instant in his eyes.

And the Tadderan breed had been looking at Kade in that moment. The Terran's own hand dipped so that the grip of his stunner fitted neatly and comfortably into his palm. But that half-challenge occupied less than a second of time. Lik's eyes slid past Kade, were now fixed with wonder on the bear cage.

Kade topped the small rise
, stood for a moment in the pull of a wind which held some of the damp breath of peak snow. Ahead the line of Ikkinni hunters trotted, heads down, shoulders hunched, followed by Lik, this time on his own two feet. They were striking up a valley which narrowed into a gorge, a tongue of plains land licking into mountain territory. Another few Terran miles, perhaps by midday, and they would reach the end of the known country, heading into wild lands which had not been before prospected by the musti trappers.