Postmarked the Stars

8.INVOLUNTARY FLIGHT

“What is the situation, sir?” Having done his best to throw the opposition off balance, disregarding the last comment from the ranger, Dane turned to Tau. He wanted to know just what they had to face.

It was Meshler who answered. “You are all under arrest!” He said that weightedly, as if the words disarmed them and made the odds of four to one wholly in favor of that one. “I am to escort you to Trewsport, where your case comes under Patrol surveillance—”

“And the charge?” Kamil had not moved from the hatch door. His one arm was behind him, and Dane thought he still had a hand on the latch. It was plain that Ali did not consider the odds in Meshler’s favor.

“Sabotage of shipment, interference with the mail, murder—” The ranger stated each charge as if he were a judge pronouncing sentence.

“Murder?” Ali looked surprised. “Whom did we murder?”

“Person unknown,” Tau drawled. His former rigidity had eased. He leaned against the wall, one hand on the edge of the hammock where the brachs sat in their nest of padding. “You met him dead.” He nodded to Dane. “He was wearing your face at the time—”

Now Meshler turned a sharp, measuring look at Dane, who, to aid him in identification, pushed back his hood. And for the second time the Terran saw a trace of surprise on the rather flat face of the ranger. Tau uttered a sound not far from a laugh.

“You see, Ranger Meshler, that our tale was the truth. And the rest we can prove, as well as showing you a man with the same features as that mask. We have the box that caused all the trouble, the mutated embryos, the brachs—Let your science techs test it all, and they will see we reported nothing but the truth.”

There was a wriggling against Dane’s shoulders. He had forgotten the brach in the pack. Now he loosened the straps and held the bag so that its occupant could climb out to join his family in the hammock. Meshler viewed that without comment.

Now the ranger produced a tridee shot from an inner pocket. Holding it, he moved closer to the hammock that held the “people” from Xecho, looking from the picture of the brachs and back again several times.

“There are differences,” he commented.

“As we told you. You heard them, or rather her, talk,” Rip replied. There was a tightness in his voice that suggested the time before Ali and Dane’s arrival had not been pleasantly spent.

“And where is this mysterious box?” The ranger did not look to them but continued to study the brachs. He gave the impression of still being skeptical.

“We buried it, in its protective covering,” Dane replied. “Only it may not be the first such shipment to arrive here.”

Now he did have the full attention of Meshler. Those chill chips of ice that served the other for eyes fastened on him. “You have reason for believing so?”

Dane told him of the antline. Whether he was making any impression on Meshler, he could not tell, but at least the man listened without any outward sign of incredulity.

“You found its lair, you say? And it was under stunner influence when you last saw it?”

“We backtracked it to the lair.” Ali cut in. “And, from the marks, it was on its way back there when it left the cage. We didn’t trail it again.”

“No, you were after your other monsters, to cover up what you had introduced here.” Meshler had not softened. “And these monsters—where are they now?”

“We tracked them as far as the river,” Ali continued. “The brach said they had flown across, and we were hunting a way of getting over when we were recalled.”

Tau spoke then. “The brach said? How did it know?”

“He”—Dane unconsciously corrected the pronoun—“says they can sense emotions. That’s what led to the dragons’ escape in the first place. One of the brach kits “heard” their anger at being shut up in the cage and went to open that. They turned on the kit and then got away—”

He half expected the ranger to contradict that with scorn, but the man did not. He listened impassively, glancing now and then at the brachs.

“So we have a couple of monsters loose, besides this antline—”

“As well as two murdered men,” Dane broke in, “who were dead long before we planeted.”

“If they have been dead as long as you say,” the ranger replied, “they can await attention for a short space longer. What we have to deal with firstly are these ‘dragons’ of yours.” He put away the tridee and brought out a tube, which, at a slight squeeze, rolled out a map. Though it was in miniature, its points of references were so clearly marked it was easy to read.

“The lake.” Meshler pointed. “Your river drains from there?”

“We believe so,” Dane answered.

“And your dragons crossed it?” Slightly beyond the river line were marks of pale green. The ranger tapped those with fingertip.

“Cartl’s holding. If your dragons headed for that—” Another pinch of finger and the map snapped back into the tube. “It would be better that we locate them before they get that far. This—this creature can track them? You are sure of that?”

“He says he can. He took us to the river.” Dane moved; he had no intention of allowing the ranger to take the brach. After all, no matter what change had occurred, the alien was still part of the cargo for which Dane was responsible. But Meshler had not reached for the brach.

“You are under arrest.” He looked around, catching them one by one with his straight stare, as if challenging them to deny his authority. “If we wait for a search party from Trewsport, it may be too late. I have my duty. If Cartl’s holding is in danger, my first duty is there. But you loosed this danger; therefore, you have a duty also—”

“We have not denied that,” Tau returned. “We have done the best we could to insure that the port was not infected.”

“The best you could? With these dragons loose to attack a holding?”

“What I can’t understand,” Dane said slowly, his words aimed at Tau, “is how they can withstand the cold. They were let out in the very early morning. I expected to find them frozen. Reptiles cannot take cold—”

“Lathsmers”—Meshler corrected—“are not reptiles. And they are well adapted to cold. They are acclimated for Trewsworld winters before they are decanted at hatching.”

“But I tell you,” Dane said angrily, “these are not your lathsmers—but probably the million-year-back ancestors of them. They are certainly reptiles to look at!”

“We can’t know just what they are”—Tau corrected him—“until we have a chance to run them through a diagnostic lab. Their immunity to cold might well be a part of their conditioning the ray did not affect.”

“We have no time to argue about their nature!” Meshler stated firmly. “We hunt and find them, before they cause more trouble. First I beam in my report. You stay here.”

He shouldered past Ali and went out the hatch, slamming it behind him. Kamil spoke to Tau.

“What is going on?”

“We would all like to know a few details,” Tau answered wearily. “When we landed, there was already information out—we had come in under suspicious circumstances. Then, we had to report a death on board—”

“But how?” began Shannon.

“Just so, how?” Tau returned. “We had not had time to report. We answered with the truth, showed them the body. I gave the port doctor my conclusions. They wanted his papers. When we told them he carried yours and showed them that mask, they were, or pretended to be, incredulous. Said they didn’t think any such switch could be pulled without our knowing, that an imposture could not be maintained throughout the voyage, which is probably true. That being so, they logically went on to a new point, what would bring a man to stow away.”

“So you told them about the box,” Ali supplied.

“We had to at that point, since the lab people were yammering all over the place for their brachs—as well as the settlers for the embryos. We could have said one shipment was coming later but not both under the circumstances. Jellico has demanded a Board of Trade hearing. In the meantime, the Queen is impounded and the rest of the crew in custody. They sent this Meshler out to pick you up—with me to handle the brachs, since by trade law they have to have a medical officer for a live cargo.”

“I-S behind this, you think?” Rip demanded.

“I don’t believe so. There is still the problem of a big company doing a complicated plan to make trouble for one Free Trader. And it is not that we nudged them out of this mail contract. It had been Combine

property for years. No, I think we were just handy, and someone used us. Maybe the same thing might have happened to a Combine ship if it were still on mail run.”

“Craig”—Dane had been only half listening, his thoughts turning in another direction—“that dead man, could they have meant him to die? Was he expendable and that was why they didn’t care if he lived long enough to be taken for a stowaway?”

“Could be true. Only why—?”

“And why, and why, and why?” Rip threw up his hands in a gesture of scattering unanswerable questions to the four points of the compass.

But Ali had picked up the stone Dane had brought from the wrecked crawler. He turned it around, studying it.

“Trewsworld is strictly an Ag planet, isn’t it? Agriculture the only occupation?”

“That’s been its rating.”

“But dead prospectors in the bush, with a lock bin broken open? Where was this exactly?” Ali shot that question abruptly at Dane.

“Caught in under the melted door. I thought someone had swept out the contents in a big hurry and overlooked this sliver when it wedged fast.”

Rip looked over Ali’s shoulder at the stone. “Looks like ordinary rock to me.”

“Ah, but you aren’t a mineralogist, nor are any of us.” Ali weighed the rock in his hand. “I have a distinct feeling that somehow an answer to all of this is hovering right under our noses, but we are just a little too dense to grasp its importance.”

He was still holding the rock when the hatch creaked open and Meshler was again with them.

“You”—he pointed to Shannon—“stay here. There will be a guard ship from the port to pick you up. And you, also.” This time his pointing finger singled out Ali. “But you and you, and this—this creature you say can sniff out the dragons of yours—will come with me. We take the flitter and pick up those things and do it quickly!”

For a moment it seemed that Shannon and Kamil might protest, but Dane saw them look to Tau, and though there was no change of expression on the medic’s face, Dane believed they had received some message not to interfere with Meshler’s arrangements.

For the second time Dane fitted the brach into the pack, the alien making no protest, as if he had been able to follow their conversation and knew the purpose of this second expedition. And neither did the ranger demand Dane turn over his stunner before they went out to the flitter.

“We go first to Cartl’s,” Meshler announced in his authoritative voice. He motioned Dane to the side seat by his own at the controls, the Terran settling the brach’s pack on his lap, while Tau had one of the rear seats.

Whatever else he might be, the ranger was an expert pilot. Perhaps flitter flight was the normal travel for one representing the law in this wide territory. He brought them up effortlessly, swung the nose of the craft to the southeast, and pushed the speed to high.

It seemed only seconds until they flashed over the river. Then there were billows of the fat-leaved trees under them again, almost as if the forest were another kind of water. The brach sat quietly on Dane’s lap, its head thrust well out of the coverings. The cabin was warm enough so none of them pulled up their hoods, and as that horned nose swung back and forth a little, Dane could almost believe that it quested for some scent.

Suddenly it pointed to the right, more to the westward than their present line of flight. The brach’s voice echoed thinly in the mike of Dane’s hood.

“Dragons, there—”

Meshler, startled, turned his attention from the controls. The brach’s nose continued to point as if registering to some signal.

“How do you know?” the ranger demanded.

Dane repeated his question for translation.

“Dragons hungry, follow meat—”

Hunting! Well, hunger certainly had an emotional side, and it could be very sharp in a feral creature. But Meshler did the flying. Would he allow them to be hunters in turn, or would he insist upon keeping to his original course? Before Dane could urge the hunt on him, the ranger turned, and the brach’s nose, as if it were indeed an indicator geared to the controls, now pointed directly ahead.

“Holding,” Meshler informed them. Scattered among the stumps were odd enclosures of poles, not set tightly together to form fences but placed at even distances, apparently to support rungs or rails. And in the light of the afternoon, they could see that most of those had a living burden which pushed, jostled, and shot out long necks to peck at companions crowding too close. Lathsmers!

“They let them run loose—no guards?” wondered Dane, remembering the antline—and perhaps Trewsworld had native predators, too.

Meshler made a sound that might pass for a laugh.

“They have their own defenses. Now even a man comes in such fields without a stunner. Though if you go in in a crawler and take it slow, they don’t seem to notice. There aren’t many things big or tough enough to take on a covey of lathsmers.”

The brach on Dane’s lap screeched, not any intelligible word, as they flew on, out over a battlefield where a bloody melee was still in progress.

The roosting rails of the lathsmers at this point were fewer than in the first field, and they were clear of the birds. There were some battered bodies ripped and limp on the ground. But two of the rightful inhabitants of the roost were still on their feet, shooting out heads, naked of feathers, murderous beaks spear-pointed at their enemies.

Those were—Dane could not at first believe what his eyes reported. The embryos that had hatched had been then about the size of the female brach. These things were a little larger than the lathsmers. Their quick attacks, feints, use of talons, lashing tails, battering wings on which they could raise high enough to threaten the lathsmers from above, could have all belonged to adults fully matured and seasoned by many such forays.

“They—they’ve grown!” His amazement made him state the obvious. He still could not believe that a single day or two days could have produced such alteration.

“Those your dragons? And you expect me to believe them just decanted?” Meshler was incredulous, as well he might be. But they were the same things Rip, Ali, and Dane had installed in the cage—in miniature then.

“They are.”

Meshler brought the flitter around, for they had swept well over the site of the savage struggle. They swooped down. Dane believed the ranger was trying to frighten the dragons away from the remaining lathsmers. He had his own stunner ready. They would have to come within closer range before he could use it. Meshler fumbled with one hand in the front of his tunic. Now he held out to Dane an egg-shaped ball.

“Push in the top pin,” he ordered. “Drop it as close to them as you can when we go over again.”

Once more they had skimmed away from the battle. Dane opened the window to his right, moving the brach down between his knees for safekeeping, and leaned out ready to drop the ovoid.

Meshler was taking them even closer to the ground on his third pass. Dane only hoped he could judge distance. His thumb sent the plunger even with the surface of the ball, and he let it go. The ranger must have gunned the flitter, for their forward sweep was at such a sudden excess of speed as to pin Dane against the seat, but as they went, the speed decreased, and when the craft turned once more, they had fallen to a landing rate.

Landing here among the stumps on rough terrain where brush had been grubbed out without regard for smoothing was going to take maneuvering. They headed once more for the broken roost. But now around those splintered poles curled greenish vapor, which whirled before it broke into thin wisps and rose up and up to disappear well above the height at which they now flew.

Of the creatures that had, only moments earlier, been engaged in ruthless war, there was nothing to be seen, unless they had joined the bodies on the ground. Meshler set down in the only possible open space, still some distance from the raided roost.

Dane left the brach in the flitter, running with Meshler and Tau toward the scene of the struggle. If the dragons had come originally to hunt for food, perhaps the resistance of the lathsmers had sealed the fate of the whole covey. Or else it was not mere wanton killing on the dragons’ part but defense against the fighting prowess of creatures they had underestimated.

The dragons and the last two of the lathsmers were lying as they had fallen, but they were not dead. The discharge of the vapor had had much the same effect as that of a stunner beam. Meshler stood over the mutants, studying them.

“You say these are the ancestors of the lathsmers?” He sounded unconvinced, and had Dane not seen them crawl from the embryo containers, he would have been as hard to satisfy.

“Unless they were shipped wrongly,” Tau commented. “But I think you can forget that. These were snoop- rayed at the port of Xecho—routine—but the field experts don’t miss anything.”

Meshler stooped, lifted the edge of a wing, which was ribbed with rubbery skin spreading between the ribs, then allowed it to fall back against the scaled body, where snorting breaths expanded and contracted wrinkled, repulsive skin.

“If your trick box can do this—”

“Not our box,” Dane corrected. “And remember the antline—that box is probably not the first of its kind.”

“Report!” Meshler spoke as if to himself. “Now—” He brought a tangler from his belt, a weapon meant to render any prisoner completely immobile. He used it with expert care, leaving each of the dragons well encased, limbs, tail, wings, and cruelly toothed jaws.

They dragged them back to the flitter, loading them into the cargo section. Meshler shook his head over the remains of the lathsmers. The two who had fought to the last, he thought would survive. But the rest were dead. To report this to the unfortunate owner must be their next move.

“He’ll claim damages,” Meshler commented with satisfaction. “And if he wants to swear land-hurt against you all—”

Dane did not know what land-hurt might be, but from the ranger’s tone it was more trouble for the Queen. “Not our doing,” Tau answered.

“No? Your cargo was not officially discharged at the port—this part of it wasn’t—so you are still responsible for it. And if a cargo damages—”

A nice legal point, Dane thought. They were responsible certainly for damage to a cargo, but could they be held also for damage by a cargo? He thought feverishly of all the instruction tapes he had studied, both during his years of schooling and after he had joined the Queen. Had such a case of this kind ever come up before? He could not recall it. Van Ryke would know, but Van Ryke was parsecs away—in another galactic sector—and the Spirit of Outer Space only knew when he was going to planet to join them.

“Take the shortest way.” Again Meshler appeared to be talking to himself. But a few minutes later, instead of turning east as his course had been earlier, the nose of the small craft veered west.

Meshler gave an exclamation and thumped a fist against one of the dials on the board. Its needle quivered a fraction but did not turn. Then he went to work, snapping levers, pushing buttons. There was no answering alteration in their course.

“What’s the matter?” Dane was enough of a flitter pilot himself to know that the craft was now acting as if it were locked on automatics, on a set course, and that the ranger could not break to hand control.

Tau leaned forward, his head nearly even with Dane’s. “Look at that indicator! We’re on a control beam!”

One of the dials did read that they were riding a powerful and pulling beam.

“I can’t break it!” Meshler’s hands dropped from the board. “It won’t answer the manuals.”

“But if no one set a course—and they didn’t—” Dane stared at the dial. Automatics could be set, even locked securely. But none of them had done that, and though they had been engrossed in getting the dragons on board, no one could have approached the flitter without being seen.

“Contact beam,” Meshler said thoughtfully, “but that is impossible! There is nothing in this direction. Oh, a few wandering hunters, maybe. And the Trosti experimental station. But that’s well north of here. And even they do not have the equipment to—”

“Somebody has,” Tau said. “And it would seem your wilderness holds more than you supposed, Ranger Meshler. How closely do you patrol it, anyway?”

Meshler’s head came up. There was a flush on his cheeks.

“We face now half a continent of wilderness. Most of it was aerial mapped. But as for exploring on land, we have too few men, very meager funds. And our jobs are to patrol and protect the holdings. There’s never been any trouble on Trewsworld before—”

“If you are going to say before the Queen arrived,” Dane retorted bitterly, “don’t. We didn’t produce a retrogressed antline, nor murder those two men in the crawler. And we certainly didn’t entangle our own ship on purpose. If we are caught in a contact beam, it has to be broadcast from an installation. So there’s more in the wilderness than you know.”

But Meshler did not seem to be listening. Instead, the ranger activated the com, holding the mike in his hand and rattling off a series of letters that must have been in code. Three times he repeated that, waiting each time for a reply. Then, as nothing came, he hung the mike back on its hook with a small shrug of his shoulders.

“Com out, too?” Tau asked.

“It would seem so,” Meshler answered. And still the flitter bored into a coming dusk of twilight, heading west into what the ranger admitted was the unknown.