Beast Master's Quest

by Andre Norton

  That involved finding the coyotes. After they were discovered romping in the main cargo hold, Storm was able to question them. It wasn’t easy. Even genetically enhanced beasts thought in the now, and in simple terms. But Storm managed to find out that they had come in before Laris departed. They’d never seen her.

  Several hours later everyone, including the team beasts, was assembled, looking blankly at one another. Laris was not in the ship; she was nowhere to be found on the shore, nor could Mandy, flying high, see any sign of her. And what was worse, Laris seemed to have waded in the water’s edge along the beach for much of her time. Her scent trail drifted in and out of the water and finally disappeared about two miles to the east.

  Logan was white-faced, remembering the sea-beast attack, while Tani was sure if that had occurred enough blood would have remained on the water for the coyotes to have smelled it.

  “Besides, Laris isn’t a fool; she saw the sea-beast. She’d keep an eye on the sea watching for signs of one of the beasts moving toward land. I’m certain if she’d bled a lot, Minou or Ferrare would have smelled that.” Prauo was equally emphatic: if Laris were dead or severely injured, he would have known.

  In fact, there was only one thing they could say for certain. Laris was gone, and none of them knew where or why or how she’d vanished.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Finally Captain D’Argeis took charge of the situation. “Her internal locator beacon isn’t working; there’s nothing on-screen. That may only mean it was broken when she was kidnapped, or she’s fallen in such a way as to make it inoperative. We need more information. Storm, you and Logan check her room. We need to know what she’s wearing, what she might have with her, and anything else we can learn.

  “Tani, you go out again. Have Mandy fly a line over the trail and continue on from there to see if there’s anything she can see. Take your coyotes this time, and don’t just have them trail Laris; have them tell you everything they can about the trail. Can they pick up any emotions, any scent that gives us an idea of what happened out there? Did anyone meet her, any animal or person, is there anything at all they can say about Laris’s movements and her trail in addition to what they’ve already told us?”

  He looked at them all. “We haven’t lost Laris, she’s just misplaced.” He dropped to one knee to look Prauo in the eyes. “You of all of us know she isn’t seriously hurt as yet. Go and seek out aikizai, ask them to help. They’ve seemed happy with your choice of Laris, surely they’d help an aikiza who’s lost his liomsa?”

  Spirits rose. The captain was right. Prauo was sure Laris wasn’t dead or even badly hurt—if she was hurt at all. The bond remained and he could feel it tying him to her. He flowed down the main ramp, which Storm had lowered to save them all time coming and going.

  Security was on, and no stranger could enter without setting off alarms. The Captain would stay on the bridge, with viewscreens on, to coordinate their communications. Storm and Logan were still checking Laris’s room as Tani, Mandy, and the coyotes were hurrying off down the beach. Prauo loped towards the trees. Somewhere within the forest, he’d find a aikiza he could ask for help.

  Within the ship the main computers hummed busily. Before all this had started Tani had finished loading the few samples she already had. E’l’ith had answered all the questions Tani could think of and allowed those samples to be taken from herself and the three who had come with her to talk. Together with samples from Laris and Prauo it might give Tani a baseline to begin working on.

  She’d explained her hopes to E’l’ith, who had suggested other possible areas on which to question the liomsa. E’l’ith had passed on Tani’s intentions to her friends and they had made other comments which could help. From all of which Tani had created quite comprehensive questionnaires about the environments of the aikizai and their liomsa. She’d asked for common denominators and the computers worked on, uncaring of the excitement and worry about them.

  Meanwhile, Storm turned over the contents of the small, neatly stacked cupboards in Laris’s cabin. “See anything missing?”

  Logan nodded slowly. “Yes, her green top, black trousers, and her favorite boots. Those boots are Airways; they carry a varying cushion of air in the soles to make walking long distances more comfortable. They were new out on Arzor just before we left and I bought her a pair. Laris loves them. You know, some of her other small stuff isn’t here, either.”

  He turned away from the sight of her stunner hanging behind the door. Why couldn’t she had taken that? If a sea-beast was responsible for her disappearance, despite Prauo’s claim Laris was unharmed in any major way, he’d never forgive himself. He should have emphasized safety to her more instead of wasting time fighting with her.

  “What other small stuff?” Storm asked impatiently.

  Logan wrenched his thoughts back on track as he held up items for Storm to see. “Her stunner’s here, but she’s taken the small folding knife from that belt, and her canteen as well.”

  “Did she have water-purification tablets?”

  Logan turned the belt over and nodded. “She’s taken those and her trace-element tablets, too.” He felt a little better once he’d realized that. At least he’d always drummed it into Laris that she must never set foot outside without water and the essential tablets.

  But then, Laris understood about that sort of thing. In the circus where she’d once worked, it had been a necessary part of her care for the animal performers that she feed them trace elements from their own worlds to keep them in good condition. It had been one of the first things she’d done for Prauo after she’d brought him back to the circus ship. She’d run tests for what he’d require, and provided those elements.

  Laris understood the dangers of being out on another world without the small tablets which saw to it that the water was pure enough to drink. A good proportion of the plants here were edible for humans as well, but they required that a human add the trace-element tablets to make up the extra nutrients their bodies needed, which the natural food sources of this world did not produce. Eating fruit and other similar natural foods here wouldn’t kill humans—if they chose the right ones—but they would very slowly starve or die from various deficiency-related diseases.

  Logan grinned wryly. Prauo had been luckier in that respect during his earlier life. Aikizai could digest a wider variety of foods and utilize more trace elements than could humans. He turned over another small heap of tunics and considered. He hadn’t found one item here.

  “Storm? Her personal communicator isn’t here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. She always leaves it snapped onto the stunner belt. If she takes it to use without that, she snaps it into her pocket and puts it back on the belt when she returns.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Storm said thoughtfully. “She should have her internal locator beacon working—but according to the captain, it isn’t. So wherever she is out there, she should have her personal communicator with her, but she hasn’t used that, either. Prauo is certain she isn’t dead or badly injured. So she can’t have been taken by a sea-beast. Which suggests that if she has the communicator and isn’t too much injured, she’s being prevented from using it in some way. Can you find anything else missing?”

  “No.” Logan looked at his half-brother hopefully. “You think she’s all right but she’s been kidnapped or something?”

  “I think the evidence is starting to point that way. We’ll see what the others have found out.”

  They found Tani trotting back towards the ship, her face alight with news. Storm smiled at her. “What did you discover?”

  “When we ran Laris’s trail the first time I was just having Minou and Ferrare follow that to see where it went. This time I had them work every inch. She was wading a lot, in and out of the water’s edge, picking up shells, putting odd bits of that pretty wood where she’d find it on the way back. She was out of the water enough for us to track her fairly well for about two mil
es. We found marks where those things had been moved so I’d think she was still free to that point.”

  “That’s where you lost her trail the first time?”

  “Yes, but this time I had Minou follow the original trail, while Ferrare checked parallel to it about ten or fifteen feet inland. We kept going on even after we couldn’t find Laris’s scent any more. About a mile on after that we found the scent of an aikiza and one of the liomsa coming straight down into the water from the forest.” Her face became animated with excitement.

  “Listen, we backtracked that trail, too. The coyotes say it was definitely T’s’ai and his aikiza, and—” She answered Storm’s raised eyebrows. “They’re certain of it, Storm. They don’t make mistakes about that sort of thing.”

  “But they were five hundred miles away.” Logan was incredulous. “How did he get here and how’d he know where Laris would be?”

  Storm’s look was dangerous. “They have boats. I saw several on the viewscreens when we were landing. All he had to do was start sailing along the coast as soon as we left. I gather from something E’l’ith said a while back that the wind’s directional at this time of the year, so he could make the trip by sail in a week, a lot less if they have small motors for their sailing boats, and they have their own quite reliable ways of communication.”

  His look hardened into anger. “I suspect someone in E’l’ith’s immediate group may have been passing on news. But never mind that now. Tani, you say you backtracked T’s’ai. Where did he come from and have you any idea where he might have gone?”

  “Yes. There were odd marks in the sand about a mile after the last of Laris’s scent. His trail started there, went into the trees, and ran along inside the forest fringe until it came out and down to the water not far past where Laris vanished. After that his scent vanished, too. There was a fresher patch of scent by some strange marks in the sand, then nothing, and no trace of Laris.” Her gaze met theirs. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Both Storm and Logan nodded vigorously. “I’d say T’s’ai met Laris, maybe suggested she come and look at his boat. While her attention was on that, he knocked her on the head, dropped her into the boat, and simply sailed away. No track, no trace. It’s just odd her internal locator beacon isn’t lighting up either.”

  Tani looked troubled. “Yes, that was my thought, too. But why, Storm? What does he want with her and what’s shut down the beacon?”

  “I have no idea, but I doubt if he’s gone to the trouble of hunting her down and kidnapping her because he plans to kill her. If he’d intended murder we’d have found the body.”

  Logan winced. “Unless a sea-beast—”

  “There’d have been blood in the water, and the coyotes would have picked that up. No, I’d guess T’s’ai had a different agenda. Let’s get back to the ship and wait for Prauo.”

  They arrived back to find not Prauo but some thirty pairs of aikizai and their humanoid partners waiting to offer tissue samples and answer Tani’s questions. Storm looked at the milling group and spoke quietly to Tani.

  “Do it. We need the information, and it may provide something we can use to bargain with if we need to do that later on.”

  Tani nodded and ran for the ship. He watched a few minutes later as she returned and began to take the samples. He couldn’t say what was nudging for his attention from the back of his head, but something was suggesting Laris’s kidnapping might tie in with the differing beliefs of E’l’ith and T’s’ai. If that was so, any information on the subject could be invaluable.

  Within the forest Prauo had trotted steadily along the path that led towards the ruins. The wind was blowing briskly toward him and he could scent Saaraoo several miles deeper among the trees. He suspected the aikiza was at the ruins, probably with his liomsa, and Prauo wasn’t wasting time. As he ran he was considering the situation, the questions he wanted to ask, and what was known of Laris’s disappearance.

  He appeared from the thicker forest, bolted into the clearing that contained the ruins, and was screaming mentally for both E’l’ith and Saaraoo as he cleared the tree fringes. Both came popping out of the nearest half-melted building like startled Arzoran grass hens.

  *Query? Anxiety.* from E’l’ith.

  And from Saaraoo, *Reassurance. Comfort. A promise to aid if it was possible, as one aikiza to another.*

  Prauo sent in one flaring gestalt everything he had put together as he ran, all his information, laced with his fear for Laris, his suspicions, and his utter determination to have Laris back alive or slaughter whoever had been responsible for her death. His sending overrode the protests he received, so E’l’ith shifted to clearer and slower sending.

  *You cannot! An aikiza may not slay one of us.*

  Saaraoo was slower to respond, but he too agreed. *We do not kill our friends. An aikiza would fight if you threaten his liomsa.*

  Prauo stood facing them, the fur rising along the back of his shoulders. Then he opened his mind and involuntarily both stepped back at the mental heat which raged at them. Much was not in words, but if it had been they would have read it as a statement:

  *I do not care what is done or not done on this world. My furless-sister is mine to me. She has stepped between a whip and my body. She has given me not only life and love but freedom always to be myself. She would kill or die for me. I am not less. Who harms her is my enemy. Tell me what you know or let Saaraoo face me now.*

  Sendings flashed between aikiza and liomsa: Absolute knowledge that this one meant what he said. He would kill. The laws and customs which bound them did not bind one who had not grown into them. He was young, but his size was formidable, as was his strength. And, Saaraoo suspected, this one could not be constrained by several aikizai minds. His mental capacities had developed differently, bound as he was to one who was not of their liomsa’s race.

  *We will tell you what we know.* It was both decision and a peace offering.

  *Quickly.* Prauo dropped his hindquarters onto the grass, seated, but both could see the determination and the tension in his body. They capitulated.

  *The reason for our dissension is simple,* E’l’ith sent. *I will make a tale of many generations brief for you. In the faraway times my people fought. Saaraoo’s kin were only semi-intelligent and lived apart from us in those days, although now and again one of them chose to live with my kind. But war came; my people died in the millions, yet some lived. We were altered by the plagues. There were genetic changes made in us by the weapons we used, these things combined to make us other than we had been. Over the years we learned we were different now, and we started to travel on a new path, liomsa and aikizai together.*

  Saaraoo continued, *We joined the liomsa, we who had no hands to do the things we now wished to do. The changes they found in themselves came to us also in strange ways. But we were of one world; the things they had loosed struck us as much as them. Nor were our two peoples the only things that were changed. By the standards of your liomsa’s race, E’l’ith is small and fragile, weak of bone and muscle. Other creatures on our world grew larger, always hungry and more savage. We combined, her people and mine. We protected them; they aided us.*

  Prauo’s sending was impatient. *Laris?*

  E’l’ith nodded. *These last five generations the mind-bonds that hold our races together have weakened. More and more aikizai are born who cannot fully bond with one of my people. The final stage of the aikizai is not fulfilled. The last level of intelligence.*

  *And so?* Prauo sent.

  *We are split on what should be done. Some female aikizai have chosen to slay their cubs once it is clear they have the weaker bonding and can never be more than servants. When they do not chose to kill, but when partway through the aikiza’s bonding it is realized what will occur, my race has often chosen to break the bond and the aikiza cub dies unfulfilled. Some of my race choose to bond an aikiza of that strain anyhow, having then a servant that will be theirs for life. My group believe this is slavery and w
rong, and we have cast out those who do this. They too have banded together in a different part of this continent, living there with their aikizai.*

  Prauo looked at Saaraoo. *What do you say in this matter? What would you do?*

  *We fear,* Saaraoo said straightly. *Without our liomsa we are no more than beasts. But with each new generation, more and more of us cannot fully bond. Fewer of us come to full intelligence and independence.*

  Prauo recalled discussion in the mess. “What occurs if an aikiza is of full capacity and his liomsa dies—in an accident perhaps?*

  *Nothing. Once an aikiza reaches full mental power, that is how that one will remain.*

  *So they are free, then, to remain with their liomsa or to leave?*

  *Even so. They are friends, as we are aikizai. We are equals and we stay as and if we wish.* His mouth dropped open in a feline grin. *Although mostly we stay. Why would one reject one’s best friend?*

  E’l’ith sighed. *Do you see now what is between us? My group says that it is wrong to bond those who cannot fulfill that bond and eventually walk free. T’s’ai’s group would accept an aikiza who bonded fully, but barring that, they will take servants whom they may keep for a lifetime without freedom. This has caused the dissension among us. It may be that T’s’ai has heard the suggestion Tani made to me: that she studies us to see if she can discover a way of strengthening the aikizai bond so that all aikizai may bond fully.*

  *And if my friends had such a way, why would he believe we would not share it?*

  E’l’ith eyed him. *I heard of a sea-beast. Maybe he thinks you would refuse to aid one who risked a life? Or perhaps he fears we will influence your friend into refusing such a gift to T’s’ai and his kind, giving it instead to us, to be shared with them or not as we choose. How can he know the ways of thought of those who are not of our world? But a hostage, that is different. For her, surely you will help him or tell what you learn.*