Beast Master's Quest

by Andre Norton

  Prauo hissed softly. *For her surely I will tear out his throat if she is harmed. But while you share knowledge, why was I cast into the star lanes to either bond or die alone slowly?*

  A quiet padding was heard as Purrraal appeared from behind the ruins. *That, I can answer.* Prauo eyed her savagely but waited in silence.

  *As E’l’ith has said, fewer and fewer aikizai bonded fully. Our people were once again becoming the semi-intelligent beasts they were before war came. Some of us believed that if we could find liomsa elsewhere, they might revitalize the bond. We knew of space; before our wars began, some ships had landed to trade. So we agreed that if any who might be suitable liomsa came from the stars to land on our world, we would thrust a cub into their way.*

  Her purple gaze met his squarely. *You were chosen from strong lines. True, my first two cubs were weak, but we thought you would not be. If you were weak, we lost nothing anyway; if you found a liomsa and bonded fully, then we might gain much.*

  Prauo stood slowly, took two paces towards her and spat full into her muzzle. *Laris said all there is to be said on that. I was a sacrifice, unknowing, unwilling, and without choice. I could have drowned in vacuum, been poisoned and died slowly and agonizingly from the wrong foods, or been shut in a zoo to die miserably over months of loneliness. If I had offered, that would be acceptable, but as Laris would say, to sell a child into such ends is not to be forgiven.*

  *It was for survival,* E’l’ith protested, as Purrraal flinched.

  Prauo turned to go, sending over his shoulder as he padded from the clearing. *And as Laris would also ask in reply to that, what right have you to survive on the murder of cubs that might have become intelligent beings?* He was gone, leaving two aikizai and another staring after him, the beginnings of horror in their eyes.

  In a small boat that pitched on the slight chop as it rounded a headland, Laris’s mind drifted towards the surface of thought. Then back of her shoulder was bruised. It hurt, with a sharp ache that made her twist away a little from where it rested against the boat’s planking. She could hear the soft hum of an engine, the splash of waves as they slapped against the boat’s hull.

  In her drug-fogged mind she could dimly recall having argued with Logan. She’d felt happy when Prauo turned against his own kind. He’d said he would have nothing to do with them. He’d told her he would never stay on his world now. The relief had been almost more than she could hide from him. So why had she taken out her emotions on Logan? He’d come to spend time and be with her, and how had she reacted?

  “Laris? Do you want to come and toss a ball for Mandy?”

  “No.”

  “We could take a walk?”

  “Is that all you think of? Games? Little walks? You need to grow up. Life isn’t handed to everyone on a plate, you know.”

  She’d seen the hurt look in his eyes, the bewilderment on his face, and it had driven her to savage him, saying more and more, snarling at him until he’d turned on one heel and left. Laris bit back a whimper. She loved Logan and the pain she had just caused him cut at her. She had no idea why she’d done that, said those things, and staring after him, choking on her own misery, cursing her bitter tongue, she had fled for the ship’s ramp and the quiet solitude of the forest.

  In the boat her hand lifted feebly, seeking the touch of a muzzle and the feel of soft fur. Her sending was so weak it could not have been heard more than a few yards away, yet that was sufficient for the one who was with her. His hand came out and a cup was held to her lips. She was dry, and she drank the odd-tasting water eagerly. The soft smothering fog of drugs came down again in minutes, and once more she slept as the boat’s small motor drove it on through the coastal shallows.

  Storm and Logan were both waiting with Tani when Prauo emerged from the forest. His mind was closed to the clump of humanoids and their aikizai who waited halfway between the ship and the forest fringe. But every stiff-legged movement showed his rage. It was Tani who acted. She stopped taking samples and asking questions and went to him, touching his tense shoulders gently.

  “Come inside and rest. Laris would want you to, and we have learned some things you should know.

  He followed her, each stride still redolent of his anger. Storm and Logan walked quietly after him, having shut the main ramp and the smaller crew door tightly, locking both into the security system. They weren’t certain who was a friend out there, and until they knew it was better to be safe.

  Prauo reached the mess, accepted food and water, and, while he ate and drank, listened as Storm outlined their discoveries. Once Storm was done, he and the others waited for the big feline to explain what he had heard. Once he was done with his tale they looked at one another in dismay.

  Tani was first to speak. “I see one possible answer. If I have enough samples and questionnaires, I may be able to discover why increasing numbers of the liomsa-aikizai bondings are not fully effective. If I can give T’s’ai’s side a solution to that, they might free Laris.”

  Logan shook his head. “ ‘If’ and ‘might.’ Tani, what if you can’t find the answer, or they don’t like what they’d have to do to implement it? You’ve heard how ruthless they were prepared to be to one of their own, and a helpless cub at that. Laris isn’t from this world, and I don’t think they’ll care about her or Prauo, either. If we don’t come up with an answer that they want to hear, I think it’s—well—they may kill her trying to make us find their solution.”

  “E’l’ith may not be so ruthless,” Tani said hopefully.

  Storm shook his head. “It isn’t E’l’ith who has her.”

  *Take no comfort in that,* Prauo sent bitterly. *They made it clear to me it was not only my dam’s decision to let me be stolen. It was also that of E’l’ith and many of those with her.*

  “Then we have to find Laris.” Logan snapped. “Why the crats didn’t we have the heavier-duty personnel beacons implanted before we left Arzor? These light ones don’t stand up to a solid blow.”

  “Because it would have taken time we didn’t want to waste,” Storm pointed out. “I thought I’d covered the chance of a kidnapping or killing when I told everyone never to leave the ship alone.”

  “Are you saying it was Laris’s fault?”

  Storm looked at his furious half-brother in silence before placing a hand on his shoulder. “No. She’s young, she just didn’t think, and why would she have expected what we think happened?”

  He turned to look at Prauo. “You can tell that Laris isn’t dead or even badly injured. Can you tell in what direction she may be?”

  *She must be beyond my range. I can feel nothing of her direction. But a bond is deeper; death would be different. That I would feel.*

  Storm’s mind was racing along that track. “How far away can she be for you to still feel her mind? Does it matter if she’s unconscious?”

  *It would not matter if she were asleep. I need only to be within two miles to touch her mind, to send and receive from her.*

  “What if you were moving quickly past her? How easily could you know it was her you were passing?”

  Prauo considered that. *There have been times when she was moving and I was not. I remember I could tell in a very small time it was my sister who approached. I cannot be sure, but perhaps if she passed me at a speed of fifty of your miles but was less than the two miles above me, I could still know it was her overhead.*

  Storm smiled triumphantly. “Then we lift ship. These Garands are intended as cargo ships, able to land on raw planets without a spaceport. To do that effectively they need to be able to hover and maneuver on their side jets.”

  He flicked the intercom switch over to call the bridge. “Captain, can you lift ship and follow the coast line on the side? And if you can, how far can you go on the spare fuel?” He knew the captain would be calculating as they waited for the answer. Storm could make an estimate, but the captain was the expert.

  “It’ll be dark very shortly. Better we wait for daylight to take of
f.” The captain’s voice sounded concerned. “If we wait, though, based on fuel supplies, speed, and distance—if we check both ways along the coast—then I would say we can manage to cover about two hundred miles both east and west, with some allowance for swinging inland and back again in a search pattern. After that we’ll still have some spare fuel, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to use it all.”

  “All right.” Storm made his decision quickly. “We’ll start a search at first light tomorrow. But we’ll gamble, I think if T’s’ai has kidnapped her it was to take Laris back to his own area again, so we’ll follow the coast all the way towards our first landing place. Tani, there are still people waiting out there to give answers and samples. Go out with Logan to guard you, get everything you can, and run the answers for results overnight. We mustn’t forget that a solution T’s’ai will accept may still get us Laris back.”

  By rigging a couple of lights outside, Tani managed to clear another large batch of samples, which she loaded into her analyzer. She added the natives’ answers on the scriber as well. The computer would scan those and load them into a second database. It was possible the problem was environmental; her questions had been carefully designed to show any possible environmental factors, too.

  After that she reeled to her bed and slept. Storm was already asleep, as was the captain. Only Logan lay awake much longer, going over and over the fight he’d had with Laris; he worried at that, the reasons she’d attacked him, how he could have handled it better. He decided to tell Tani about it in the morning and ask her advice, then he, too, slid into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Laris half-woke again when the boat’s motor was turned off and the small sailing boat was pulled up onto the shore. One of the liomsa removed the outboard motor, carrying it with them as they moved up the beach. Laris found herself on her feet, staggering clumsily towards the forest while liomsa on either side of her half upheld, half tugged her along. She felt a bright flaring pain in her shoulder. Sickness rose and she stopped, sagging against their hands while she vomited again and again.

  The two who held her waited with apparent patience, but the thrust from behind which propelled her forward, once she had ceased to throw up, suggested that someone else’s patience was running out. Dimly, Laris was angry about that, she wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. Nor, judging from the snarled protest over the shove, did the other to her right.

  Laris let her feet do what they would while she concentrated on the retorts which were flung across her.

  *Don’t ill-treat her.* Yes, that was the original protest, she remembered it, and the reply.

  *It is I who give the orders.*

  Laris staggered from a second shove. Images from her captor of Laris reeling around as if drunk or crazy.

  *Folly! We do this to convince her friends we are in the right in all of this. If she is returned damaged or terrorized, will they not reject our beliefs and our plea for aid?*

  That was T’s’ai, Laris thought. And if that were so, then possibly the other two with her were T’s’en and T’k’ee. She could recognize T’s’ai, she believed, but she wasn’t sure she could tell those two from any others of their group. Still, knowing who had kidnapped her was in some way almost comforting. They weren’t a completely unknown quality. And if they wanted something from her friends, that should help.

  The one behind her was replying, *What we want they will give us, or this one can suffer.*

  *It would not be right. She is bonded. Her aikiza is of us.*

  *Of us, yes. What is she?*

  There was a long pause in the discussion while Laris was hauled along the trail in silence. Then the other spoke again. His sending had been deeper, more powerful. One who was older? Laris wondered.

  *Not of us. We should treat her well.* He paused, before continuing, and Laris hid her sudden fear. *At least until we know if her friends can give us what we desire. If not, then we do not want her knowing who we are. Her friends know nothing of our taking of her—as yet. I think it better we approach them as innocent, offering our aid to look for their lost friend. We suggest that perhaps E’l’ith and her people are the ones who have taken their missing one.*

  That started a loud protest from T’s’ai. *If we pretend ignorance, how shall we make demands? Only those who hold a treasure can offer it in exchange for knowledge.*

  The deeper sending replied tartly to that. *We suggest that it is E’l’ith who wants the answer, of course. We beg them to provide it to us also, should they discover some solution. But it is best this one does not return to talk.* The sending developed an edge, a touch/taste of disgust, of drawing back from something that reeked. *Besides, she is alien. It is an abomination that she has an aikiza and a full bond.*

  Laris forced herself to remain half-slumped against their hands. They’d forgotten, she guessed, that unlike their own kind, she could read their sendings without an aikiza when in close proximity. They mustn’t be reminded—knowing what they planned could help her find a way to escape.

  She had better find a way, too, she thought, listening to the argument continue. T’s’ai and his friends didn’t want Laris harmed, and she believed they would have returned her if or when her friends found a solution to the bonding problem. But the third one here wasn’t going for that. From the feel of his sendings, he was more fanatical, more dangerous. The sort who believed dead men—or women—tell no tales and wasn’t averse to ensuring it himself.

  She forced back a sudden shiver. Right now she was helpless. Prauo and her friends would be searching for her, that was certain. But would they find her?

  They must have arrived at their destination. Laris felt the liomsa release her, and her mind caught up just in time to allow her body to slide limply to the ground.

  *On the bed. Cover her.* That was the dangerous one.

  *Should we give her more of the—?* touch/taste of a cloying sweetness overlaid with a tinge of mustiness.

  *No. She has enough in her body to ensure she sleeps for hours yet, now that we are no longer moving her.* His foot nudged her. *How useful that we have a friend in E’l’ith’s camp who has been able to tell us everything that these aliens are planning. Watch her, T’s’ai. If she moves, give her more of the drug at once, but for now we do not want to damage her. She may still be of use alive.*

  Again Laris made her body limp and still. She mustn’t react to that threat no matter how scared she was. Her friends would find her. Prauo would never stop hunting, and Logan, too, would seek her. Nor could she see Tani and Storm shrugging off the loss of one of their crewmates. She must lie still, save her strength, listen, and wait. The right time to act would come, and she’d be the better for not having wasted any energy before then.

  T’s’ai was moving her carefully, placing her arms and legs tidily onto the bed, arranging some sort of covering to tuck in around her. She could pick up the unconscious sending as he did so. There were no words, only flickers of distress, disapproval, worried faces that came and went, an aikiza, and with that face a great pang of grief, loss, sorrow, another aikiza and the same emotions.

  Then from T’s’ai she received an image of a liomsa she’d never seen before. Behind that face she could read T’s’ai’s anger at the male, with a mind-taste of personal outrage. It was the sort of feeling you had when a stronger person made you do something you didn’t like but you had to obey. She understood the emotion; it had been hers often enough in her days as a bondservant to Dedran, the master of the circus where she lived.

  She suspected the liomsa with the strong mind-voice was the one T’s’ai resented. As she lay apparently unconscious, her mind was like a kaleidoscope, shifting thoughts and mental images around, matching, studying the pattern, then shifting the bits again. The pieces were the emotions she’d recognized, the faces she’d seen, the protests, answers, and decisions of the liomsa who held her. What could she learn while she had the time?
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br />   One thing was clear, Laris believed. She’d been kidnapped to put pressure on Tani for a solution to the problem of inadequately bonded aikizai. The kidnappers thought that there must be a solution to their problem—but what if there wasn’t? They had no intention of returning her, or that one she was mentally tagging as strong-send, hadn’t. He didn’t like her personally; he thought she was some kind of thing, not a person, because while she came from another world, she and Prauo had a complete bonding.

  It could be jealousy that fueled his dislike, anger that she could do something he couldn’t. Not that it mattered. He probably wouldn’t admit his reasons to himself, let alone to his friends or assistants. She’d known people like that in her past. His reasons didn’t matter; he was the way he was and she had to deal with the problem he presented. She allowed her mind to reach out slightly. She felt no one present now. She shifted slightly, rolling over further, hiding her face behind her arm. Still she felt no indication that anyone watched her. T’s’ai must have left the hut.

  Cautiously she opened her eyes a slit, daylight, not full, but shading toward dusk. Laris had seen the boat—and the small engine it had—before T’s’ai had hit her. He might have spent only the remainder of the day he’d taken her, the night after, and the following day in traveling here—wherever here was. She was guessing at the elapsed time since she’d been kidnapped, but she thought she was close enough to right.

  Possibly she was now near the first landing the ship had chosen. If that were so, she had a good idea of where she was and how far she was from the ship. If she could escape her captors . . .

  The question was, should she try, and if so, when? As she pondered this she heard approaching footsteps and dug her face deeper into the crook of her arm, shifting a fold of the covering across her eyes. It was coarsely woven and she could see through it. She watched as two others entered. Yes, T’s’ai and T’k’ee. Well, that answered that; neither had the feel of Strong-Sender. Which meant he was either T’s’en or someone else she hadn’t met before. They were talking. Laris listened.