Masters of Everon

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Why? Jef's own solitary nature and way of life had made him an expert at replaying conversations in his head. If he had been asked, point-blank, what Armage's first words were on entering the room, he would have been as much at a loss as anyone might to suddenly summon them up. But if, as he was doing now, he cast his mind back to the time when he had been in the room and recalled how Armage had entered it, then the whole incident unrolled once more in his mind like a memory tape with built-in sounds and scents.

  He ran back over this particular personal memory now, trying to put his finger on the moment at which he had ceased to feel helpless before Armage and had begun to feel he was in control of the situation. But it was not until the conversation was almost over that he located the point at which his change in feelings had taken place—it was the point at which Armage had promised that Jef would tell him what he wanted to know, and Jef had retorted that the Constable had no right to do what he was doing. Remembering that instant, now, Jef recalled threatening the Constable with legal reprisals for his actions and those of the Post Officer. Armage had replied with a threat that he could find a way to make Jef talk, and suggested that Jef sleep on that prospect.

  A written transcript might have shown Armage as having come off sounding dangerous enough; but Jef, remembering, was once more left with the firm impression that the Constable's promise had a hollow ring to it; and that, on the other hand, his own threat had struck home in some area where Armage felt vulnerable. There was nothing physical, no definite item of evidence to back this up. It was only a feeling—but it was a very certain feeling.

  Armage had bluffed; and he, Jef, had called that bluff.

  If Armage had been bluffing, if he was not as in control of the situation as he had tried to seem, then his reason for coming to the room had been only to try to scare information out of Jef. Consider, Jef told himself now, if he had told the Constable whatever it was Armage needed to know, the Constable could have gone out, left the door unlocked, and Jef would have been at liberty to set himself free. Afterwards, Jef could have claimed he had been held prisoner and questioned; but if the Constable and everyone else at Post Fifty denied this, who would listen—particularly when Jef had no proof and obviously there had been no harm done to him?

  But if Armage indeed had not been that much in command of the situation, then there must be something he was concerned about—something even, perhaps, of which he was afraid. Martin Curragh?

  And if it was Martin, why was it Martin?

  Up until that point Jef's mind had seemed to be making great progress. But facing the mystery of what the Constable might fear, it bogged down completely. Any one of numberless possibilities could be the answer. And there was no way of choosing the most likely. As he, Jarji, and Mikey proceeded through the dim woods, Jef struggled with the problem but got nowhere. After a while the light brightened, as the single moon in the local sky became visible overhead. It made the Everon night about them twice as bright as a full moon would have done back on Earth. Jarji called a halt at last beside a small creek they had been about to wade.

  "We're far enough away from the post, now," she said. "It ought to be safe enough to stop for a bit of food. With this much natural light, we can risk a small campfire even if they've got aircraft already in the skies looking for sign of us—which I don't think they have."

  They unslung their packs and Jarji started a small fire under a collapsible pot filled with clear creek water set on the flames to heat. Both Jef and she dug freeze-dried stew portions from their packs and dropped the cork-light chunks into the water to absorb the liquid and the heat together.

  "We'll need some more water," said Jarji, gazing into the pot. "Didn't guess you'd be so hungry."

  "I put in a double portion—half of it's for Mikey," said Jef. "It's nowhere near as much as he ought to have. He's been eating everything I could give him; and he ran me out. I'd thought I'd restock with food for both of us at Post Fifty, but of course... I'll get some more water."

  He poured from his canteen into the pot and then went down to the flowing stream to refill the canteen. When he came back, Jarji was sitting on her heels, stirring the food that was cooking. Her back was to him and her crossbow was laid aside on the grass. Apart from that heavy weapon, Jef thought, she looked like someone out on a picnic. Her appearance and her attitudes were, it seemed, worlds apart. Jef was tempted to ask her about them, so that he could try to make some sense out of her answers. But then, every time he had started out asking her questions so far, they had ended up in something very like an argument.

  He decided to say nothing. They ate, put out the fire, packed up and hiked on. It was some hours later and the light of the moon had perceptibly lessened, when the trees thinned abruptly before them and they came to the edge of open country filled with the tall version of the moss-grass standing like a near-two-meter-thick carpet over the treeless earth. They stopped, gazing out at it.

  "Look at that—" Jef was beginning; for the sea of grasslike stems stretched as far as the eye could see in the light of the low moon and the night breeze wandering over the surface of the sea made it seem to undulate like an actual ocean. But before he could finish, he was interrupted.

  Off to their left there was the sound of a thumping and rustling amongst the tall moss-grass at the very edge of the trees. Jef and Jarji turned sharply to face in that direction, Jarji's right hand snapping the crossbow up into aimed position. The spring-pull whirred as the wire string of the weapon drew back. Without warning Mikey suddenly dashed blindly away from Jef in the direction of the noise, making a variety of sounds of his own.

  Without thinking, Jef ran after him.

  "Wait—" he heard Jarji call behind him; but Mikey was plainly not going to wait, and Jef could not. He ran on.

  Jef caught up with the maolot almost immediately. Mikey had a large shape pinned to the earth, his wide muzzle on its throat; and as Jef came up, the shape gave one last thrashing convulsion and lay still.

  "Mikey!" snapped Jef, hauling the maolot back by the fur of his neck. Jef stopped in front of Mikey and bent over the shape.

  It was a young eland doe, dead, its head twisted back from its body where Mikey's powerful jaws had plainly broken its neck.

  "Mikey—" began Jef and broke off. He had been hoping that a hunting instinct would reawaken in Mikey, not only because the maolot would need it eventually as he returned to his normal life in his normal environment, but because Mikey had now developed food demands that were impossible to meet out of the freeze-dried foods Jef had been packing. At the same time, however, the slender, dead body of the doe was an uncomfortable sight to see. Dropping the carcass, Mikey turned and began butting his head proudly into Jef's chest and shoulder, making the sounds that asked for praise and approval. Illogically—in view of his emotional reaction to the sight of the killed eland—Jef found himself petting the maolot at the same time as he felt the instinct to withdraw from Mikey's bloody jaws.

  "All right, Mikey," he found himself saying, "—all right."

  "Looks like that eland was already mostly gone when your beast got to her," Jarji commented dryly at Jef's shoulder. "Look at her belly and mouth. She's been poisoned."

  Jef took another look. Jarji was quite right. There was a yellowish foam around the muzzle of the eland, and her stomach was swollen drum-tight. Jef stared at it and pulled Mikey back once more from the carcass.

  "No, Mikey!" he said sharply, adding to Jarji, "Was this what you meant when you said something about the wisent ranchers poisoning the elands on Beau leCourboisier's game ranch, because they wanted to clear it for their own herds?"

  "That's right," said Jarji. "Well, let's find a place to camp. We're here."

  "Here?" echoed Jef. For a second, with his mind on the doe and Mikey, he had forgotten where they were headed.

  "At the edge of where Beau leCourboisier used to run his elands." Jarji waved out over the wind-rippled sea of moss-grass. "That was his forest land out there."
>
  She turned her back on the open country.

  "Well and well," she said. "Let's find ourselves a place to camp. It'll be daylight in a few hours and you'll find it not so easy to fall asleep with the dawn in your eyes."

  She turned back into the forest. Jef followed her; but he had to haul Mikey away from the dead eland by main force.

  Chapter Ten

  jef dreamed that he was out in the midst of the sea of moss-grass he had seen the night before. It was daytime and dark clouds blew up. It began to rain and the rain fell with particular force. One drop hit him on the forehead so hard, the impact of it was like that of something solid. He woke, but the rain kept falling. Something else undeniably solid bounced off his chin.

  He sat up in his sleeping bag and found himself looking across the slumbering form of Mikey at a man squatting about five meters away, and tossing small pebbles in Jef's direction. The man was short, ruddy-faced and square-bodied, but dressed in the same sort of woods clothes that Jarji was wearing.

  Mikey woke at that minute, jerked his head up and began to drone a warning at the stranger.

  "Shh. Easy, Mikey..." said Jef, grabbing the maolot. For the newcomer carried a crossbow cocked on his knee and it was aimed in Mikey's direction.

  "Easy, that's right," said the stranger. His crossbow shifted to point away from Mikey; and Jef looked to see Jarji also sitting up in her sleeping bag. "Easy all around. Just keep your hands in sight, there, friend."

  He glanced back at Jef.

  "You're Jefrey Aram Robini. That right?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Jef in a husky voice that was still fogged with sleep.

  He cleared his throat. "Uh—you know Jarji Hillegas? That's Jarji there."

  "Heard of her," said the man with the crossbow. "Pleased to meet you, Jarji. Know your mom and dad. I'm Morrel McDermott. You, Jef Robini, I got a message for you."

  "Message?"

  "From Beau leCourboisier, man you're looking for. Beau got word you were hunting him. He sent word you ought to come ahead. I'll tell you how to find him."

  "How—how did leCourboisier find out I was looking for him?" asked Jef, still trying to get his mind awake and working.

  McDermott looked across at Jarji.

  "He do much of just going around asking questions right out, like that?" McDermott said to her.

  "I guess you knew everything, too, the first time you ever stepped into the woods upcountry," said Jarji. Her voice was sharp.

  "Well, pardon me," drawled McDermott. "Like hell I will!"

  "Typical Hillegas," said McDermott, looking over at Jef. "Got the worst tempers on Everon, that family. Only people they don't fight with are each other. All the same, you go around asking questions without stopping to consider, you're liable to end up being shot—"

  The whir of a spring-pull interrupted him. He had relaxed a little too much and concentrated a little too much on Jef. Now Jarji sat with her own crossbow cocked and aimed at him.

  "All right, now," said McDermott, disgustedly. "I was talking about other people, not me. You figure Beau'd recruit somebody who's a hothead?"

  "Just remember you said that, that's all," said Jarji. She flicked a catch on her crossbow and the tension went out of the string. "Peace."

  "Peace," said McDermott. He uncocked his own crossbow and laid it aside. Jarji put her weapon beside her on the ground. McDermott turned and stared significantly at Mikey.

  "Oh, Mikey'll be all right," said Jef. "I just have to give him some breakfast—"

  "If he wants it," said McDermott. "He's pretty well cleaned up on that dead doe back there."

  "Doe—" Jef scrambled hastily out of his sleeping bag. "But that eland was poisoned. Mikey—"

  He ran his hands hastily over Mikey's belly and muzzle; but there were no signs of tightness in the maolot's stomach area or wetness around his muzzle. And in fact, if anything, Mikey had not looked so sleek and contented since they had left Earth. Right now he took the touch of Jef's hands as an invitation to play, and snapped harmlessly at them, rolling over on his back.

  "Don't seem to have hurt him any," said McDermott. "Maybe that's one reason the wisent ranchers hate maolots the way they do—could be their poison doesn't work on them."

  "But why wouldn't it?" asked Jef wonderingly.

  McDermott shrugged.

  "You're going to tell us how to find Beau, I figure," Jarji put in. She had already climbed out of her sleeping bag and stood facing McDermott.

  "Sure. Toss me your mapcase."

  Jef dug out his mapcase and tossed it over to the other man. Rising, McDermott caught it easily in one hand.

  Squatting again, he punched out coordinates on the keys of the case, fingered the stylus from its clip, and marked in a route on the map section for which he had punched. Then he replaced the stylus and tossed the mapcase back.

  "Move by day," he said. "There'll probably be aircraft up from the city, looking for you. But travel along the edge of the woods and hide out in the tall grass if you see any craft in the air. There's enough sunlight reflected from the grasstops to shield your body temperatures from a flyer's heat-scope unless the craft goes right directly over top of you."

  He nodded to Jef, reassuringly.

  "But if they do land and chase you, run into the woods," he said. He turned to Jarji. "I'll tell Beau it was you not only got word to Robini to come here, but brought him yourself. He'll appreciate. Say hello to your folks for me when you get back."

  "I'll tell Beau myself," said Jarji. "I'm going on with Jef."

  McDermott's eyebrows went up.

  "Now," he said slowly, "there wasn't any thought of that, that I know of. I don't know what Beau'll say. It was figured Robini could come in on his own. Less chance of us being traced through him, that way."

  "And more chance his going astray!" said Jarji. "I'll bring him in. You, Beau and all don't like it—lump it!" McDermott shrugged.

  "It'll be between you and Beau," he said. He got once more to his feet and nodded to Jef. "It's about a five-day trek. Luck to you both, that far."

  He turned and vanished into the woods. There was no sound of his going.

  "All right," said Jarji. "We'd better eat before we take off. Let me see that mapcase." Jef turned to her.

  "Now wait a minute," he said. "Just a second. I told you I appreciated all you'd done for me; but this goes beyond neighborliness. I've got the mapcase. You don't have to go along with me the rest of the way."

  "That's my choice," she said.

  "Why?" he said. "You don't need to. And it isn't as if you seem to think a lot of me."

  "I don't have to give anybody reasons," she said. "And that includes you."

  "But," he said, "you really don't think much of me, do you? In fact, you don't even like me."

  "I didn't say that." She looked stubborn. "All right, you're from Earth. You don't understand Everon, even as well as the wisent ranchers and the down-city people—and they don't understand it at all. You people from Earth come in here for the Ecolog Corps or on a job for some outfit like that; and you sit in your office down by the spaceport and think you've been on Everon. Far as I'm concerned, you could all stay home. No, I don't particularly like you, Robini!"

  "My brother," said Jef, "had an office down by the spaceport. But he knew Everon and loved it just as much as you do. I know, because I've heard him talk about his work here, when he was home on leave. He was as close to this world as anyone on it."

  "Might be," she said. "But I didn't know him. If he felt that way, he was the first off-Everon job import I've ever seen who did."

  "You know what the matter is with you?" Jef said. He had not intended to say this much, but now he found himself committed. "You're a colonist on a new world, just beginning to make a living under primitive conditions; and you've got an inferiority complex where people from Earth are concerned. So you turn it around and try to pretend that I'm the one who doesn't know anything, and don't feel anything."

  "Th
at's pretty," she said. "Where'd you read that?"

  "I didn't read it-"

  "You," she said, getting to her feet and slinging her crossbow over her back, "better quit right now. I can talk rings around you. I can walk rings around you. I can run rings around you. I can shoot you full of holes. I know these woods and you don't. If I want to go along with you to meet Beau, there's not one damn thing you can do about it."

  Jef opened his mouth to retort, and then shut it again. Unfortunately, she was right.

  "On the other hand," she said after a pause, "I'll give you something; and that's your maolot. It was seeing him with you that made me take a second thought about you in the first place. You like him and he likes you. So, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt because he does. Figure yourself lucky you've got a friend like him to vouch for you, that's all. Now toss me the mapcase the way I told you and go find us some dry wood for a fire. Like I say, we ought to eat before taking off."

  "Are you hungry all the time?" Jef demanded.

  "No. And I'm not particularly hungry now," she answered. "But if an aircraft spots us and we have to run and hide and run for a day and night without a chance to stop, we'll at least have had full bellies when we started."

  Jef gave up. He want off into the woods to look for fallen tree limbs, or anything else that would burn readily.

  His mind was spinning. There was a sort of hard edge of sense to everything she said. Only ... it bothered him that somehow he always seemed to end up the loser in the argument. It went against reason to assume that he was always wrong, and she always right.

  But undeniably she was right now in saying that they should eat while they had the chance... the mention of food reminded Jef of Mikey. The maolot had tagged along with him as he had gone out after the wood. He stopped now to examine Mikey again; but Mikey had never looked better nor acted more frisky. Jef ended by going back to look at the eland carcass and was surprised when he found it to see how much Mikey had eaten. Both forequarters and a hindquarter were stripped to the bone. The stomach area was untouched—possibly the reason Mikey himself seemed unharmed.