Beast Master's Ark

by Andre Norton; Lyn McConchie

  Storm saw her face whiten slightly, but she nodded. "Can I bring Mandy in when I try? Having her with me helps."

  "Of course. Don't worry. Kady and I will have weapons there. If these things are dangerous they won't escape. We're hatching them in heavy-duty clearplas containers for safety. Come to the laboratory around seven." He turned to look around. "That includes all of you. I'm sure you'd like to see what the killer looks like. You may be able to tell us something as well, Storm."

  That was possible, Storm thought. He just wished the man hadn't asked Tani to be there. If he'd spoken to Storm first, Storm could have suggested Tani's help was unnecessary. It was too late now. If he said that after Brion had asked and she'd agreed already, the girl would feel that he didn't trust her, and he did.

  He slept lightly that night and woke wondering what the buzzing was. It took only a tenth of a second to recognize it. Then he was up and running for the com as it flashed a light and sounded the alarm signal for an urgent message. The agitated face that appeared on the screen was familiar.

  "Dumaroy? What is it, man?"

  The big rancher's eyes were wild. "Nitra. They attacked the Merin clan near Put's western boundary. The clan fought a running battle onto my land. Put Larkin came over to my place and we used nausea gas on the Nitra tribe. They've cleared out again feeling mighty sorry for themselves. But there's a fair number of Norbie dead and wounded. Put called Kelson in as soon as it was over."

  "What do you need?"

  "Kelson wants to report to the Patrol. He says us Peaks ranchers should start moving off our land. I'm telling you, Storm. I ain't going and neither are a lot of the others. If Kelson or the Patrol wants us to move, then there'll be blood on the land. They can't pay compensation and I'm not going to live down at the Port with no money to pay off the boys or put a roof over our head."

  "Is Kelson there?"

  "Yeah. I'll put him on."

  The tired face of the liaison man appeared on the small screen. "Storm. I'm sorry, but I have my job to do."

  Storm nodded. "I know, but there's a few things you should know first. You haven't been back to your office since early yesterday, have you?" Kelson looked surprised as he shook his head. "Right. First up we had a spacegram from HQ. Not some computer jockey. It came from the General." He read out a copy of the first warning. "Got it? Then listen. After that Brad got suspicious. He had Kady Carraldo com every scientist she knew personally on other planets. We got a whole list of human-settled planets where odd disasters had hit. We passed the whole lot to HQ and got this yesterday." He proceeded to read the second gram.

  Kelson's eyes widened. Storm held up a hand. "Hold on. That isn't all. I came back from a trip with fresh samples from a horse the death killed only hours before. The Carraldos managed to find a match with material from the Xik home world, and yes, they're certain. They checked it twice." From behind Kelson he could hear a blurred bellowing as Dumaroy passed on the information. That would slow down any trouble. Dumaroy had been a soldier and a good one. He didn't trust the Arzoran natives but he really hated the Xiks.

  Kelson vanished for a few minutes, then returned. "So what you're suggesting is that calling the Patrol is likely to be a waste of time?"

  "Yes. So I think," Storm told him. "On some of these other planets they're having food riots and close to civil war. We haven't got to that as yet and we won't if we can keep our heads. Why don't you come to the ranch and bring Dumaroy and Larkin. We may have something to show you all by the time you arrive."

  He got hasty agreement from all three before switching off. Storm turned and found his father behind him.

  "You heard?"

  "I heard," Brad said soberly. "You say we haven't got war yet, but son, we will have if we don't crack this thing soon. That's the second Norbie tribe the Nitra have taken on to get further away from the killer. The Norbies are pressing onto settler lands. So Dumaroy knows the Xiks could be behind it. That may not stop him shooting when his frawns start to get killed for food. The Lancins and Larkins in the Peaks are good men. They'll hold off, see what can be done. But even they have a breaking point." He sighed. "And Mirt Lasco up there lost his boy. Dumaroy's raw over it as well. He feels he was to blame in some way."

  Storm sagged into a chair. "We're doing all we can. I got samples the Carraldos could identify and build specimens from. We know the Xiks have to be behind this and a lot more stuff on other planets. If only we knew what the things they're using are." He stood again. "And where the Xik team is hiding. Well, it must be about time to see what Kady and Brion have built in the mobile laboratory."

  "When are Kelson and the others arriving?"

  Storm looked at the chrono. "Soon, I should think. He was leaving in a copter a few minutes after we talked." Brad moved to the door.

  "We'll go now. I'd like to know what the Carraldos have managed in advance. If the news isn't good we can meet Dumaroy and calm him down before he starts yelling."

  Storm smiled grimly. "The trouble is that good news may not be so good. Let's go."

  They walked briskly across to where the Ark's mobile laboratory stood. Brad tapped politely and the door was opened by Kady. She motioned them inside in silence. Brion was bending over a small machine and Tani was running readings on a computer. Now and again they conferred in low voices. Storm and his father found places to stand where they could watch but be out of the way. At last the readings seemed to satisfy the workers. On a perch in the corner Mandy also waited silently, but to Storm she was savagely alert. He could feel her tension in the back of his mind.

  Kady glanced over to her niece. "Can you read anything?"

  Tani's voice was faint. "Hunger!"

  "For food? Is it the killer?"

  The girl's voice came slowly, she sounded sick. "It wants blood and flesh. It enjoys pain. It knows me." She jerked backward in horror.

  "Let's see what it looks like." Brion stepped back, moved a lever, and something scuttled out into the high-sided clearplas box. It moved incredibly fast so they had only a brief glimpse. Brion was reaching for the lid—too slowly. The thing leaped for the edge, kicked over, and was racing across the floor toward Tani. It was perhaps two inches long, barely half that across. In front a mouth, much larger in proportion to its size, gaped in anticipation.

  Tani flung herself back as the thing reversed and headed for her again. From her perch the paraowl stepped forward, dropping on half-open wings. Her massively powerful beak snapped shut. There was a crunching crack and her prey stopped its struggles. Mandy gave a reassuring croon, offering the thing to Tani. Tani's face went whiter as she started to sway. Brad grabbed her.

  "Head down, child. Storm, get water. Brion, I wouldn't let any more of those things out just yet. Kady, persuade Mandy to give it to you."

  There was a flurry of activity that ended with Tani sitting up drinking the water as Storm supported her. Brion was standing by the bench as Kady tried to persuade the paraowl into parting with her prey. She was unsuccessful until Tani turned to look. Then, sulkily, Mandy handed the thing over. Kady took it in a hand well protected by a metal-mesh glove. She looked down at it.

  "Now," she said in a voice that rang. "Now, we get some answers."

  Chapter Fifteen

  They wrenched answers from the tiny body over the next day. Kelson arrived with Dumaroy and Larkin, who sat, watching and listening as the information poured out. The dead specimen yielded many secrets over that time. Kady prodded it toward late afternoon.

  "They have very hard exoskeletons. It takes direct opposing pressure from something very powerful to crack one."

  Dumaroy looked at the killer in disgust. "So a kick or something wouldn't do it. You'd have to stomp?"

  "Even that might not crack the shell," Kady told him. "It might if you jumped on it, but they're fast. In the time it took for you to do that they'd probably have their jaws into you."

  Dumaroy shuddered.

  The liaison man leaned forward. "What's the poison?" />
  "Nasty. It paralyzes involuntary muscles but allows the autonomic functions to continue. You breathe, your heart continues to beat, and you don't lose consciousness. You are just unable to move no matter how desperately you try."

  Dumaroy half snarled, his face working in rage. "Are those things natural or did the Xiks fix them up to be that way?"

  Brion turned from where he was running more checks. "Both, Mr. Dumaroy. We've been cooperating with Command HQ and they've accessed records civilians never saw. The killer seems to have started with a hive type of insect on the Xik world. It was wiped out there in the wild but specimens survived in zoos, and in research institutes, we believe. The poison of the originals was weak. For the Xiks it was a painful bite that often festered. For one of us it would have made us ill and sluggish for a couple of weeks. The original insects preyed on small animals. For evolutionary reasons the insects preferred to eat living prey. To do that they evolved a specialized series of subspecies."

  He paused to check his results as Kady took up the explanation. "There is the front-runner. They have the poison, they also have the ability to spring quite sizable distances either forward or straight up. The others are workers. They eat, dissolve the food into a semiliquid paste, and feed it to the front-runners. They do this because feeding them appears to produce a sensation of pleasure. Very strong pleasure. That ties in with the eating of live prey. Apparently they have a weak ability for empathy. They enjoy any emotion, the stronger the better."

  In the background Storm felt sick. That was what he and Tani had felt. The joy in eating the quivering living flesh that gave off agony as it was devoured. The Xiks had modified that ability. The insects chose the more powerful emotions. That meant they killed people in preference to animals. Humans with any trace of the same abilities in preference to those with none. He'd thought Tani might have stronger abilities than him, even if hers were untrained. The insect's actions confirmed it. That was why the thing had made for Tani first.

  The girl was standing behind him and he could feel the horror in her. He thanked the Great Spirit that Mandy had known the danger. They'd run tests on the paraowl, too. It seemed that her species could kill and eat the insects without harm—not to the paraowls, anyway. Dulshan was due a consignment of paraowls shortly. Brion and Kady had made the decision that they'd clone Mandy. With forced growth and from actual tissue they could have a flock of the big birds in days.

  Dulshan could have their birds later on, if they were no longer required on Arzor. It was necessary work either way; Dulshan wanted the birds, Arzor needed them, but if another way was found here, the birds could simply be held in stasis for Dulshan. Storm hoped they wouldn't be needed on Arzor. He stepped outside to breathe in the cooling air. Brad joined him to look up at the stars.

  "Seems hard, looking up at them, to think of all the evil they can hold." Brad's tones were tired.

  Storm looked at his stepfather. "You were a soldier. Nothing is always as it seems. But we have part of the puzzle."

  "Maybe. We know what the damn things are. We know where they come from, what they can do, and what changes the Xiks made in them. We don't know where the Xik team is. We don't know if there's other things they can unleash, and we don't have a way of dealing with those things yet."

  "Mandy's clones ..."

  "Will undoubtedly kill a lot of the things. I talked to Brion. It's certain the Xiks can pour out hatchlings faster than paraowls can kill them. We have to find the direction the killers are coming from. Brion says their metabolism is high. So far their pattern has been to leave the hideout at dusk and hunt. Then return just before dawn, he thinks. Originally there was only one, well, I suppose hive-group is as good a description as any. Now we know there are two. How long before there's five, six, and spreading?"

  His face in the moonlight looked suddenly old. "Kady heard from her friends on Lereene and Merla. Their situation is going bad fast. Astra has stopped their ships landing on Merla and disease has hit the refugee camps on Lereene. People are rioting."

  Storm shook his head slowly. "That's because the news about the Xiks hasn't got there yet. It will have been arriving just about the time Kady was hearing about the problems. Look, Asizi. People love to have an enemy they can blame. So long as their problems appear to be natural disasters, they fight with each other. But you wait. Once they hear the Xiks are back and all their deaths, everything they've lost can be blamed on Xiks, they'll focus their anger there. The riots will stop and the people will sit back and see sense."

  "You sound very sure, son."

  Storm laughed shortly. "I am. Our problem here is Tani. The thing made straight for her. That means she has the strongest abilities, but she's so terrified of the things she's blocking any ability to hear them. Once the meeting in there breaks up, try to get her to bed early. I want to take her riding in the morning. Away from the laboratory and the things, I may be able to persuade her to try listening for them."

  "Kady said young Jarro built three. Were they all the same type?"

  "No," Storm told him. "The other two were workers. They're slower, not so aggressive, and they don't have the poison. Maybe I can convince Tani that trying with them is safer."

  They returned quietly to the laboratory to find everyone studying the two insects scurrying around the plascrete container. Both made a small clicking as they moved. On some of the isolated frontier planets batteries were not always available. Clockwork watches and clocks had come back into fashion. The insects sounded like overwound clockwork. But with a clicking rather than a ticking. Tani was still in her chair in a corner. She looked greenish-white under her tan, and miserable.

  Brad nodded to her, spoke briefly to Kady, then swept the girl out. Storm followed. Let the rest of them stay up half the night talking over the clickers. He knew Brad would give the girl something in her swankee to make sure she slept soundly. To help that he collected Mandy, taking her and the perch to Tani's room. He checked before she reached it. The coyotes were there lying lazily on a corner. Good. With her team about her she'd both feel and be more secure.

  Tani slept solidly. The drugged swankee, the team presence, and the exhausting events of the previous day combined so she simply let go of everything and slept without dreams or waking. When she was slept out she woke slowly. Dawn light was streaming in through her window. She felt rested and calm again. It would be good to ride, to get away from the laboratory and relax with Destiny and the land.

  She slipped into the kitchen, snatched bread and frawn cheese, then padded toward the corrals. Destiny greeted her enthusiastically. The girl spent some time merely leaning against the rails and petting the filly before reaching for saddle-pad and bridle. Tani felt lazy, the sun was warming her back, Destiny was happy, and already her team was encouraging her to ride out. She'd have a peaceful day. She swung onto the silvery back as Destiny pranced. They moved out toward the Basin rim, half a day's ride away.

  Not that Tani intended to go that far. She smiled at the thought. She hadn't meant to go so far last time. But she'd ended up almost three days' ride away in the valley where the Djimbut clan had welcomed her. She thought of them all. Small Bird and Jumps High. The Thunder-Drummer, Speaker of Dreams. Stream Song, her mate Swift Killer, and their small son who owed humans his life. Her thoughts darkened slowly. How safe were they in that small valley on the edge of the Peaks?

  They'd been forced out of their own desert territory by the deaths of their people and fear of the clickers. Well, she knew how that could happen. She'd read the old books. Her father had told her of the way their people had been driven from their lands by another race. In some ways it had been something that had given her mother and father a tie of understanding. Both had come from a people who'd had their lands taken from them. She'd thought it wouldn't happen here. There were laws.

  But clickers didn't listen to laws. If they kept coming the Nitra would have to keep moving away from them. Tani knew the pattern. Even if the Patrol made the settlers le
ave it wouldn't help. The clickers would keep coming, and the natives would keep moving, until at last there would be noplace left to go or hide. Then they'd die. She remembered how they'd die and began to shiver. All of them, her friends who'd welcomed her, given her gifts, and shared laughter.

  Puzzled by the feeling of a rider who let the reins go slack, Destiny halted. Tani dropped to the ground and huddled by a sun-warmed rock. Her shivering became worse. She had to do something. What kind of clan-friend let her friends die just because she was scared? Behind her, Storm, who had followed her from the ranch, slowed the spotted stallion. Rain-on-Dust was following the filly's scent as horses can do. They'd rounded the trail bend to see the filly standing motionless ahead of them. Storm dismounted, dropping the reins. Rain would wait until called.

  He walked quietly forward. Tani noticed nothing, sunk in her fear, misery, and disgust at her own cowardice. She was huddled against the rock, her whole body shuddering as she tried to force herself to accept what she must do. The coyotes cuddled close, while on her shoulder Mandy crooned comfort in vain. The team knew Storm. He was safe. They allowed him to approach without alarm. He reached the girl and understood.

  There was the terror of a trapped animal in the way she huddled, shivering violently, into the rock. From her mind he could feel the fear radiating in waves. She knew her fear and despised it but still it drove her close to madness. She must help, but she could not. She had to face her fear and could not turn to see. Her mind stretched further and further, torn between two irreconcilable forces. The desire to help her friends, and the knowledge that she could only help by doing the one thing she could not force herself to do.

  Storm's intentions were swept away in a wave of pity. Without thought of what he should do he moved toward her. He lifted Mandy, allowing the bird to set her claws in a rock crevice. Then he sat, drawing Tani into his arms. He cradled her, whispering words of comfort. All would be well. She must not fear so, here was one who would be a blade at her back. A shield across her breast. Here was kin, here was strength to lean upon, to share as she shared with her team in need.