The Defiant Agents

by Norton, Andre

  “The girl—the Tatar girl!”

  At first Travis did not understand Buck’s ejaculation.

  “We get the girl,” the other elaborated, “let her escape, then hunt her to where they’ll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship to begin with.”

  Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for the leading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck’s choice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures. The Tatars themselves had found wives that way in the past, just as the Apache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wickiups. Yes, for raiders to steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as such by the Reds. For the same woman to endeavor to escape and be hunted by her captors also was reasonable. And for such a woman, cut off from her outlaw kin, to eventually head back toward the Red settlement as the only hope of evading her enemies—logical all the way!

  “She would have to be well frightened,” Travis observed with reluctance.

  “That can be done for us—”

  Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certain games out of their common past to be played with Kaydessa. But Buck had something very different from old-time brutality in mind.

  “Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Deklay and I went back to the ship—”

  “Deklay?”

  “You beat him openly, so he must restore his honor in his own sight. And the council has forbidden another duel or challenge,” Buck replied. “Therefore he will continue to push for recognition in another way. And now that he has heard your story and knows we must face the Reds, not run from them, he is eager to take the war trail—too eager. So we returned to the ship to make another search for weapons—”

  “There were none there before except those we had….”

  “Nor now either. But we discovered something else.” Buck paused and Travis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by a note in the other’s voice. It was as if Buck had come upon something he could not summon the right words to describe.

  “First,” Buck continued, “there was this dead thing there, near where we found Dr. Ruthven. It was something like a man … but all silvery hair—”

  “The ape-things! The ape-things from the other worlds! What else did you see?” Travis had dropped the map. His side gave him a painful twinge as he caught at Buck’s sleeve. The bald space rovers—did they still exist here somewhere? Had they come to explore the ship built on the pattern of their own but manned by Terrans?

  “Nothing except tracks, a lot of them, in every open cabin and hole. I think there must have been a sizable pack of the things.”

  “What killed the dead one?”

  Buck wet his lips. “I think—fear….” His voice dropped a little, almost apologetically, and Travis stared.

  “The ship is changed. Inside, there is something wrong. When you walk the corridors your skin crawls, you think there is something behind you. You hear things, see things from the corners of your eyes…. When you turn, there’s nothing, nothing at all! And the higher you climb into the ship, the worse it is. I tell you, Travis, never have I felt anything like it before!”

  “It was a ship of many dead,” Travis reminded him. Had the age-old Apache fear of the dead been activated by the Redax into an acute phobia—to strike down such a level-headed man as Buck?

  “No, at first that, too, was my thought. Then I discovered that it was worst not near that chamber where we lay our dead, but higher, in the Redax cabin. I think perhaps the machine is still running, but running in a wrong way—so that it does not awaken old memories of our ancestors now, but brings into being all the fears which have ever haunted us through the dark of the ages. I tell you, Travis, when I came out of that place Deklay was leading me by the hand as if I were a child. And he was shivering as a man who will never be warm again. There is an evil there beyond our understanding. I think that this Tatar girl, were she only to stay there a very short time, would be well frightened—so frightened that any trained scientist examining her later would know there was a mystery to be explored.”

  “The ape-things—could they have tried to run the Redax?” Travis wondered. To associate machines with the creatures was outwardly pure folly. But they had been discovered on two of the planets of the old civilization, and Ashe had thought that they might represent the degenerate remnants of a once intelligent species.

  “That is possible. If so, they raised a storm which drove them out and killed one of them. The ship is a haunted place now.”

  “But for us to use the girl….” Travis had seen the logic in Buck’s first suggestion, but now he differed. If the atmosphere of the ship was as terrifying as Buck said, to imprison Kaydessa there, even temporarily, was still wrong.

  “She need not remain long. Suppose we should do this: We shall enter with her and then allow the disturbance we would feel to overcome us. We could run, leave her alone. When she left the ship, we could then take up the chase, shepherding her back to the country she knows. Within the ship we would be with her and could see she did not remain too long.”

  Travis could see a good prospect in that plan. There was one thing he would insist on—if Kaydessa was to be in that ship, he himself would be one of the “captors.” He said as much, and Buck accepted his determination as final.

  They dispatched a scouting party to infiltrate the territory to the north, to watch and wait their chance of capture. Travis strove to regain his feet, to be ready to move when the moment came.

  Five days later he was able to reach the ridge beyond which lay the wrecked ship. With him were Jil-Lee, Lupe, and Manulito. They satisfied themselves that the globe had had no visitors since Buck and Deklay; there was no sign that the ape-things had returned.

  “From here,” Travis said, “the ship doesn’t look too bad, almost as if it might be able to take off again.”

  “It might lift,” Jil-Lee gestured to the mountaintop behind the curve of the globe—“about that far. The tubes on this side are intact.”

  “What would happen were the Reds to get inside and try to fly again?” Manulito wondered aloud.

  Travis was struck by a sudden idea, one perhaps just as wild as the other inspirations he had had since landing on Topaz, but one to be studied and explored—not dismissed without consideration. Suppose enough power remained to lift the ship partially and then blow it up? With the Red technicians on board at the time…. But he was no engineer, he had no idea whether any part of the globe might or might not work again.

  “They are not fools; a close look would tell them it is a wreck,” Jil-Lee countered.

  Travis walked on. Not too far ahead a yellow-brown shape moved out of the brush, stood stiff-legged in his path, facing the ship and growling in a harsh rumble of sound. Whatever moved or operated in that wreck was picked up by the acute sense of the coyote, even at this distance.

  “On!” Travis edged around the snarling animal. With one halting step and then another, it followed him. There was a sharp warning yelp from the brush, and a second coyote head appeared. Naginlta followed Travis, but Nalik’ideyu refused to approach the grounded globe.

  Travis surveyed the ship closely, trying to remember the layout of its interior. To turn the whole sphere into a trap—was it possible? How had Ashe said the Redax worked? Something about high-frequency waves stimulating certain brain and nerve centers.

  What if one were shielded from those rays? That tear in the side—he himself must have climbed through that the night they crashed. And the break was not too far from the space lock. Near the lock was a storage compartment. And if it had not been jammed, or its contents crushed, they might have something. He beckoned to Jil-Lee.

  “Give me a hand—up there.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see if the space suits are intact.”


  Jil-Lee regarded Travis with open bewilderment, but Manulito pushed forward. “We do not need those suits to walk here, Travis. This air we can breathe—”

  “Not for the air, and not in the open.” Travis advanced at a deliberate pace. “Those suits may be insulated in more ways than one—”

  “Against a mixed-up Redax broadcast, you mean!” Jil-Lee exclaimed. “Yes, but you stay here, younger brother. This is a risky climb, and you are not yet strong.”

  Travis was forced to accede to that, waiting as Manulito and Lupe climbed up to the tear and entered. At least Buck and Deklay’s experience had forewarned them and they would be prepared for the weird ghosts haunting the interior.

  But when they returned, pulling between them the limp space suit, both men were pale, the shiny sheen of sweat on their foreheads, their hands shaking. Lupe sat down on the ground before Travis.

  “Evil spirits,” he said, giving to this modern phenomenon the old name. “Truly ghosts and witches walk in there.”

  Manulito had spread the suit on the ground and was examining it with a care which spoke of familiarity.

  “This is unharmed,” he reported. “Ready to wear.”

  The suits were all tailored for size, Travis knew. And this fitted a slender, medium-sized man. It would fit him, Travis Fox. But Manulito was already unbuckling the fastenings with practiced ease.

  “I shall try it out,” he announced. And Travis, seeing the awkward climb to the entrance of the ship, had to agree that the first test should be carried out by someone more agile at the moment.

  Sealed into the suit, with the bubble helmet locked in place, the Apache climbed back into the globe. The only form of communication with him was the rope he had tied about him, and if he went above the first level, he would have to leave that behind.

  In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along the rope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, to find it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and was climbing to the control cabin.

  They continued to wait with what patience they could muster. Naginlta, pacing up and down a good distance from the ship, whined at intervals, the warning echoed each time by his mate upslope.

  “I don’t like it—” Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared again at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulito reached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and then stood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.

  “Well?” Travis demanded.

  “I see no ghosts,” Manulito said, grinning. “This is ghost-proof!” He slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. “There is also this—from what I know of these ships—some of the relays still work. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Reds in and then….” His hand moved in a quick upward flip.

  “But we don’t know anything about the engines,” Travis replied.

  “No? Listen—you, Fox, are not the only one to remember useful knowledge.” Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. “Do you think we are just the savages those big brains back at the project wished us to be? They have played a trick on us with their Redax. So, we can play a few tricks, too. Me—? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you no longer remember, Fox?”

  Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until this very minute. From the beginning, the Apache team had been carefully selected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was their basic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Just as Travis’ grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so had Manulito’s technical training made a valuable, though different, contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smothered that training, perhaps the effects were now fading.

  “You can do something, then?” he asked eagerly.

  “I can try. There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least. And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be tough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?”

  “Not until after we use it on our captive,” Jil-Lee decided. “Then there would be some time before the Reds come—”

  “You talk as if they will come,” cut in Lupe. “How can you be sure?”

  “We can’t,” Travis agreed. “But we can count on this much, judging from the past. Once they know that there is a wrecked ship here, they will be forced to explore it. They cannot afford an enemy settlement on this side of the mountains. That would be, according to their way of thinking, an eternal threat.”

  Jil-Lee nodded. “That is true. This is a complicated plan, yes, and one in which many things may go wrong. But it is also one which covers all the loopholes we know of.”

  With Lupe’s aid Manulito crawled out of the suit. As he leaned it carefully against a supporting rock he said:

  “I have been thinking of this treasure house in the towers. Suppose we could find new weapons there….”

  Travis hesitated. He still shrank from the thought of opening the secret places behind those glowing walls, to loose a new peril.

  “If we took weapons from there and lost the fight….” He advanced his first objection and was glad to see the expression of comprehension on Jil-Lee’s face.

  “It would be putting the weapons straight into Red hands,” the other agreed.

  “We may have to chance it before we’re through,” Manulito warned. “Suppose we do get some of their technicians into this trap. That isn’t going to open up their main defense for us. We may need a bigger nutcracker than we’ve ever seen.”

  With a return of that queasy feeling he had known in the tower, Travis knew Manulito was speaking sense. They might have to open Pandora’s box before the end of this campaign.

  15

  They camped another two days near the wrecked ship while Manulito prowled the haunted corridors and cabins in his space suit, planning his booby trap. At night he drew diagrams on pieces of bark and discussed the possibility of this or that device, sometimes lapsing into technicalities his companions could not follow. But Travis was well satisfied that Manulito knew what he was doing.

  On the morning of the third day Nolan slipped into their midst. He was dust-grimed, his face gaunt, the signs of hard travel plain to read. Travis handed him the nearest canteen, and they watched him drink sparingly in small sips before he spoke.

  “They come … with the girl—”

  “You had trouble?” asked Jil-Lee.

  “The Tatars had moved their camp, which was only wise, since the Reds must have had a line on the other one. And they are now farther to the west. But—” he wiped his lips with the back of his hand—“also we saw your towers, Fox. And that is a place of power!”

  “No sign that the Reds are prowling there?”

  Nolan shook his head. “To my mind the mists there conceal the towers from aerial view. Only one coming on foot could tell them from the natural crags of the hills.”

  Travis relaxed. Time still granted them a margin of grace. He glanced up to see Nolan smiling faintly.

  “This maiden, she is a kin to the puma of the mountains,” he announced. “She has marked Tsoay with her claws until he looks like the ear-clipped yearling fresh from the branding chute—”

  “She is not hurt?” Travis demanded.

  This time Nolan chuckled openly. “Hurt? No, we had much to do to keep her from hurting us, younger brother. That one is truly as she claims, a daughter of wolves. And she is also keen-witted, marking a return trail all the way, though she does not know that is as we wish. Did we not pick the easiest way back for just that reason? Yes, she plans to escape.”

  Travis stood up. “Let us finish this quickly!” His voice came out on a rough note. This plan had never had his full approval. Now he found it less and less easy to think about taking Kaydessa into the ship, allowing the emotional
torment lurking there to work upon her. Yet he knew that the girl would not be hurt, and he had made sure he would be beside her within the globe, sharing with her the horror of the unseen.

  A rattling of gravel down the narrow valley opening gave warning to those by the campfire. Manulito had already stowed the space suit in hiding. To Kaydessa they must have seemed reverted entirely to savagery.

  Tsoay came first, an angry raking of four parallel scratches down his left cheek. And behind him Buck and Eskelta shoved the prisoner, urging her on with a show of roughness which did not descend to actual brutality. Her long braids had shaken loose, and a sleeve was torn, leaving one slender arm bare. But none of the fighting spirit had left her.

  They thrust her out into the circle of waiting men and she planted her feet firmly apart, glaring at them all indiscriminately until she sighted Travis. Then her anger became hotter and more deadly.

  “Pig! Rooter in the dirt! Diseased camel—” she shouted at him in English and then reverted to her own tongue, her voice riding up and down the scale. Her hands were tied behind her back, but there were no bonds on her tongue.

  “This is one who can speak thunders, and shoot lightnings from her mouth,” Buck commented in Apache. “Put her well away from the wood, lest she set it aflame.”

  Tsoay held his hands over his ears. “She can deafen a man when she cannot set her mark on him otherwise. Let us speedily get rid of her.”

  Yet for all their jeering comments, their eyes held respect. Often in the past a defiant captive who stood up boldly to his captors had received more consideration than usual from Apache warriors; courage was a quality they prized. A Pinda-lick-o-yi such as Tom Jeffords, who rode into Cochise’s camp and sat in the midst of his sworn enemies for a parley, won the friendship of the very chief he had been fighting. Kaydessa had more influence with her captors than she could dream of holding.

  Now it was time for Travis to play his part. He caught the girl’s shoulder and pushed her before him toward the wreck.