Postmarked the Stars sq-4

by Andre Norton

  “Don’t touch it with your bare hand!” Tau warned. “Wait for a suit glove.”

  Rip disappeared to get one, and Dane examined the recess more carefully. The box did not rest on any shelf or hanger. It apparently adhered or was in some way fastened to the ship’s plates. Without the detect, they would not have found it. As hasty as the cutting and reclosing of the opening had been, it was skillfully done.

  Rip returned, holding up one of the clumsy, well-insulated gloves he had unscrewed from a space suit.

  Dane wriggled his hand into that and reached up to the box. It adhered all right, as if it had been welded to the metal. For a while as he jerked and pulled, tried to slip it back and forth, he thought they would have to bring a cutting torch to get it loose, perhaps irreparably damaging what it held.

  Finally, as he gave it a last corkscrew twist, it came loose, and he brought it out of the hole, holding it well away as he dropped to the deck.

  “Get Stotz on this with you,” Jellico told Ya. “We don’t know what it is, but don’t take any chances.”

  Dane laid it on the deck well away from any cargo, slipped off the glove for Ya to take in turn, and watched the com-tech carry the find out, its destination Stotz’s workroom.

  He no longer worried about the box. It was the condition of the embryos. If the radiation through the decking had had such an effect upon the brachs, what about their most precious cargo? Again Jellico was with him.

  “Scanning or sensor examination?” The captain walked around the sealed container, frowning.

  “Scanner and sensor both,” Tau replied promptly. “I have their correct reading on file. It will be easy to compare.”

  “Was this aimed at the brachs, the lathsmers, or was it only chance?” Dane asked, though he knew they had no answers for him.

  “Not chance!” The captain seemed very sure of that. “If all that was wanted was transportation for that thing, he could have more easily hidden it in your cabin. No, it was put here for a purpose. And I’m inclined to believe it was aimed at the lathsmers.”

  With that Jellico faced the worst. They had the contract for the mail run, but to have cargo spoilage of such a nature on their first trip might mean blacklisting for the Queen. If they had not discovered the box in time, if radiation-treated lathsmers had been delivered to the settlers who had paid a small fortune for the embryos—? Dane, back at his files, looked into a bleak future. They might find themselves responsible for replacing a cargo worth more than any year’s profit. And the Queen was not prepared to take such a loss. If they could borrow, to be in debt would automatically break their mail contract, and the result would be ferrying jobs, risky and unrewarding for just as long as they could keep up payments.

  I-S? It was the first answer that came to mind. But the Queen was so unimportant as far as Inter-Solar was concerned. Sure, they had ruined two I-S plays. But for a company to go to so much trouble for revenge on a Free Trader—he could not agree to that solution.

  Dane could not help believing that the answer lay on Trewsworld. The man wearing his face must have intended to land there. And the box—maybe the captain was wrong and the placing of the box was only by chance. They only needed Tau’s report on the state of the embryos to know the extent of disaster.

  The medic did not hurry to give that. He shut himself up in his lab and was left alone—the crew waiting restlessly for his verdict.

  Stotz, always slow and sure, had his report first. The box could not be opened, short of disintegration, and it was the source of steady radiation. When he asked for permission to breach it by force, Jellico refused. Instead Ali suited up, went to the fin end of the Queen, and planted the thing against the outer hull of the ship, where it could do, the engineers decided, the least harm.

  When Tau did at last get on the com, it was not to give them any answers but rather ask for certain of the captain’s collection of xenobiological tapes and a reader. Dane delivered those and caught only a glimpse of the medic as he opened his door long enough to snatch the material. Then he closed that portal firmly in the cargo master’s face.

  They were close to the time to come out of hyper run when Mura called Jellico to look at the male brach. Dane, following, saw the steward and the captain kneeling in the corridor, registering concern.

  The animal, which had earlier shown such a determined and intelligent desire to get free, was now balled in the far corner of the cage. Untouched food and water were cupped in the feeder. The sheen that had lightened its body fluff was gone, and that was matted about its nose as if it had not tried for some time to clean itself. Nor did it rouse when Mura chirped to it and showed it a juicy stalk of renton leaves through the bars.

  “Tau had better have a look at it,” Jellico said.

  Mura was already loosing the extra safeguards on the cage door. He had that half open and was stretching in a gentle hand to grasp the plainly sick animal when the brach came to life. The nose horn flashed, and Mura, with an exclamation, jerked back a hand on which blood ran. Then there was a scurry, and the brach was out, showing such speed as to avoid them in a way Dane had never seen before.

  He ran after it, only to find it at last crouched at the door of the sick bay, using both its horn and its less strong claws in a fruitless attempt to force an entrance there.

  Its purpose so consumed it that it did not seem aware of Dane’s arrival until he tried to catch hold of it. Then it whirled about and slashed with its horn at his hands, much as it had wounded Mura. It stood on its hind feet, its back to the door it had tried to open, its eyes wild and showing red. Now it began a low, chittering noise, the sounds divided almost, Dane thought, as if it spoke the words of some unknown language.

  “The female.” Mura came up nursing his torn hand. “It wants to reach the female.”

  At that moment the door was pushed aside, Tau standing there. The brach was ready, speeding past the medic before the latter was aware of what was going on. As Dane and Jellico pushed forward, they had a glimpse of the brach leaning over the nest box. Now that chittering sound softened. The brach balanced uncomfortably with a third of his small body leaning over the rim, his forepaws stretched down as if it were trying to embrace his mate.

  “Better get him,” began the captain, but Tau shook his head.

  “Let them alone for now. She’s been very restless. Now she’s quieted down. And we don’t want to lose her, too—”

  “Too?” questioned Jellico. “The kits then?”

  “No. The lathsmer. Look here.” He motioned them to the left, well away from the family reunion by the box. There was a viewer on the table, and the medic triggered it. On its small screen flashed a picture, a very vivid one. “That’s the present state of the embryo I snooped. Do you understand?”

  The captain put his hands on the table and leaned closer to the screen, as if that picture had some vital message. What it did show was a reptile-like creature coiled in a tight package from which it was difficult to separate legs, long neck, small head, or any other portion clearly.

  “That’s no lathsmer!”

  “No, not a modern one. But see here—” Now Tau switched on a record reader, and the tiny, very exact picture it showed was that of a reptilian creature with a long neck, small head, batlike wings, a long tail, and rather weak-appearing legs, as if it depended more upon those wings than upon limbs for a mode of transportation.

  “That was a lathsmer ancestor,” the medic announced. “No one is sure how many thousand planet years ago. It ceased to exist, as far as our records run, about the time our own ancestors stood reasonably erect and began to use a handy rock for a weapon. We don’t have embryos of lathsmers; we have something out of a time so remote that our specialists can’t date it.”

  “But how?” Dane was bewildered. The embryos according to his records were of perfectly normal breeding stock of the most recent well-established mutations, guaranteed to keep on producing the strain without fault. How had they suddenly become these—these dr
agon things?

  “Retrogression!” Jellico stared from one picture to the other.

  “Yes,” Tau replied. “But how?”

  “All of them so affected?” Dane went on to the most important question for him, the present state of the cargo.

  “We’ll have to test.” But Tau’s tone was unpromising.

  “I don’t understand.” Dane glanced at the brachs. “You say the embryos retrogressed. But if the intelligence of the brachs increased—”

  “That is so.” Jellico straightened up. “If the radiation worked one way on these, why a different reaction with the brachs?”

  “There could be several reasons. The embryos are just that, not yet completely formed. The brachs were adult creatures when they were exposed.”

  Dane had another flash of speculation. “Could the brachs have once been a higher type of life? Could they have already retrogressed, so that now they are returned to an intelligent species?”

  Tau ran his hands through his short hair. “”We could have half a dozen answers, and we can’t confirm any without the proper equipment. We’ll have to leave that up to the lab techs when we planet.”

  “But can we?” Jellico absently rubbed the blaster scar on his cheek. “I think we may be in no position to wait upon the opinion of experts, not with settlers who have invested their life savings waiting for lathsmer embryos. Thorson, what was the agreed shipping date for those on the invoices?”

  “When transport was possible,” Dane replied promptly.

  “When possible, no guaranteed date of arrival. Therefore, they could assume that the embryos might come in on the next trip.”

  “We can’t hide those boxes,” Tau objected.

  “No, not with customs coming on board at setdown. At the same time, this situation is such that I want to appeal to the Board of Trade before I make any other statements.”

  “You think deliberate sabotage—the I-S, sir?” Dane asked.

  “Oddly enough, no. If the I-S saw a chance to score off us in passing, they might do it. But too much planning has gone into this. I think the roots lie on Trewsworld, and I want to know more, much more, before we are any deeper in than we are now. If we show up without the embryo boxes and the brachs, there may or may not be unusual interest shown. That will be our clue to who is behind this, who might protest too loudly if we land without the expected cargo and what they had rigged on board.”

  “Not jetsam!” Dane protested.

  “Not in space, no. But Trewsworld is not a thickly populated world. There is only one main spaceport, and our cargo is consigned there. There will be no sky search if we follow a regular orbit in. So, we load the embryos and the brachs on a lifeboat and set that down in an uninhabited section. Van Ryke, if I can contact him, will have friends on the board. Anyway, I shall ask for a local hearing—in confidence.”

  But he said nothing of going to the Patrol, Dane noted, spoke only of the one authority the Free Traders could appeal to, which must mean he wanted none of the formal law until he was sure they had a defense. But a defense against what? As it stood, all of them could go into deep probe and prove their innocence, if that drastic step was needed. It must be that Jellico believed they were in some way involved past the point that even a probe reading could clear them.

  “Who takes down the LB?” Tau asked.

  Jellico looked to Dane first. “If anyone is expecting your double, he or they won’t follow the planned orbit set if you walk out of the Queen on landing. We have a dead man on board. He might just as well be the one he claimed to be for a time—Dane Thorson. And we can spare a couple of juniors—Shannon for your pilot—though the LB will home in on automatics, so you won’t need to set a course—and Kamil in charge of that infernal box. I want that out of the ship, too, before we fin in at the port. Wilcox will chart you a course that will take you away from any settlement. You’ll take a beacon with you and set it on the Queen’s frequency. Wait a couple of days—then turn it on. We’ll contact you when we can.”

  He turned back to Tau. “What about those embryos? Any of them near decanting time?”

  “No way of telling.”

  “Then the sooner we get rid of them, the better. Mura, get E rations, plus whatever the brachs eat. The LB will be crowded.” Jellico spoke again to Dane. “But your ride down won’t take long.”

  Dane culled his own belongings, hoping he was making the right choices as to what he would need. Trewsworld was Terran climate, but it was an untamed world, save for the settlers’ holdings spreading out slowly from the port. He took an extra change of clothing in a jump bag, strapped on a belt with the number of small tools carried by a scout, and made sure he had extra charges for his stunner.

  As he loaded it, he thought of the brach. Intelligence—retrogressed to a higher form of intelligence? But that would mean the brachs were not really animals at all! The crew of the Queen had had one close encounter with ancient Forerunner remains when they had raised the sum to buy at auction trading rights to Limbo.

  And Limbo, though partly burned off in some galactic war—traces of which Terran explorers had come across again and again during their travels—had also held a secret that had been as potent in the present day as when its long-vanished makers had first put it into action. There had been a force, operated from a headquarters deep under the planet surface, that had reached into the deeps of space to draw to it any ship venturing within range, so that its half-devastated surface was packed with the wrecks of vessels for centuries of time.

  Though modern pirates had found it, made it more predictable, it had been operating on its own for a long time before their coming. Of those who had set it as a defense or assault weapon, no real trace had been left. They had never found a tomb, a space-frozen derelict with bodies on board, any trace of the Forerunners to learn what they had been like. Humanoid or wholly alien—it was any man’s guess. However, if the brachs had come to the animal state but had once been intelligent, could they now have on board one answer to the Forerunner riddle?

  If that were true—Dane’s thoughts leaped—then all the damage done to the embryos was unimportant. The brachs were priceless treasures and ones that the scientists would give much to have. But he could not believe the brachs had been the targets of the man who had planted the box on the Queen. He might have meant to destroy the lathsmers, but the opposite effect on the brachs came from the accidental placing of their cage on just the right spot and could not have been foreseen.

  5.TEMPORARY TRUCE

  They had come out of hyper and were in a breaking orbit around Trewsworld before the last of the preparations was completed. Dane went through a course of instructions as to care of the brachs. The embryo containers had been unlocked from the stacking and packed into the lifeboat. Tau made a spot check on them, only to discover all he tested had been affected by radiation. The box that had caused all the trouble had been inserted in what Stotz believed to be a leak-proof casing and put as far from the cargo and crew of the LB as possible. Ali was under orders to see that it was safely buried in a marked spot as soon after their landing as he could do so.

  There was this much in their favor; the LB had built-in safe-guards for its passengers, since it had been devised to protect even injured who managed to reach it, so it had radiation controls as well. And its automatic landing device would bring them in at the best spot its detectors could locate. Now they lay in the hammocks ready for takeoff, the padded brach cage wedged in the narrow aisle, waiting to be ejected from the Queen.

  The brachs themselves could not be seen. Tau had filled the cage next to the top with any cushioning material he could find, leaving only air holes. As he made the creatures comfortable, he had admitted surprise that the kits, not following the regular pattern of their species, were developing at a rate far faster than normal.

  Their parents crouched together, the male’s forelegs about his mate as if to shield her from harm, the kits curled at the other end of the box.

  Dan
e had been so rushed with all which must be done that he had not had time to think beyond the task at hand until he was bedded down on the LB. Then he wondered again at Jellico’s move in putting the cargo off the Queen. Why had the captain been so reluctant to land, report what had happened, and leave the muddle to the authorities? It was almost as if he had foresight and sensed difficulties not apparent to the rest of the crew. But a belief in Jellico was part of the tradition of the Queen. If Van Ryke were only here! Dane would have given much to know his superior’s reaction.

  In general configuration Trewsworld was the opposite of Xecho. Where the aquatic planet with its great seas gave land room only to islands, this was a world of crowding land masses and seas, which were

  narrow bands hardly wider than rivers, separating one from the other. In climate, too, it differed from the steamy heat of the Queen’s other port, being much cooler, with short summers and lengthy winters, during which the ice and snow masses of the poles advanced with grim regularity to threaten the holdings, the small toeholds off-world settlers had established.

  When the LB set down, its small crew were sure of one thing only: that Wilcox’s course, fed into an improvised guide on the craft, had brought them to the same continent as the one on which the Queen planeted. How far they were from the port, however, they had no idea.

  They unstrapped from the hammocks and zipped into thermo jackets, for though it was midday out, it was still well below the temperature they would find pleasant. Shannon triggered the hatch, and they went through the shallow opening into the light.

  Xecho had been vivid color—yellow, red, brilliant shades of both those primaries. Here, too, was color, but it was in a different range.

  They had earthed on a plateau where there was only a growth of tough grass, now gray and sere, mounded at the nose of the LB where that craft had scored up the lighter layer of soil to cushion its landing. Below was a lake, the water so green that it might have been a Terran emerald of the finest hue dropped into a gray rock setting. On the opposite side from where they now stood was a great wall of glacier overhanging the water. Even as they watched, a huge chunk of ice broke free with a sharp crack and fell into the lake.