Postmarked the Stars sq-4

by Andre Norton

  “Trosti—hard to believe that Trosti—”

  “That statement will be echoed on a good many different worlds.” One of the Patrolmen broke into their exchange. “Trouble is that the discoveries they did make for the benefit of the worlds on which they set up are generally so beneficial that we will have to have direct proof that those were only a cover or we can’t go against public opinion—plus the fact that they will summon top legal talent and be able to fight a delaying action in every court we take them to. We are hoping that this, now being the most open of their secrets, will give us evidence—records, tapes, enough to smash this foundation, with clues to uncover leads to others.”

  “If we get there in time,” Dane pointed out. “They could ship out the most important material and destroy the rest.”

  His head was starting to ache again. Perhaps the remedies of the Patrol medic were not as long lasting as he hoped. He could understand the need to conquer time, which was driving the captain, all of them on board. Also, they had no idea of what defenses beside the distort were in the basin. There was the control beam that had negated the power of the other flitters and brought them down at the will of the enemy. And such could be used to deliberately crash a ship. The jacks need only have one of those in order, and their pursuers would lose before any fight began.

  There were plenty of other weapons to snap them out of the sky at the press of a button. Unfortunately, memory presented too many in all their savage details to Dane. But once more it might have been that his thoughts were as plain to his companions as if his forehead was a transparent visa-screen.

  “They can’t use a control beam if they are readying for a takeoff,” Rip observed thoughtfully. “That would interfere with a blast, set them off course from the first fire-down—”

  “Even if they don’t use that, I can name about five other defenses,” Dane returned bleakly. He leaned his aching head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  “Have a suck.” Something was thrust into his hand, and he glanced down to see he was holding a tube of E-ration; the heat cap had been twisted off so that a small thread of steam arose. For the first time Dane realized he was very hungry. He raised it to his mouth, his hand shaking a little, and squeezed the paste, warm enough to spread a welcome heat as it passed downward, into his mouth. It was a very long time, he thought, since that meal at Cartl’s holding, even longer since he had eaten regular food at established intervals.

  But the E-ration, though it gave a man nothing to chew on and lacked much flavor, did banish hunger. And this time he was not limited to a quarter of a tube. He had a whole one to himself, while those about him were eating, too.

  “The brachs?” For once memory worked as he swallowed the first mouthful.

  “Have theirs.” Rip nodded toward the rear of the cabin. The light was limited, but Dane could see an E- tube protruding from each horned snout.

  “What about them?” he asked a little later as he squeezed the last drop from the tube and rolled it into a tight ball.

  “The kits are at the lab, being given Veep Treatment,” Rip answered. “But the female insisted upon coming with us. There has been a lot of excitement over them. If the brachs are degenerate intelligent life, then Xecho is going to have a problem. And it would seem that is true. It will probably be obligatory to do what can be done to return them to their proper intelligence—upsets a lot of history and will be quite a headache to all concerned.”

  “Are they esper at all?” Dane wondered.

  “We don’t know just what they are—yet. The lab has dropped all other experiments and is concentrating on them. It may be, since the principle of the retrogress machine is linked with the esper-inducing ore, that anything with a slight degree of such power has that power heightened. That’s another headache—”

  “Ha—” That was the Patrol officer. He held out his wrist, and on it was a detect, not unlike the one Tau had carried, except more compact and much smaller. “Radiation of the right type, two degrees west—”

  “Right!” Jellico made the correction in their course. “How far?”

  “Less than two units. It is leaking through a shield.”

  Dane saw the captain’s head give a little jerk. A moment later Jellico reported, “The brachs say there’s a ground transport of some kind, two of them, moving under us.”

  “Could it be they are still pulling in men?” suggested Finnerstan.

  “Pulling in men,” Dane thought, and yet just this flitter load proposed to go up against what might be a thoroughly warned, armed, and well-defended base. Yet, looking about him from face to face, he saw no concern. They might have been making a routine flight. Though he was no longer hungry, the pain in his head remained a steady throb, and he felt very tired. How long had it been since he had had normal sleep? He tried to recall events for the past days, days that now seemed to stretch to months. Jellico was not noted for taking reckless risks unless the situation was such he had no other choice. No Free Trader did and kept a ship for long. But apparently the captain was determined on this attack.

  “Only one unit ahead now.” Finnerstan did not look up from the detect.

  “Radar nil on anything airborne,” Jellico replied. “Mixed report from the ground, a lot of interference.”

  Dane turned his head and tried to stretch to the point where he could look down from the cabin window. But it was physically impossible to see the ground from where he sat, even if it had been day instead of the dark of very early morning.

  “No contact beam.” Jellico might be reporting to them or only thinking aloud.

  “I’m getting something new—maybe your distort.” Finnerstan glanced back at Dane.

  “All right, Thorson, what’s down there?” Jellico demanded, and Dane pulled his thoughts together. This was the time when he must justify his inclusion in his company.

  “Spacer landing to the south.” He closed his eyes, picturing in his mind what he had seen during their quick sortie into the basin. “Then there are three bubble huts in a cluster about seven field lengths north— beyond those two long structures half buried in the earth, earth walls, turfed roofs—vehicle park by the bubbles. That’s it.” “They will be expecting their men back in a captured flitter perhaps,” Jellico said. “And that would come in without hesitation. So, we try to do it that way.”

  And maybe meet blaster fire dead center if there was some recognition code, Dane knew. He wished vainly that he had some kind of protective shell into which he could withdraw during the next few minutes. But the Patrol officer made no objection to Jellico’s wild plan.

  “Look there!” Finnerstan was against the cabin window on his side, staring down. But for the men behind him there was no chance to see what had caught his attention.

  “Down.” Jellico’s hands were busy on the controls. “That must be the distort. Now, I’m going in on hover—”

  Dane saw movement about him. The Patrolman by the exit hatch had his hands ready on the lock there.

  And the flitter began its descent, straight down, using the slow speed of the hover.

  There was an odd light outside the windows, light that brightened suddenly, as if it had been turned from low to high. Perhaps it had been the passing of a blanketing of diffuse lamps by the distort. But now they were apparently descending into a camp brightly aglow to aid activity.

  “Now!” Finnerstan rather than the captain gave that order, only a second before the bump told them they touched earth.

  The Patrolman wrenched open the hatch, made the practiced roll out and down, his neighbor following him in trained proficiency. The spaceport policeman and rangers followed with less agility.

  Finnerstan himself had already disappeared through the front door. And now, before Rip and Dane pulled themselves out, the brachs flowed away with a speed surprising in their stocky bodies.

  Rip jumped. Dane was the last to disembark, his reflexes slowed, but he held a stunner in one hand. Jellico had vanished and was proba
bly on the other side of the flitter.

  As his boots met the ground, the thump of contact transmitted to his aching head, Dane looked about. It was light, but by some lucky chance they had landed some distance from the scene of the activity. The spacer still stood, its nose pointed to the stars. Both its cargo hatches were wide open, and cranes were at work loading. There was a line of robo carriers speeding from the two earth-walled buildings, each bearing boxes and canisters, but their burdens were small. They were taking only lighter, easily stowed things,

  Dane judged with the eye of one only too used to handling shipments. The rest they would probably destroy.

  There was one crawler pulled up with two cages on board, covered. But that stood by, and no one was there. The ramp leading to the crew and passenger quarters was still on the ground and—

  Dane was startled. That ramp was under guard. Two men in crew uniforms stood at its top, just within the open hatch. They were both armed with blasters, and they were looking steadily down the ramp. Now that he studied the scene, he could see in addition a similar guard on duty by the two cargo-hold openings, both eyeing the load the robos stacked to be taken on board.

  So far no one on the field seemed to notice the landing of the flitter and the disembarking of her passengers, but there was a knot of men nearer to the ship. They just stood there, their hands hanging empty by their sides, staring at the guarded ramp and the cargo holds.

  “No room.” Dane heard Finnerstan’s low-voiced comment. “The Veeps are planning to leave their underlings behind. I wonder if they will agree—”

  “They’re disarmed, sir,” one of his men reported.

  There was an addition to the clanking of the robo carriers, to the general hum of the loading. It did not come from the group of men bitterly watching the preparations for withdrawal but from a distance. Then two more crawlers plowed on into the bright light around the ship.

  The first carried only three men, each with a pack or box he supported against his body, as if to shield it from the jerks and jostling caused by transportation across very rough terrain. The second had one large, shrouded box amidships.

  As the crawlers passed the waiting men, there was a confused shouting, a slight surge forward as if they would have rushed those transports. Then a lance of blaster fire cut across the ground, laying down a smoking reminder to stay where they were. As they had moved forward, so now they stumbled back, away from that searing bar.

  The crawlers did not halt, nor did their occupants so much as glance at the rejected. Instead, they moved steadily forward until they stopped by the ramp and the one cargo hatch. The lines of robos had come to a halt. Most of them were shut down and stood in a compact group, which grotesquely mimicked that of the frustrated men. Only two were still activated, and they went to work transferring the crate on the second carrier, working with exaggerated care that suggested their burden was of great importance. As they were making fast the lines for it to be lifted into the hold, the men on the other carrier started up the ramp, bearing their burdens with the same visible need for safety.

  “About time for takeoff,” Jellico said. “We have to move now—”

  But someone else had the same idea. While they had remained in the shadow of the flitter, watching the scene and trying to estimate their best chance, the brachs had sped into action. Now they saw the male rear on his hind quarters, holding a stunner in his forepaws. He was at the foot of the ramp, and his ray beamed up in a back and forth sweep intended to take out the two guards.

  They must have been so intent on watching their human opponents that they did not sight the alien until too late. The last man carrying a package stumbled, fell back, sliding limply down the length of the ramp, so that the brach had to leap out of the way. While that victim had deflected some of the stunner, he had not taken all the ray. From suddenly deadened hands above fell one of the blasters. The other guard, momentarily startled, aimed not at the brach but at those he knew were enemies, the group to be left behind, his fire cutting into them so that those not directly crisped by its beam scattered, some screaming.

  Now those on guard in the still open hatch took up the fire, before crumpling under stunners used by the brach, while the second guard, still firing, fell at last, rolling in turn down the ramp, his blaster yet emitting a beam, whirling its deadly lance right and left as it bumped by him and then fell to the ground.

  “This is it!” The Patrolmen, followed by the others from the port, went into action, speeding for the ship. For takeoff, the ramp must be in, the hatch closed. Now one of the brachs darted out of hiding to reach for the blaster still discharging its fire power along the ground. But he or she did not reach it. There was a lance of fire from the hatch, poorly aimed, for the alien was not hit, merely went to ground again.

  However, the force of Trewsworld law closed in about the spacer, centering their aim on the open hatches, picking off anything trying to close that.

  Dane stumbled along in the wake of the captain and Shannon. He found it hard going, and they left him well behind. But neither of the Free Traders were heading for the battle of the hatches. Instead, their goal was the third carrier, the one with the two cages on it. Rip reached it first, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and was warming her for a start when the captain hurled himself in on the other side, half standing, half crouching, prepared to defend their capture. And defend it he did as several of the rejected, who had survived the burn-off, tried to rush the Terrans.

  Jellico got two of them. Dane picked off the last, numbing his leg with a stunner. Rip set the carrier on high and was bringing it around, aiming it. Now Dane understood what he was trying to do. The weight of the carrier, if it was rammed up on the end of the ramp, would anchor the ship to the ground. There would be no takeoff because the safety factors of the spacer would not permit it.

  There was still firing by the spacer, and Jellico was alert, watching for any sign of life at the hatch, any chance of Rip’s being picked up out of the driver’s seat. The assistant astrogator had the blunt nose of their vehicle pointed straight on target now.

  Dane saw Rip’s arm raise and fall, a stunner held by the barrel so its butt could be used as a hammer. He was breaking the controls. And with those gone, no one could turn the heavy machine from its course.

  Rip leaped out one side, Jellico the other, and the crawler clanked steadily on. There was a grating, a crushing sound loud even through the shouts, the crackle of blaster fire. The carrier’s nose arose over the edge of the ramp, and the machine hung there, its treads cutting more and more deeply into the ground as it strove to push ahead and could not. But the anchor the Free Traders had devised would hold, though the ultimate taking of those in the ship might prove to be delayed. If help came from the port, they might be able to use gas bombs.

  With the ship so anchored, part of the besieging party rounded up what was left of the men who had been scattered in the blaster attack. But Dane trailed Jellico and Finnerstan on an inspection of the base. Much of what had been there had been purposefully destroyed. One of the earth-embedded structures was caved in by an implosion bomb, and the others all gave the appearance of hasty plundering. A well-equipped com station had been left without destruction, and one of the port policemen slid into the seat there, sought the channel, and beamed a call for assistance.

  ‘Trouble is,” commented Finnerstan, “if they are really fanatical about secrecy, they will destroy what they have in the ship.” He looked at the spacer as if he would have cheerfully broken it open as one cracks an eggshell to get at the yolk. “By the time we get help, they will have disposed of everything we want.”

  “Parley?” suggested Jellico.

  “Only give them more time to get rid of everything suspicious. If this was a local operation, a true jack raid, we might make a deal. But this is too big. They’ll have information on board that must have threads out to perhaps half a dozen other worlds, perhaps some we don’t suspect at all. What they carry is more important
than the prisoners.”

  “What,” Dane asked, “about those?” He pointed through the door of the com room to the men who had been rounded up. “They won’t have any reason to support the ship people, and perhaps they can give you some idea of what is on board and whether they would readily destroy it.”

  Dane’s suggestion might already have been in the Patrol officer’s mind, for Finnerstan was already moving to such an interrogation. Most of the sullen men were uncooperative, but the fifth he questioned gave them the lead they needed. Though the others captured were mainly guards and workmen below the level of third-grade tech, expendable, the fifth man brought in was a reeling, half-conscious captive who had been rescued a few inches from having his life crushed out of him by the crawler on the ramp, the last one boarding who had been brought down by the brach’s assault.

  He was certainly of higher rank than the others. In fact, as the guards brought him past those other prisoners, two of them lunged for him, cursing. He was cowering, obviously badly shaken, when he stood before Finnerstan.

  The combination of the stun attack, his close brush with death under the crawler, and the anger of his followers broke him. The Patrol officer learned what he wanted. Under his direction they dragged out of

  the wreckage in the base a tube by which they lobbed gas bombs into the opened hatches. Those broke on contact, spreading the sleep-compelling atmosphere. Masked guards from the flitter went on board to gather up prisoners, leave them wrapped by tanglers, then proceeded to put in safety all that had been about to be transported off-world.

  It was three days later in Trewsport that the crew of the Queen were finally united for the first time since the LB had taken off. The settlers’ government had been badly shaken. There was an interim Patrol command in control, and specialists from off-world had been summoned to examine the Trosti labs and the material taken from the ship.

  Dane sat nursing a mug of coffee. His headache had gone at long last, leaving him feeling curiously light. He had slept away some twenty planet hours and was now able to summon alert attention to what Captain Jellico said.