The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

very quiet since they had witnessed the attack on the island.
    “Grim-looking place,” was his second comment as they touched ground.
    Since Raf privately had held that opinion of all the alien settlements he had so far seen, he agreed. Their two alien passengers were out of the flitter as soon as he opened the bubble shield. And as they stood by the Terran flyer, they held their weapons ready, facing out into the dusk as if they half expected trouble. After the earlier episode that day, Raf did not wonder at their preparedness. Terror begets terror, and ruthlessness arouses retaliation in kind.
    “Kurbi! Soriki!” Hobart’s voice sounded out of the shadows. “Stay where you are for the present.”
    Soriki settled deeper in his seat. “He doesn’t have to tell me to brake jets,” he muttered. “I like it here—”
    Raf did not need to echo that. He had a strong surmise that had he been tempted to roam away from the flitter the move would not have been encouraged by the alien guardsmen. If this was their treasure city, they would not welcome any independent investigation by strangers.
    When the captain joined them, he was accompanied by the officer who had first shown Raf the globe. And the warrior was either disturbed or angry, for he was talking in a steady stream and his hands were whirling in explanatory gestures.
    “They didn’t like that flare,” Hobart remarked. But there was no reproof in his words. As a spacer pilot he knew that Raf had only done what duty demanded. “We’re to remain here—for the night.”
    “Where’s Lablet?” Soriki wanted to know.
    “He’s staying with Yussoz, the alien commander. He thinks he has the language problem about solved.”
    “Good enough.” Soriki pulled out his bed roll. “We’re out of touch with the ship—”
    There was a second of silence, unduly prolonged it seemed to Raf. Then Hobart spoke:
    “We couldn’t expect to keep in call forever. The best com has its range. When did you lose contact?”
    “Just before these wrapped-up heroes played with fire back there. I gave the boys all I knew up until then. They know we were headed west, and they had us beamed as long as they could.”
    So it wasn’t too bad, thought Raf. But he didn’t like it, even with that mitigating factor. To all purposes the four Terrans were now surrounded by some twenty times their number, in an unknown country, out of all communication with the rest of their kind. It could add up to disaster.
    CHAPTER 9
    Sea Gate
    “What is it?” Dalgard asked his question as Sssuri, his attention still on their back trail, stole along cautiously on a retracing of their path.
    But that retreat ended abruptly with the merman plastered against the wall, his whole shadowy form a tense warning which stopped Dalgard short. In that moment the answer flashed from mind to mind.
    “There are those which follow—”
    “Snake-devils? Those Others?” The colony scout supplied the only two explanations he had, sending his own thought out questing. But as usual he could not hope to equal the more sensitive merman whose race had always used that form of communication.
    “Those who have long haunted the darkness,” was the only reply he could get.
    But Sssuri’s actions were far more indicative of danger. For the merman turned and caught at Dalgard, pulling the larger colonist along a step or two with the urgency of his grip.
    “We cannot return this way—and we must travel fast!”
    For Sssuri who would face and had faced up to a snake-devil with a spear his sole weapon, this timidity was new. Dalgard was wise enough to accept his verdict of the wisdom of flight. Together they ran along the underground corridor, soon putting a mile between them and the point where the merman had first taken alarm.
    “From what do we flee?” As the merman began to slacken pace, Dalgard sent that query.
    “There are those who live in this darkness. By one, or by two, we could speedily remove them from life. But they hunt in packs and they are as greedy for the kill as are the snake-devils scenting meat. Also they are intelligent. Once, long before the days of burning, they served Those Others as hunters of game. And Those Others tried to make them ever more intelligent and crafty so they might be sent to hunt without a huntsman. At last they grew too knowing for their masters. Then Those Others, realizing their menace, tried to kill them all with traps and tricks. But only the most stupid and the