The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

Dane began and then swallowed the rest of his protest, knowing that Tau was not going to explain why he needed to have the hackneyed popular song of the spaceways played in a Khatkan swamp. As a Free Trader he had had quite a few odd jobs handed him during the past couple of years, but this was the first time he had been ordered to serve as a musician.
    They waited for Nymani through dragging minutes. Surely those in the camp would expect their arrival soon now? Dane’s fire ray was in his hand as he measured the distance to the drummer’s stand.
    “It is done,” Nymani whispered from the darkness behind them. Jellico and the Chief Ranger moved to the left; Tau crept to the right and Dane pushed level with the medic.
    “When they move,” Tau’s lips were beside his ear, “jump for that drum. I don’t care how you get it, but get it and keep it!”
    “Yes, sir!”
    There was a wailing cry from the north, a howl of witless fear. The singers stopped in mid-note, the drummer paused, his hand uplifted. Dane darted forward in a plunge which carried him to that man. The Khatkan did not have time to rise from his knees as the barrel of the fire rod struck his head, sending him spinning. Then the drum was cradled in the spaceman’s arm, close to his chest, his weapon aimed across it at the startled natives.
    The crackle of blaster fire, the shrill whine of needlers in action, raised a bedlam from the other end of the camp. Backing up a little, Dane went down on one knee, his weapon ready to sweep over the bewildered natives, the drum resting on the earth against his body. Keeping the fire rod steady, his left hand went to work, not in the muted cadence the Khatkan drummer had chosen, but in hard and vigorous thumps which rolled across the clamor of the fight. There was no forgetting the beat of “Terra Bound” and he delivered it with force, so that the familiar da-dah-da-da droned loud enough to awaken the whole camp.
    Dane’s move appeared to completely baffle the Khatkan outlaws. They stared at him, the whites of their eyes doubly noticeable in their dark faces, their mouths a little agape. As usual the unexpected had driven them off guard. He dared not look away from that gathering to see how the fight at the other end of the camp was progressing. But he did see Tau’s advance.
    The medic came into the light of the fire, not with his ordinary loose-limbed spaceman’s stride, but mincingly, with a dancing step, and he was singing to the drum beat of “Terra Bound.” Dane could not understand the words, but he knew that they patterned in and out of the drum beats, weaving a net between singer and listeners as Lumbrilo had woven his net on the mountain terrace.
    Tau had them! Had every one of the native outlaws ensnared, so that Dane rested his weapon across his knee and took up the lower beat with the fingers of his right hand as well.
    Da-dah-da-da .… The innocuous repetitive refrain of the original song which had been repeating itself in his mind faded, and somehow he caught the menace in the new words Tau was mouthing.
    Twice the medic shuffled about a circle of his own making. Then he stooped, took a hunting knife from the belt of the nearest Khatkan and held it point out toward the dark east. Dane would not have believed the medic knew the drill he now displayed, for with no opponent save the dancing firelight he fought a knife duel, feinting, striking, twisting, retreating, attacking, all in time to the beat of the drum Dane was no longer conscious of playing. And as he strove it was very easy to picture another fighting against him. So that when the knife came up in a vicious thrust which was the finish of his last attack, Dane stared stupidly at the ground, half expecting to see a body lying there.
    Once more Tau ceremoniously saluted with his blade to the east. Then he laid it on the ground and stood astride its gleaming length.
    “Lumbrilo!” His confident voice arose above the call of the drum. “Lumbrilo—I am waiting.”
    CHAPTER VIII
    Vaguely aware that the clamor at the other end of the camp had died away, Dane muted the sound of his drum. Over its round top he could watch the Khatkan outlaws; their heads bobbed and swayed in time to the beat of his fingers. He, too, could feel the pull of Tau’s voice. But what would come in answer? That shadowy thing which had been loosed to drive them here? Or the man himself?
    To Dane, the ruddy light of the fire dimmed, yet there was no actual