The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

the Survey officer, curt, clear—so perfect the word might have rung audibly through the dome.
    “The camp!” Shann hurled that back, frantic with fear than once again their contact might fail.
    “They want me to call in the transport.” He added that.
    “How soon?”
    “Don’t know. They have the guide beam set. I’m to say there’s illness here; they know I can’t code.”
    All he could see now was Thorvald’s face, intent, the officer’s eyes cold sparks of steel, bearing the impress of a will as implacable as a Throg’s. Shann added his own decision.
    “I’ll warn the ship off; they’ll send in the patrol.”
    There was no change in Thorvald’s expression. “Hold out as long as you can!”
    Cold enough, no promise of help, nothing on which to build hope. Yet the fact that Thorvald was on the move, away from the Wyvern city, meant something. And Shann was sure that thick vegetation could be found only on the mainland. Not only was Thorvald ashore, but there were Wyverns with him. Could the officer have persuaded the witches of Warlock to foresake their hands-off policy and join him in an attack on the Throg camp? No promise, not even a suggestion that the party Shann had envisioned was moving in his direction. Yet somehow he believed that they were.
    There was a sound from the doorway of the dome. Shann opened his eyes. There were Throgs entering, one to go to the guide beam, two heading for his chair. He closed his eyes again in a last attempt, backed by every remaining ounce of his energy and will.
    “Ship’s in range. Throgs here.”
    Thorvald’s face, dimmer now, snapped out while a blow on Shann’s jaw rocked his head cruelly, made his ears sing, his eyes water. He saw Throgs—Throgs only. And one held the translator.
    “You talk!”
    A tri-jointed arm reached across his shoulder, triggered a lever, pressed a button. The head set cramping his ear let out a sudden growl of sound—the com was activated. A claw jammed the mike closer to Shann’s lips, but also slid in range the webbed loop of the translator.
    Shann shook his head at the incoming rattle of code. The Throg with the translator was holding the other head set close to his own ear pit. And the claws of the guard came down on Shann’s shoulders in a cruel grip, a threat of future brutality.
    The rattle of code continued while Shann thought furiously. This was it! He had to give a warning, and then the aliens would do to him just what the officer had threatened. Shann could not seem to think clearly. It was as if in his efforts to contact Thorvald, he had exhausted some part of his brain, so that now he was dazed just when he needed quick wits the most!
    This whole scene had a weird unreality. He had seen its like a thousand times on fiction tapes—the Terran hero menaced by aliens intent on saving…saving.…
    Was it out of one of those fiction tapes he had devoured in the past that Shann recalled that scrap of almost forgotten information?
    The Terran began to speak into the mike, for there had come a pause in the rattle of code. He used Terran, not basic, and he shaped the words slowly.
    “Warlock calling—trouble—sickness here—com officer dead.”
    He was interrupted by another burst of code. The claws of his guard twisted into the naked flesh of his shoulders in vicious warning.
    “Warlock calling—” he repeated. “Need help—”
    “Who are you?”
    The demand came in basic. On board the transport they would have a list of every member of the Survey team.
    “Lantee.” Shann drew a deep breath. He was so conscious of those claws on his shoulders, of what would follow.
    “This is Mayday!” he said distinctly, hoping desperately that someone in the control cabin of the ship now in orbit would catch the true meaning of that ancient call of complete disaster. “Mayday—beetles—over and out!”
    CHAPTER 18
    STORM’S ENDING
    Shann had no answer from the transport, only the continuing hum of a contact still open between the dome and the control cabin miles above Warlock. The Terran breathed slowly, deeply, felt the claws of the Throg bite his flesh as his chest expanded. Then, as if a knife slashed, the hum of that contact was gone. He had time to know a small flash of triumph. He had done it; he had aroused suspicion in the transport.
    When the Throg officer clicked to the alien manning the landing beam, Shann’s exultation grew. The beetle-head must have accepted that cut in communication as normal; he