The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

the fog was moving with purpose toward him. Thorvald strode into the open, sighted Shann, and began to run.
    “What did they—?” he began.
    Shann wanted to laugh, but the sound which issued from his dry throat was very little like mirth. He struggled helplessly until he managed to get out some words which made sense.
    “…hadn’t started in on me yet. You were just in time.”
    Thorvald loosened the wires which held the younger man to the frame and stood ready to catch him as he slumped forward. And the officer’s hold wiped away the last clammy residue of the mist. Though he did not seem able to keep on his feet, Shann’s mind was clear.
    “What happened?” he demanded.
    “The power.” Thorvald was examining him hastily but with attention for every cut and bruise. “The beetle-heads didn’t really get to work on you—”
    “Told you that,” Shann said impatiently. “But what brought that fog and got the Throgs?”
    Thorvald smiled grimly. The ghostly light was fading as the fog retreated, but Shann could see well enough to note that around the other’s neck hung one of the Wyvern disks.
    “It was a variation of the veil of illusion. You faced your memories under the influence of that; so did I. But it would seem that the Throgs had ones worse than either of us could produce. You can’t play the role of thug all over the galaxy and not store up in the subconscious a fine line of private fears and remembered enemies. We provided the means for releasing those, and they simply raised their own devils to order. Neatest justice ever rendered. It seems that the ‘power’ has a big kick—in a different way—when a Terran will manages to spark it.”
    “And you did?”
    “I made a small beginning. Also I had the full backing of the Elders, and a general staff of Wyverns in support. In a way I helped to provide a channel for their concentration. Alone they can work ‘magic’; with us they can spread out into new fields. Tonight we hunted Throgs as a united team—most successfully.”
    “But they wouldn’t go after the one in the skull.”
    “No. Direct contact with a Throg mind appears to short-circuit them. I did the contacting; they fed me what I needed. We have the answer to the Throgs now—one answer.” Thorvald looked back over the field where those bodies lay so still. “We can kill Throgs. Maybe someday we can learn another trick—how to live with them.” He returned abruptly to the present. “You did contact the transport?”
    Shann explained what had happened in the com dome. “I think when the ship broke contact that way they understood.”
    “We’ll take it that they did, and be on the move.” Thorvald helped Shann to his feet. “If a cruiser berths here shortly, I don’t propose to be under its tail flames when it sets down.”
    The cruiser came. And a mop-up squad patrolled outward from the reclaimed camp, picked up two living Throgs, both wandering witlessly. But Shann only heard of that later. He slept, so deep and dreamlessly that when he roused he was momentarily dazed.
    A Survey uniform—with a cadet’s badges—lay across the wall seat facing his bunk in the barracks he had left…how many days or weeks before? The garments fitted well enough, but he removed the insignia to which he was not entitled. When he ventured out he saw half a dozen troopers of the patrol, together with Thorvald, watching the cruiser lift again into the morning sky.
    Taggi and Togi, trailing leashes, galloped out of nowhere to hurl themselves at him in uproarious welcome. And Thorvald must have heard their eager whines even through the blast of the ship, for he turned and waved Shann to join him.
    “Where is the cruiser going?”
    “To punch a Throg base out of this system,” Thorvald answered. “They located it—on Witch.”
    “But we’re staying on here?”
    Thorvald glanced at him oddly. “There won’t be any settlement now. But we have to establish a conditional embassy post. And the patrol has left a guard.”
    Embassy post. Shann digested that. Yes, of course, Thorvald, because of his close contact with the Wyverns, would be left here for the present to act as liaison officer-in-charge.
    “We don’t propose,” the other was continuing, “to allow to lapse any contact with the one intelligent alien race we have discovered who can furnish us with full-time partnership to our mutual benefit. And there mustn’t be any bungling here!”
    Shann nodded. That made sense. As