The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

leading him on for some purpose of his own? Or were those traces left to guide another party from the camp?
    To advance openly up the stream bed was to invite discovery. Rynch surveyed the nearer bank. Clumps of small trees and high growing bushes dotted that expanse, an ideal cover.
    He was hardly out of sight of the bush which had sheltered him when he heard the coughing roar of a water-cat. And the feline was attacking an enemy, enraged to the pitch of vocal frenzy. Rynch ran a zigzag course from one clump of bush to the next. That sound of snarling, spitting hate ended in mid-cry as Rynch crawled to the river bank.
    The man from the spacer camp had been the focus of a three-prong attack from a female and her cubs. Three red bodies were flat and still on the gravel as the off-worlder leaned back against a rock breathing heavily. As Rynch sighted him, he stooped to recover the needler he had dropped, lurched away from the rock towards the water, and so blundered straight into another Jumalan trap.
    His unsteady foot advancing for another step came down on a slippery surface, and he fell forward as his legs were engulfed in the trap burrow of a strong-jaws. With a startled cry the man dropped the needler again, clawed at the ground about him. Already he was buried to his knees, then his mid-thighs, in the artificial quicksand. But he had not lost his head and was jerking from side to side in an effort to pull free.
    Rynch got to his feet, walked with slow deliberation down to the river’s brink. The trapped prisoner had shied halfway around, stretching out his arms to find a firmer grip on some rock large and heavy enough to anchor him. After his first startled cry he had made no sound, but now, as he sighted Rynch, his eyes widened and his lips parted.
    The box on his chest caught on a stone he had dragged to him in a desperate try for support. There was a spitting of sparks and the stranger worked frantically at the buckle of the webbing harness to loosen it and toss the whole thing from him. The box struck one of the dead water-cats, flashed as fur and flesh were singed.
    Rynch watched dispassionately before he caught the needler, jerking it away from the prisoner. The man eyed him steadily, and his expression did not alter even when Rynch swung the off-world weapon to center its sights on the late owner.
    “Suppose,” Rynch’s voice was rusty sounding in his own ears, “we talk now.”
    The man nodded. “As you wish, Brodie.”
    CHAPTER 6
    “Brodie?” Rynch squatted on his heels.
    Those gray eyes, so light in the other’s deeply tanned face, narrowed the smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph.
    “Were you looking for me?” he added.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “We found an L-B—we wondered if there were survivors.”
    Slowly Rynch shook his head. “No—you knew I was here. Because you brought me!” He fashioned his suspicions into one quick thrust.
    This time there was not the slightest hint of self-betrayal from the other.
    “You see,” Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from the captive, “I remember!”
    Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man’s eyes. He asked quietly:
    “What do you remember, Brodie?”
    “Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on the L-B, did not build that camp.”
    He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced, he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.
    “You have no cup this time.”
    “So you do remember.” The other accepted that calmly. “All right. That need not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to on Nahuatl—unless you liked the Starfall.” His voice was icy with contempt. “To play our roles will be for your advantage, too.” He paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing the desired answer out of his inferior.
    Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl—a planet? a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everything clearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did.…
    “You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makes Rynch Brodie so important?”
    “Close to a billion credits!” The man from the spacer leaned well back in the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his body from sinking deeper. “A billion credits,” he repeated softly.
    Rynch