The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

billion credit deal.”
    To his surprise Hume laughed. “Seems all very far and out of orbit now, doesn’t it, Lansor? Yes, our billion credit deal—but that was thought out before we knew there were more players around the table than we counted. I wonder.…”
    But what he wondered he did not put into words and a moment later he added over his shoulder, “Better try to get some rest, boy. We’ve some time to a set-down.”
    Vye did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And he roused after a gentle shaking to see a beam of light in the sky ahead, though around them was the solid darkness of night.
    “That’s a warning,” Hume explained. “And I can’t raise any reply from the camp except a repeat of the distress call. If there is anyone there now, he can’t or won’t answer.”
    Against that column of light they could make out the sky-pointed taper of the spacer and the auto-pilot landed them beside that ship in the middle of an area well lighted by the steady shaft of light from the tripod standing where the atom lamp had been on the night they had made their escape from camp.
    Climbing stiffly from the small flyer they advanced with caution. A very few minutes later Hume slid his ray tube back into its belt loop.
    “Unless they’ve holed up in the spacer—and I can’t see why they’d do that—this camp’s deserted. And they haven’t taken any equipment with them except maybe a few items they could back-pack.”
    The ship proved as empty of life as the campsite. A wall seat pulled out too hastily so that it was jammed awry, the com cabin suggested that the leave-taking, when and for what reason, had been a matter of some emergency. Hume did not touch the tape set to keep on broadcasting the call for assistance.
    “What now?” Vye wanted to know as they completed the search.
    “The safari camp first—and a call for the Patrol.”
    “Look here,” Vye set down the ration container he had found, was emptying it with vast satisfaction of one who had been too long on tablets, “if you beam the Patrol you’ll have to talk, won’t you?”
    Hume went on fitting new charges into his ray tube. “The Patrol has to have a full report. There’s no way of bypassing that. Yes, we’ll have to give all the story. You needn’t worry.” He snapped closed the load chamber. “I can clear you all the way. You’re the victim, remember.”
    “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
    “Boy.” Hume tossed the tube up in the air, caught it in his plasta-hand. “I went into this deal with my eyes wide open—why doesn’t matter very much now. In fact,” he stared beyond Vye out into the empty, lighted camp, “I’ve begun to wonder about a lot of things—maybe too late. No—we’ll call the Patrol and we’ll do it not because it is Wass and his men out there, but because we’re human and they’re human, and there’s a nasty set-up here which has already sucked in other humans for its own purposes.”
    The skeleton in the valley! And how very close they had been themselves to joining that unknown in his permanent residence.
    “So now we make time—back to the safari camp. Get our message off to the Patrol and then we’ll try to trace Wass and see what we can do. Jumala is off a regular route. The Patrol won’t be here tomorrow at sunrise, no matter how much we wish a scouter would planet then.”
    Vye was quiet as he stowed in the flitter again. As Hume had said, events moved fast. A little while ago he had wanted to settle with this Out-Hunter, wring out of him not only an explanation for his being here, but claim satisfaction for the humiliation of being moved about to suit some others’ purposes. Now he was willing to defeat Wass, bring in the Patrol, go up against whatever hid in that lake up there, providing Hume was not the loser. He tried to think why that was so and could not, he only knew it was the truth.
    They were both silent as they took off from Wass’ deserted camp, sped away over the black blot of the woodland towards the safari headquarters on the plains. There were stars above again but no globes. Just as they had won their freedom from the valley, so they moved without escort on the plains.
    But the lights were there—not impinging on the flitter, or patrolling along its line of flight. No, they hung in a glowing cluster ahead when in the dawn the flitter shot away from the woods, headed for the landmark of the safari camp. A crown of lights circled over the camp site, as if those