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The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

Titel: The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Andre Norton
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to trouble, and lifted heavy eyelids to see Karara once again. There was a prick in his arm—or was that part of the unreality about him?
    “—four—five—six—” she was counting, and Ross found himself joining in:
    “—seven—eight—nine—ten!”
    On reaching “ten” he was fully awake and knew that she had applied the emergency procedure they had been drilled in using, giving him a pep shot. When Ross sat up on the narrow bunk there was a light in the cabin and no sign of day outside the porthole. Torgul, Vistur, the two other cruiser captains, all there…and Jazia.
    Ross swung his feet to the deck. A pep-shot headache was already beginning, but would wear off soon. There was, however, a concentration of tension in the cabin, and something must have driven Karara to use the drug.
    “What is it?”
    Karara fitted the medical kit into the compact carrying case.
    “Tino-rau has returned. There is a sub in the bay. It emits energy waves on a shoreward beam.”
    “Then they are still there.” Ross accepted the dolphin’s report without question. Neither of the scouts would make a mistake in those matters. Energy waves beamed shoreward—power for some type of unit the Baldies were using? Suppose the Rovers could find a way of cutting off the power.
    “The Sea Maid has told us that this ship sits on the bottom of the harbor. If we could board it—” began Torgul.
    “Yes!” Vistur brought his fist down against the end of the bunk on which the Terran still sat, jarring the dull, drug-borne pain in Ross’s head. “Take it—then turn it against its crew!”
    There was an eagerness in all Rover faces. For that was a game the Hawaikan seafarers understood: Take an enemy ship and turn its armament against its companions in a fleet. But that plan would not work out. Ross had a healthy respect for the technical knowledge of the galactic invaders. Of course he, Karara, even Loketh might be able to reach the sub. Whether they could then board her was an entirely different matter.
    Now the Polynesian girl shook her head. “The broadcast there—Tino-rau rates it as lethal. There are dead fish floating in the bay. He had warning at the reef entrance. Without a shield, there will be no way of getting in.”
    “Might as well wish for a depth bomb,” Ross began and then stopped.
    “You have thought of something?”
    “A shield—” Ross repeated her words. It was so wild this thought of his, and one which might have no chance of working. He knew almost nothing about the resources of the invaders. Could that broadcast which protected the sub and perhaps activated the weapons of the invaders ashore be destroyed? A wall of fish—sea life herded in there as a shield…wild, yes, even so wild it might work. Ross outlined the idea, speaking more to Karara than to the Rovers.
    “I do not know,” she said doubtfully. “That would need many fish, too many to herd and drive—”
    “Not fish,” Torgul cut in, “salkars!”
    “Salkars?”
    “You have seen the bow carving on this ship. That is a salkar. Such are larger than a hundred fish! Salkars driven in…they might even wreck this undersea ship with their weight and anger.”
    “And you can find these salkars near-by?” Ross began to take fire. That dragon which had hunted him—the bulk of the thing was well above any other sea life he had seen here. And to its ferocity he could give testimony.
    “At the spawning reefs. We do not hunt at this season which is the time of the taking of mates. Now, too, they are easily angered so they will even attack a cruiser. To slay them at present is a loss, for their skins are not good. But they would be ripe for battle were they to be disturbed.”
    “And how would you get them from the spawning reefs to Kyn Add?”
    “That is not too difficult; the reef lies here.” Torgul drew lines with the point of his sword on the table top. “And here is Kyn Add. Salkars have a great hunger at this time. Show them bait and they will follow; especially will they follow swimming bait.”
    There were a great many holes in the plan which had only a halfway chance of working. But the Rovers seized upon it with enthusiasm, and so it was set up.
    Perhaps some two hours later Ross swam toward the land mass of Kyn Add. Gleams of light pricked on the shore well to his left. Those must mark the Rover settlement. And again the Terran wondered why the invaders had remained there. Unless they knew that there had been three

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