Farree was airborne now, the device he was to plant on the ship clasped tightly against his breast with both hands (Togger crept up to cling just beneath Farree's chin) as he climbed steadily into the cold of the upper night air and moved out towards that beam of light which had already burst from the nose of the ship, spear-straight up through gathering clouds. He winged forward in desperation, not knowing if he would be beaten from the air by some silent defense. Even though that attack did not come in the first few moments when he was out in the open over the edge of the camp, still he could not be sure that his flight was not being recorded by some intricate device below.
He must come up against the outer shell of the ship well below where that beacon sprang. Now he held firm in mind the information Vorlund had drilled into him. The spacer who had voyaged in star ships almost since birth knew well the danger spots and where a ship could best be assaulted.
Farree's fingers caught in the rim of a small port used for the workmen during an overhaul. There was no hope of his gaining entrance here. All such places must be under spy screen since the night of the escape. But this was the guide for him and he had reached it with no sign that he had been sighted by any of the sentries the invaders must have on duty here. If he could have dared mind send he would have been better content—touching any foreign thought patterns would have been warning. Only he must go blind.
He pulled himself up with one hand and now his toes found a small resting place on the nearly invisible seam which marked the door. One of those discs on his belt gave a sudden jerk forward and planted itself tightly to the surface of the closed port.
There were small surges of heat about his bare feet. The fabric of the ship was indeed not cold iron, that deadly metal, but there was enough of it in the alloy forming the surface to make itself felt. He forced the pain to the back of his mind and brought out the case he carried, slipping the cord about its top between his teeth so he could use both hands.
At the same instant the warning came that he was indeed being picked up by some alarm. A trickle of jumbled thought whipped across his mind. Farree clung to the almost invisible seam of the hatch and frantically edged upward as that questing picked and prodded the natural thought defense he had developed.
He slapped the narrow box against the surface of the ship, perhaps the length of his body below its nose. It instantly became so closely a part of the surface that nothing could free it—or not without a lengthy period of careful work with tools, which time those here did not have. Even as the box welded itself to the wall, a touch of Farree's forefinger activated what lay within. Farree pushed back and away, his wings beating almost frantically as he tried to put distance between him and that which he had brought.
He was away from the ship, even past the circle of shelters, when the device Vorlund had labored on blew. Flame torched through the sky, rising to join with the beam of the beacon. That went out abruptly, and Farree heard a roar. There followed a second outburst which might have singed one wing had he not, in his dread, flipped sidewise, no longer in a direct pattern of flight outward from the camp.
Below there arose a clamor. Two laser spears cut the air, which made his body quiver so he near lost the firm beat of the wings which bore him. However, the lasers lanced the air far enough off that Farree believed that he had not been detected, that they had been unaimed, fired only as the result of fear.
He was away, flying with desperate wing beats in the direction of the place where he had hidden during the day. He passed over that, to flash on into a place of broken rock pillars which guarded one cave entrance to the lower ways in which there lay the hall of crystal, their agreed-upon meeting place when this piece of action lay behind. Farree alighted at the mouth of that cave and smelt the mouldy stench which told him at least one of the underground people was present. He did not go forward, but wheeled about to look out toward the ship.
The beacon might be gone but there was still light about the nose, hazy as if there were clouds of fire roiling about. Still he could catch now and then clear sight of a splotch of true incandescence which must be cutting itself into the ship's skin immediately below the level of the control cabin.
Such vagabond and wandering spacers as this company carried with them means for some repairs, but Farree believed that the hurt this ship had taken could not be mended by any improvised work as the crew was trained to do. Vorlund himself had learned by default—helping to keep other lone ships flightworthy—just what would do the most harm, which also could be delivered by the materials as were at his disposal.
There was a far-off sound which could have been caused by the hungry flame, or perhaps by the voices of a number of men raised in wild shouts. As if in answer, the dark clouds overhead, which bore a reflection of the fire, massed the tighter and then released such a pelting of rain and earth-tearing force of wind that Farree pushed back into the cave, knowing that with wings wet through he could not hope to fly, however much he wanted to join with those winglings who had gone to set the trap, or else beat an air path to where Maelen and the ancient Darda had gone, to an almost forgotten lookout within the body of a mountain.
There came a snarl out of the dark behind him and the stench grew stronger.
"Wingling"—the word was spat like a curse—"get you out of the path—we are not afraid of wind and wet even though you may be."
Farree folded his wings as tightly as he could and edged against the wall to his left. His eyes, still somewhat dazzled, took time to adjust and twice he was prodded by a sharp elbow as a groundling crowded by. He did not count them but he was sure that there were quite a number, and he wondered what was taking them out into the storm. That some of the Darda were supposed to be weatherworkers, that much he did know. But there was purpose in this gathering he did not understand—not that more than the bare skeleton of what was to be done this night had been told him. What had been important for him to know was his own part and that seemed now to be over.
In the dark there was no sighting where the groudlings went, nor did he, he decided, have any particular desire to learn. He hated invading their odorous hole any further but he was bound for the appointed place of assembly so he went slowly along a way which sloped inward. Here and there one of the tubers gave light which revealed hardly more than the area immediately around it. As long as he could see those pallid spots ahead he was more willing to walk a way his whole nature detested.
logger's head wriggled from the front of his jerkin and the stalked eyes of the smux were advanced to their greatest length, revolving slowly as if to make very sure of their surroundings.
Farree rubbed his hands together. The pain of the iron burns lingered on though ill-bane salve had been lavishly applied under the adhesive leaf bandages Selrena used. He thought of the Darda—three only of that race had he seen, unless whoever hid behind the beast mask was also of that company. Fragon had commented that they were very few.