“He”—Dane unconsciously corrected the pronoun—“says they can sense emotions. That’s what led to the dragons’ escape in the first place. One of the brach kits “heard” their anger at being shut up in the cage and went to open that. They turned on the kit and then got away—”
He half expected the ranger to contradict that with scorn, but the man did not. He listened impassively, glancing now and then at the brachs.
“So we have a couple of monsters loose, besides this antline—”
“As well as two murdered men,” Dane broke in, “who were dead long before we planeted.”
“If they have been dead as long as you say,” the ranger replied, “they can await attention for a short space longer. What we have to deal with firstly are these ‘dragons’ of yours.” He put away the tridee and brought out a tube, which, at a slight squeeze, rolled out a map. Though it was in miniature, its points of references were so clearly marked it was easy to read.
“The lake.” Meshler pointed. “Your river drains from there?”
“We believe so,” Dane answered.
“And your dragons crossed it?” Slightly beyond the river line were marks of pale green. The ranger tapped those with fingertip.
“Cartl’s holding. If your dragons headed for that—” Another pinch of finger and the map snapped back into the tube. “It would be better that we locate them before they get that far. This—this creature can track them? You are sure of that?”
“He says he can. He took us to the river.” Dane moved; he had no intention of allowing the ranger to take the brach. After all, no matter what change had occurred, the alien was still part of the cargo for which Dane was responsible. But Meshler had not reached for the brach.
“You are under arrest.” He looked around, catching them one by one with his straight stare, as if challenging them to deny his authority. “If we wait for a search party from Trewsport, it may be too late. I have my duty. If Cartl’s holding is in danger, my first duty is there. But you loosed this danger; therefore, you have a duty also—”
“We have not denied that,” Tau returned. “We have done the best we could to insure that the port was not infected.”
“The best you could? With these dragons loose to attack a holding?”
“What I can’t understand,” Dane said slowly, his words aimed at Tau, “is how they can withstand the cold. They were let out in the very early morning. I expected to find them frozen. Reptiles cannot take cold—”
“Lathsmers”—Meshler corrected—“are not reptiles. And they are well adapted to cold. They are acclimated for Trewsworld winters before they are decanted at hatching.”
“But I tell you,” Dane said angrily, “these are not your lathsmers—but probably the million-year-back ancestors of them. They are certainly reptiles to look at!”
“We can’t know just what they are”—Tau corrected him—“until we have a chance to run them through a diagnostic lab. Their immunity to cold might well be a part of their conditioning the ray did not affect.”
“We have no time to argue about their nature!” Meshler stated firmly. “We hunt and find them, before they cause more trouble. First I beam in my report. You stay here.”
He shouldered past Ali and went out the hatch, slamming it behind him. Kamil spoke to Tau.
“What is going on?”
“We would all like to know a few details,” Tau answered wearily. “When we landed, there was already information out—we had come in under suspicious circumstances. Then, we had to report a death on board—”
“But how?” began Shannon.
“Just so, how?” Tau returned. “We had not had time to report. We answered with the truth, showed them the body. I gave the port doctor my conclusions. They wanted his papers. When we told them he carried yours and showed them that mask, they were, or pretended to be, incredulous. Said they didn’t think any such switch could be pulled without our knowing, that an imposture could not be maintained throughout the voyage, which is probably true. That being so, they logically went on to a new point, what would bring a man to stow away.”
“So you told them about the box,” Ali supplied.
“We had to at that point, since the lab people were yammering all over the place for their brachs—as well as the settlers for the embryos. We could have said one shipment was coming later but not both under the circumstances. Jellico has demanded a Board of Trade hearing. In the meantime, the Queen is impounded and the rest of the crew in custody. They sent this Meshler out to pick you up—with me to handle the brachs, since by trade law they have to have a medical officer for a live cargo.”
“I-S behind this, you think?” Rip demanded.
“I don’t believe so. There is still the problem of a big company doing a complicated plan to make trouble for one Free Trader. And it is not that we nudged them out of this mail contract. It had been Combine
property for years. No, I think we were just handy, and someone used us. Maybe the same thing might have happened to a Combine ship if it were still on mail run.”
“Craig”—Dane had been only half listening, his thoughts turning in another direction—“that dead man, could they have meant him to die? Was he expendable and that was why they didn’t care if he lived long enough to be taken for a stowaway?”
“Could be true. Only why—?”
“And why, and why, and why?” Rip threw up his hands in a gesture of scattering unanswerable questions to the four points of the compass.
But Ali had picked up the stone Dane had brought from the wrecked crawler. He turned it around, studying it.
“Trewsworld is strictly an Ag planet, isn’t it? Agriculture the only occupation?”
“That’s been its rating.”
“But dead prospectors in the bush, with a lock bin broken open? Where was this exactly?” Ali shot that question abruptly at Dane.
“Caught in under the melted door. I thought someone had swept out the contents in a big hurry and overlooked this sliver when it wedged fast.”
Rip looked over Ali’s shoulder at the stone. “Looks like ordinary rock to me.”
“Ah, but you aren’t a mineralogist, nor are any of us.” Ali weighed the rock in his hand. “I have a distinct feeling that somehow an answer to all of this is hovering right under our noses, but we are just a little too dense to grasp its importance.”
He was still holding the rock when the hatch creaked open and Meshler was again with them.
“You”—he pointed to Shannon—“stay here. There will be a guard ship from the port to pick you up. And you, also.” This time his pointing finger singled out Ali. “But you and you, and this—this creature you say can sniff out the dragons of yours—will come with me. We take the flitter and pick up those things and do it quickly!”
For a moment it seemed that Shannon and Kamil might protest, but Dane saw them look to Tau, and though there was no change of expression on the medic’s face, Dane believed they had received some message not to interfere with Meshler’s arrangements.
For the second time Dane fitted the brach into the pack, the alien making no protest, as if he had been able to follow their conversation and knew the purpose of this second expedition. And neither did the ranger demand Dane turn over his stunner before they went out to the flitter.
“We go first to Cartl’s,” Meshler announced in his authoritative voice. He motioned Dane to the side seat by his own at the controls, the Terran settling the brach’s pack on his lap, while Tau had one of the rear seats.
Whatever else he might be, the ranger was an expert pilot. Perhaps flitter flight was the normal travel for one representing the law in this wide territory. He brought them up effortlessly, swung the nose of the craft to the southeast, and pushed the speed to high.