A second shriek and Dane saw against the faint light of the haze that he was not the only one cowering from that outbreak of audio violence.
“What—what was that?” Surely as a ranger, Meshler must know the source.
“Nothing that I know.” The ranger’s voice was that of a badly shaken man.
“The force field is not only a trap”—Tau gave them grim understanding of what might face them now— “but it is also probably a cage. And I don’t think I care to meet what we share it with.”
It would be far better, Dane decided in that instant, that the owners of this trap come and take them out as prisoners. They dared not get too far away from the barrier. If the brach was successful, they must be ready to make swift use of freedom. But what they were entrapped with—whatever prowled here—must also be faced. And they had no weapons.
“Fire—a torch—” That was Tau. Dane heard a crackling and saw a piece of well-leafed bush sway violently and then separate from the trunk as the medic broke it loose.
“Do you have a striker?” Tau asked Meshler.
“Green stuff—may not burn,” the ranger returned. But once more he delved into the pack. “Hold it away from you—well away—”
What he did Dane could not see, but at last Meshler seemed satisfied.
“That’s wet down with proto fuel. One spark and it will give you fire all right. You are right in believing that fire will hold off most beasts. Only we aren’t sure what roams here. Light—the beamer—might have some effect also.”
“The brach went that way,” Dane said. “If we follow it along within the haze—”
“As good a way as any,” Meshler agreed.
However, they did keep behind the screen of brush, and they went slowly and carefully. There had been no second outburst of the hideous screaming, yet Dane expected at any moment to confront some horror out of the night.
In a very short time the road made by the crawler treads swung away from the haze again. And they lingered at that point, not wanting to venture far from the one tie with freedom. Tau broke the silence first.
“Any camp must be over there—”
Dane saw the dark blot of Tau’s arm against the haze. The medic was pointing along the curve of the road. “Source of radiation that way.”
“What I don’t understand,” Dane said slowly, “is how an establishment of this sort can exist and the government know nothing about it.”
He expected some comment, probably an impatient one, from Meshler. When the ranger said nothing, suspicion was bom.
“You do know something!” Tau put Dane’s thought into words. “Is this a government project then? And if
so—”
“Yes, if so, you ought to be able to get us out!”
Meshler shifted weight from one foot to the other. They could not see his expression, but there was something about his silence that fed Dane’s uneasiness.
“We’re waiting,” Tau said.
Tau, Tau ought to be able to get to the truth! The medic’s interests lay in the field of native “magic,” which was, many times, thought control. He had consorted with the esper-endowed (and charlatans who were able to deceive even the astute) on many worlds. On Khatka he had unleashed his own illusions to defeat a man who believed implicitly in his own witching powers. Dane had no explanation for what he had seen Tau do to save him and Captain Jellico—and perhaps the whole world—for Limbulo had been trying to snatch rule there.
Here the medic had no artificial aids for getting the truth out of Meshler. What he must or could do would be out of his own stock of learning. Tau could make Meshler talk if anyone on the Queen could.
“This territory’s off limits.” It seemed that Meshler would not need drastic persuasion.
“But you brought us here,” Tau pointed out. “By orders?”
“No!” Meshler’s denial was quick and emphatic. “It’s the truth that I told you. We could not have gotten out on foot. This is the only way to survive, to try and find the experimental station.”
“The Trosti station?”
But that, according to Meshler’s own former statement, was northwest from here. Dane left the questioning wholly to Tau.
“Their secondary station, not the main one. It is a top priority secret. We only know it exists, not where it is—”
“Nor what they are doing there,” Tau commented. “Could it be you used our dragon hunt for a chance to do some snooping? If so, by whose orders?”
“The Council is supposed to know, but my own department—we felt—”
“That you ought to be in on any secrets, too? I wonder,” Tau said speculatively, “if this is more than just interdepartmental jealousy. No wonder there was trouble after we landed. Someone—someone important— expected us to be carrying what we dumped in the LB. Was that it?”
“I don’t know.” Meshler’s voice was harsh. He might have been thinking furiously and didn’t want to share his thoughts, or he might be truly baffled.
“What about that hunting party? And our flitter was beam-locked—or was it?”
“Yes! And I don’t know any more about those hunters than you do.” There was heat and energy in this burst. “I only know this is a top-security region.”
“Yet you allowed us to send off the brach to cut out the force control, if he could,” Tau persisted. “Which means one of two things: either you knew he would fail and you were buying time, or you have good suspicions about this—”
But the medic was never to complete that sentence. There was a crashing in the bush behind them and with it the same stench as that which had gagged them before. It was very apparent that the thing they had seen only momentarily was on the prowl and headed in their direction, though whether it could be definitely hunting them—
“Back!” Meshler’s hand caught Dane’s arm and pulled him along. “Come on!”
Once more they must depend upon the ranger’s night sight, though to the left the haze gave off its glow. They made the best pace they could, only it was away from the road.
Dane held up his other arm to keep the whip of tough branches out of his face and eyes. They had already ripped at his thermo jacket and drawn blood from a thorn tear on one cheek. Then they came out of that thick growth into an open space where the moon gave them light, and the ground beneath them was smooth enough to run on.
“To the right!” That was Meshler’s order. Dane obeyed, but only because he had seen it, too, something black and tall standing well above the ground. Plainly it was not growth but a sturdily based platform. Behind them, so close it assaulted their ears to deafen them, came that horrible screeching.
Meshler reached the nearest support leg of the erection, leaped up, and got a good grip on some projection Dane could not see. He climbed with speed and then something thumped down with force, which might have pinned Dane to the ground had it been inches closer. Tau caught at it.
“Ladder!” He gasped out the single word, already making use of its aid. Dane was right on his heels. Then the medic was up and over the edge of the platform, Dane not long in wriggling after. A push sent him rolling to one side as the ranger grabbed the ladder, jerking it aloft.
Dane, still lying flat, wormed his way to the edge to watch for what might exit into the thin moonlight on their trail. It came, a hunched shape moving as a black blot. It was hard to gauge its bulk from their perch, but that it was several times his own size Dane would swear. Though it had exited from cover on four feet, it rose a little to shuffle on two, the forelimbs dangling loosely as it came.
The thing did not raise its head far enough for Dane to make out anything but a dark blob, and he was just as well pleased that this was so, for the very outlines suggested that it was a nightmare creature, while the stench of it made him sick.