The Mech made way respectfully for the newcomer, who tripped forward into the open and stood gazing down the narrow mouth of the canyon as if waiting for something important to appear there. And he was not to be disappointed for the shrill squeal of a gu carried clearly to the ears of both the men in the canyon and the hidden Swordsmen on the cliff.
A mounted party shuffled into view. The Llor sagged as they rode and their guen paced very slowly, their bony heads drooping to knee level with the lag of overriding. Yet Kana judged none of the Fronnian natives were soldiers — they had more the appearance of backlands guen hunters the Terrans had encountered after their forced march over the mountains. Their leader had a rifle slung over his shoulder — the rest were armed only with swords, lances, and the thick coils of rope about their middles which served frontier hunters for both a weapon and a snare.
The Llor chief swung off his mount and immediately dropped cross-legged to the ground, while the alien in the Mech uniform sat on a small stool hurriedly brought from the bubble tent by a second Mech and placed to front the native. As the rest of the Llor slipped out of their saddles, one or two to lie full length on the ground, three more Terrans appeared, grouping themselves some distance away. It was plain that a conference was about to begin.
It was a discussion which grew heated at times. Once the Llor leader went so far as to get to his feet and jerk at the reins of his gu so that the animal ambled unhappily into a position in which it could be mounted. Yet a quick gesture and word from the alien apparently soothed the native commander and he seated himself once more.
To be a spectator but not an auditor at that meeting was wearing on the Blademaster. He shifted his position among the concealing rocks as if his first choice of hiding places had inadvertently harbored a nest of Vol fire ants. But unless he could develop the art of complete invisibility, he was not going to be able to hear that group below.
At length the meeting came to an end. The Llor chieftain gave some order to the lounging members of his escort. Four of them got up, without any display of alacrity, and as they trudged across the space dividing them from the Mech contingent, their reluctance could be read in every line of their woolly bodies. While their leader and the alien stood apart waiting, they slouched to the vent door of the bubble tent. The Mechs went inside and returned in a moment or two with large narrow boxes, one carried by each pair of men.
Hansu had gone so far as to rise to his knees and Kana wondered if he dared give a warning tug to the Blademaster's coat. But those below seemed so intent upon what they were doing that there was little chance of their looking aloft at that moment.
Two boxes had been passed on to the Llor who received them in charge with signs of open distaste, but did carry them to the foot of the ramp leading to the hatch of the ship. A second pair of boxes were man-handled out of the bubble, also to be transported. Kana tried to imagine what lay within them. Weapons of some sort? But why put weapons into the ship? It would be far more logical if those boxes had been drawn from the cargo hold of the spacer.
When six boxes were grouped about the ramp the alien and two of the Mechs worked on the covering of one.
"That — !" Hansu's face was oddly pale beneath its dark pigment. He was breathing in harsh, shallow gasps, as if he had been pounding up the slope. His eyes, glints of steel, deadly, measuring, were on the group. Alone of the Swordsmen he must have guessed at once the contents of those coffers.
Coffers — Kana's own skin crawled as he realized belatedly that the word was rightly "coffin." For the Mechs were taking out of the box what could only be the body of a dead man — a man who wore the white and black of the Patrol.
"But why — ?" His muttered protest brought no answer except gasps from his two companions and an uninformative grunt from Hansu.
The boxes, now emptied, each of the same contents, were carried off by the Llor and piled against the wall of the canyon a good distance away from the ship. The alien was in command, directing the arrangement of the bodies in an uneven line.
Hansu hissed — there was no other way to name the sound he made with breath expelled between his teeth. To Kana the actions below did not make sense, but to the Blademaster the design must be growing clearer every moment.
Now the alien stood back, motioning the Mechs away, though the Llor still clustered about the ship as if examining the dead who had been so carefully placed there.
"He's making a record-pak!" The words came from Larsen and Kana saw that he was right. The alien, a sight scriber in his hands, was making a pictorial record of the scene — the ship — the tumbled bodies — the Llor moving among them. A record of what — to be shown to whom?
"A frame — a neat frame — " That was Hansu. "So that's their little game!"
The alien took several more shots and then nodded to the Llor chieftain who signaled his men. They scattered away from the ship with a speed which suggested that they were only too glad to be done with the odd duty their leader had demanded of them. And what followed was almost as mystifying to the spying Swordsmen.
Two of the Mechs struck the bubble tent, and the material, along with various bundles, was carried off. Shortly thereafter a crawler appeared from behind an outcrop but it did not approach the ship, only halted until the remaining Mechs and the alien hurried over and climbed through its hatch. Then it made off up the canyon eastward. The Llor waited as if to give the off-world men a good start and then mounted. But they did not follow the grinding passage of the crawler — instead they rode off down a side way.
The ship stood as they had left it, the bodies still lying at the ramp. And Hansu hardly waited until the last Llor was out of sight before he clambered down the side of the cliff, Kana and the others hurrying to follow him.
But the Blademaster easily outdistanced them and when they caught up he had already knelt to examine the nearest body. His face was bleak.
"This man has been shot," he said slowly, "with an Arch rifle."
15. If But One Of Us Live
"But were they Patrolmen?" Larsen demanded.
It was hard to believe — in spite of the evidence and the identification taken from the bodies — that such a massacre had occurred. The prestige of the Patrol was too well established.
There was no possible doubt that the men had been shot, and that those shots had not come from the lighter air rifles of the Llor, the blasters of the Mechs or the flamers of the Galactic Agents, but from those specialized weapons carried, or supposedly carried, by the Swordsmen of Terra alone.
"If they weren't, they'll serve as well as the real thing in those pictures," Kosti returned bitterly. "If that Agent was taking shots of this it wasn't just for amusement. Can't you see the force of those pictures in certain quarters — scene of Patrolmen ambushed by rebel Archs — "
Larsen kicked at a stone. "I still don't get it," he admitted. "Why stage all this?"
"Alibi for going after us." Kana broke the silence for the first time. "Isn't that it, sir? With a good story and those pictures the Agent could have us outlawed and we couldn't get a hearing anywhere — not even at Prime."
He wanted Hansu to protest that, to say that he was allowing an over-vivid imagination free rein. But instead the Blademaster nodded.
"That makes more sense than about fifty other explanations." The tall dark man got to his feet, his eyes fixed speculatively on the starship. "Yes, they've set the stage here for something nasty. And it would probably have worked if we hadn't come in time — "