“I’ll have it.” Storm rode the stallion back to the corral to turn him in with the rest of the herd.
The trail herd was compactly organized by a man who knew his business. Storm had high standards, but he approved of what he saw some two hours later when he joined the party. Ransford and Lancin accompanied him from the veterans’ muster-out, willing to hire on as riders for the sheer pleasure of plunging at once into their normal routine of life. Joining with the Terran they bought a small two-wheeled cart for their kit, one that could be hooked on to the herd supply wagon. And when that was packed the meerkats climbed to the top for a ride, while Baku and Surra could be carried or range as they wished.
Storm accepted Lancin’s advice in shopping for his own trail equipment, following the veteran’s purchases at the space port stores. At the last he changed into the yoris-hide breeches, lined with frawn fabric, tough as metal on the outside and almost as durable as steel, worn with high boots of the same stuff in double thickness. A frawn shirt of undyed silver-blue took the place of his snug green tunic, and he left the lacings on the breast untied in imitation of his companions’ informal fashion, enjoying the freedom of the new soft wear.
Before he left the Centre he had obediently exchanged the deadly blaster of service issue for a permitted stun ray rod and the hunting knife of the frontiersman. And now as he settled the broad-brimmed hat of local vintage on his thick black hair and looked into the mirror of the dressing room, Storm was startled at the transformation clothes alone could make. He had further proof of that a short time later when he joined Larkin unrecognized.
Storm smiled. “I’m your breaker – remember?”
Larkin chuckled. “Boy, you look like you were born centre-square down in the Basin! This all your kit? No saddle?”
“No saddle.” The light pad he had contrived, the simple headstall, were his own devices. And no one who had watched his taming of the stallion questioned his choices when he again bestrode the red and grey horse for the ride out.
On Arzor, galactic civilization was an oasis built around the space port. As they left that cluster of structures behind and moved south into the haze of the late afternoon, Storm filled his lungs thankfully, his eyes on that range of mountains beyond. There was a flap of wings and Baku spiralled up into the mauve sky, tasting in her turn the freedom of the new world, while Surra lay at ease on the cart and yawned, lazing away the hours before the coming of night, her own special time for exploring.
The road swiftly became a track of earth-beaten hard stone, but Storm knew that Larkin intended to cut across the open lands, making use of the quickly growing wet-season grass for the herd. This was spring and the tough yellow-green vegetation was still tender and thick. In three months more or less the mountain-born rivers would dry up, the lush grass carpet would wither, and trail herds must cease to move until the coming of fall produced a second wet period to revive the land for another short space of a few weeks.
When they camped that night Larkin appointed guards, with a changing schedule, in four-hour shifts.
“Why guards?” Storm questioned Ransford.
“Might not be needed this close to where the law runs,” the veteran agreed. “But Put wants to get his schedule working before we do hit the wilds. This herd’s good stock, worth a lot in the Basin. Let the Butchers stampede us and they could gather up a lot of the loose runners. And, in spite of what Dort Lancin says, there’re a lot of Norbie clans who don’t care too much about working for their pay in horses. Outer fringe tribes raid to get fresh blood to build up their studs. Breeding stock such as this will bring them sniffing around in a hurry. Then there are yoris – horse is tasty meat as far as those brutes are concerned and a yoris kills more than just its dinner when it gets excited. Let that big lizard stink reach a horse and he high tails it as fast as he can pick up those hoofs and set ‘em down!”
Surra aroused from her nap, stretched cat fashion, and then came to Storm. He hunkered down to meet her eye to eye, in his mind outlining the dangers to be watched for. She was already familiar, he knew, with the scent of every man in the herding crew, and with every horse, either ridden or running free. Whatever or whoever did not belong about camp during the hours of the night would have Surra’s curiosity to reckon with. Ransford watched her pad away after her briefing.
“You put her on patrol too?”
“Yes. I don’t think any yoris can beat Surra. Saaaa –” He hissed the rallying call and Ho and King tumbled into the firelight, climbing over his legs to rear against his chest and pat him lovingly.
“What are they good for?” Ransford asked. They wear pretty big claws, but they’re small to be fighters –”
Storm fondled the grey heads with their bandit masks of black about the alert eyes. “These were our saboteurs,” he replied. “They dig with those claws and uncover things other people would like to keep buried. Brought a lot of interesting trophies back to base, too. They’re born thieves, drag all sorts of loot to their dens. You can imagine what they did to delicate enemy installations in the field –”
Ransford whistled. “So that’s what happened when the power for those posts on Saltair failed and our boys were able to cut their way in! Say – you ought to take them up to the Sealed Caves. Maybe they could get you in there and you’d be able to claim the government reward –”
“Sealed Caves?” At the Centre, Storm had learned what he could of Arzor, but this was something that had not appeared on the Emigrant Agency’s record tapes.
“They’re one of the tall tales of the mountains,” Ransford supplied. “You ought to hear Quade talk about them. He knows a lot about the Norbies, went through the drink-blood ceremony with one of their big chiefs. So they told him about the caves. Seems that either the Norbies were more civilized once – or else we weren’t the first off-worlders to find Arzor. The natives say there are cities, or what used to be cities, back in the mountains. And that the “old people” who built them went inside these caves and walled up the doors behind them. The big brains down at Galwadi got excited about it one year – sent in some expeditions. But the water is scarce up there, and then the war blew up and stopped all that sort of thing. But they posted a reward for the fella who finds them. Forty full squares of land and four years import privileges free.” Ransford wriggled down into his blankets and pillowed his head on his saddle. “Dream about it, kid, while you’re riding herd circle.”
Storm deposited the meerkats on his own blanket roll where they crept under cover. Baku, one leg drawn up into her under-feathers in the bird of prey’s favourite sleeping position, was perched on the rim of the baggage cart. And he knew that both the animals and the bird would remain quiet unless he summoned them to action.
The stallion that he had named Rain-On-Dust because of its markings was too untried for night herding. So the Terran pad-saddled a well-broken mount Larkin had assigned him as second string. He rode into the dark without any uneasiness. For the past years the night had provided him with a protective shield too many times for him to worry now.
Storm was close to the end of his tour of guard duty when he caught Surra’s silent alarm – that swift mind flicker, cutting as keenly as her claws. There was trouble shaping to the northeast. But what – or who –?
He turned his mount in that direction, to hear a squall of cat rage. Surra was giving tongue in open warning now, and Storm caught an answering shout from the camp. He snatched his night beam from the loops on his belt, flashed it on full strength ahead of him, and caught in its path a glimpse of a serpentine scaled head poised to strike. A yoris!