Andre Norton - Postmarked the Stars

“You—out there—” The refugees were the first to call this time.

Dane tried to make his body obey his will. If he could only call out! But when he tried it, the best he produced was a harsh croaking. One of the strangers, passing, looked down searchingly and then deliberately kicked at Dane’s outstretched legs, the jar of that blow running like flame up his body until he thought he was going to black out. When he recovered a little, he could see the strangers and the settlers again facing each other.

“We agree. You call off the things, and we’ll let you have the flitter—if it comes.”

“It’ll come,” the stranger returned. “We’re beaming a distress call north. You make no warn-off signal. We’re holding the beasts back. You do a warn-off, and we let them go. And they’ll get these first—” He gestured over his shoulder to the wreck and perhaps the other survivors Dane could not see. Was the brach among them?

Again he had half forgotten the alien. Since the strangers had not mentioned the creature from Xecho, it might be that the brach had been crushed somewhere in the flitter, a nasty end for the unusual comrade of this painful adventure. Dane’s hood was crumpled under his head, and when he inched around a little,

trying to see if he could reach the mike of the interpreter, a sharp point dug into his neck, so he flinched away. It felt as if the com had been crushed and was now reduced to broken metal bits. So much for that.

He could not summon the brach even if the alien was alive and had escaped injury.

But the Terran had other things to think of when the men came back from the stones and halted to stand over him. Both of them were of Terran or Terran colonial stock as far as he could judge. They wore thermo jackets not unlike his own, and their heads were hooded, though they had pushed the masking visors up and back. One of them squatted now on his heels, though he did not put out a hand to touch Dane.

“You heard that.” It was not a question but a statement. “All right, you don’t fire rockets now and throw this off course. If you do, we let our pets back there loose, and who do you think they’ll relish first?”

Dane did not reply, and the man seemed satisfied that he had thrown fear into a hopeless and helpless captive. He added, “We ought to take care of you anyway. You blasted traders got us into this mess. If it hadn’t been for you—”

“Come on.” His companion dropped a hand on his shoulder. “No use in planeting in on him with all that. Fact is—Grotler did it, not them. Grotler and what we could never have foreseen. He’s finished anyhow.”

They both vanished out of Dane’s range of sight, and he was left to stare at the wreck, the still robo, and the stones, with the words “finished anyhow” remaining in his mind. But something in him responded to that as if it were a lash laid unexpectedly on his back.

So they though that he was finished, that all that was left for him was to lie here, acting as bait in their trap and then falling to one of their monsters! If he could only see what lay behind him—What they had said earlier—that Meshler was all right, only they had put a tangler on his legs and shoved him under the wreck to play the roll of another victim—

There was no brach to free them this time. So, whatever could be done, Dane would have to do for himself. Once more, slowly, and with infinite care, he tried to move arms and legs. This time they responded better. It was almost as if that kick had removed some block. Also the pain in his head was now stabilized as an ache, fierce to be sure, but it no longer made the world whirl about him.

He tried to judge time by the look of the sky. The clouds of the morning had held. He had no idea how long before real dark. But surely the jacks would rig some kind of light to draw the help they thought would come. They would not waste their bait in darkness. How much light?

Dane listened as intently as he could. He could hear the clanking of the last two robo defenders of the stones and—just barely—a murmur of voices from some distance—not loud enough to distinguish any words.

Water—Spirit of Space—how he wanted water! It had been a nameless need at first, but now that he thought of it, his thirst was enough to swallow up his judgment if he allowed it to. Dane had always thought of himself as being tough—Free Traders were noted for their ability to take about the worst any planet could offer and, if not survive, manage to make a battle of it. There were techniques taught on Terra—survival methods that did not come out of kits, or supplies, but had to lie inside a man himself.

Dane had not been very good at them. He doubted whether he could be better now. But when there was only one road left, that was the way a man must go.

He went to work following the methods that had been so drilled into him, though his response then had often been the despair of the instructors. Mind over body—only he was no esper—

Thirst—he was thirsty. He felt as if he could lie in a pool of water and absorb it sponge fashion through every pore. Water! For a moment he allowed himself to think of water, of the dryness of his mouth, the ash-coated emptiness of his throat. Then he deliberately applied the right technique—or what his instructors half the galaxy away sitting comfortably before a class of aspiring spacemen declared was the right technique.

Water—he wanted it, so it followed that he must get it. To do that, he had to move. And to move, he must again be able to command his body. But he was hampered now by the fact that if he showed too much life, his captors might see to it that he was quiet again.

Dane’s arms lay by his sides, but his palms were against the ground. Stealthily, he exerted pressure. He lifted a little and discovered that more of his weakness had ebbed, and he could raise himself.

Could he counterfeit delirium? And dare the enemy treat him too roughly in sight of the stones? They had made a bargain, even if they did not expect to keep it. Suppose he tried to move and they attacked him. Those watching might believe they dared expect no better treatment. That kick had been delivered in passing and when to their sight he might have been unconscious. So—

Dane put pressure on one side. It also depended on where he was going to go. If he tried to roll toward the stones, they would stop him, but if he turned to the wreck? There was nothing left to do but try.

With what strength he could summon, he pushed, rolled on his side, and lay quiet, while once more pain and dizziness washed over him. But now he could see the wreck fully, and not far away lay another body sprawled out face down. It was the badly wounded man they had taken on board, and plainly he was dead. A little farther on was Meshler.

The ranger stared at Dane, and now he wriggled vainly. From the chest down, with both arms and legs out of sight, he lay under what had once been the hatch door, while leaning over him at a threatening angle was one of the hoist beams.

“This one’s moving!” Dane could not see the speaker, but the man must be close behind him.

“Water—” Dane thought it time to play his role. “Water—”

His voice was still harsh, hardly above a whisper, but he managed to articulate better this time.

“Wants a drink, he does.”

“Well, give him one. Don’t let them see us off beam now, or they might get ideas—”

Dane felt warm. He had been right in assessing the position. Then a grab at his shoulder brought him on his back, and he had time only to see the nozzle end of a space cup coming abruptly down to spray its blessed moisture into his mouth. The first spray was so delivered that he choked, and some of it spilled out of his mouth to run across his chin, into the folds of his hood. Then the nozzle was between his teeth, and he sucked avidly.