Andre Norton - Postmarked the Stars

“Captain Jellico!” Dane recognized the first. The second wore the uniform of the Patrol, but it was modified on the collar by the winged, star-studded staff of the medic service, and the stranger carried an aid kit in one hand.

“What have you been doing to and for yourself, Thorson?” The captain went down on one knee and drew Dane up a little.

“Watch out, sir!” Dane caught at Jellico’s sleeve and tried to pull him farther down. “They’ve blasters.”

“And they’ve plenty of use for them elsewhere,” the captain returned. “Let’s have a look at you—”

In spite of Dane’s protests, he found himself lying under the competent hands of the medic, who reported a little later, as he gave Dane a restorative shot, “Skull intact, but you took a bad knock. And this”—he threw away a handful of metal scraps—“gave you some cuts. Now, sniff this.”

He broke an ampul under Dane’s nose. A sharp scent stung the Terran’s nostrils, clearing his head, and the pain became only a faraway suggestion of ache. He lay resting, the medic having gone to the stones and whomever there might need him. But though the captain vanished during the time his hurts were being assessed, Rip was still near.

“Where did the captain come from?”

“Long story,” Shannon answered. ‘Too long to tell now. But Cartl got his message through. And we were already on the move south. We heard enough of the second call from here to know it was probably a trap. So the Old Man was prepared.”

“Cartl said the news came through that the crew was in prison, charged with sabotage.”

“It began that way, until there were too many things to add up for even the thick-headed port police. Then they began to listen to us, a lot of questions were asked, and there were several answers to each one. The Patrol took a couple of local councilors into custody and had them probed. That was a serious step to take—might have lost the officers in charge their jackets and space rights if their suspicions hadn’t been verified.

“But it isn’t only a cleanup here—the thing’s bigger than just Trewsworld. And if the Patrol hadn’t been already nosing around, perhaps we wouldn’t have had our hearing so promptly. It all goes back to the Trosti foundations—”

“Thorson”—he was interrupted by Jellico as the captain came into the light—“how many men did you see here?”

“Six, seven, most of Terran or settler stock, I think. But their leader was an alien. They needed a flitter badly—had to get back to their camp. They were planning a withdrawal off-world—”

But the captain no longer seemed to be listening to him. Jellico gave a pull of his thermo hood, drawing it forward a little, and Dane caught sight of a com set in its side, much like the arrangement he himself had used to talk to the brach.

The brach! Why was it he kept forgetting the alien who had twice saved their lives—three times if you could count the breaking of the force field? It was almost as if something deliberately willed memory to sink to the back of his mind.

Now from behind the wreck trotted the creature from Xecho, walking on three legs. The fourth was folded up against his belly holding the second stunner. From the flitter dropped another brach, running with speed to meet her mate. They touched noses and then swung about, shoulder to shoulder, to face the Terrans.

Captain Jellico swung up his wrist, peeling back his glove to lay bare another mike, resembling the personna coms used by explorers.

“Finnerstan, some kind of a small airborne craft just took off—heading south. The brachs report it has one of the jacks on board. My guess, judging by what they are able to scan, is that it is the jack leader. And he must be heading for their command post. Intercept—”

There was no reply except a confirm click from the wrist mike. Dane sat up and waited apprehensively for his head to punish him. But, thanks to the medic, he was able to move, if weak. Rip got to his feet and reached down a long arm. And, pulling on it for support, Dane made it, too.

“Heading for the basin—”

“Basin? What basin?” Jellico demanded.

Dane muddled through the story of the force field prison, of the jack headquarters beyond. Jellico pushed his hood a little back and pulled at his lower lip. His expression—which was not really an expression but a stillness of feature—was one Dane knew of old to be the prelude to action.

“They had a flitter before,” he said, “that was brought down by the settlers. That was what they set this trap for, to get another flitter. They had to get back—they have a spacer there, and they wanted to take off.”

Captain Jellico came to sudden life. “Finnerstan, they have a ship waiting for planet lift—at a base to the south. Have you anything to patrol that way?”

The reply came as a squeak. Jellico frowned, holding the com close to his ear.

“The sonic,” Rip half whispered to Dane. “It interferes. And I don’t think they will be able to broadcast back to the port with that on. If they shut it off—”

“Exactly!” But whether Jellico meant that in answer to Shannon or to what the squeak conveyed, Dane was not sure.

“Meshler should know the location of the basin,” Dane offered. But looking around, he could not see the ranger.

“We have detects. They just won’t work around the sonics. Come on!”

Dane and Rip, the two brachs trotting ahead, as if they had had some forewarning, fell in behind Jellico moving to the flitter. But with his hand already on the hatch, the captain turned to look at Dane.

“You’re on sick call, Thorson.”

Dane shook his head and then wished that he hadn’t, as a warning thrust of pain suggested such gestures were not for him at present.

“I’ve been there—” It was a thin plea; Meshler would be the better guide. But somehow he wanted to see this through to the end. And when three men in Patrol uniforms and one of the spaceport policemen came running, he was vindicated, for when the ranger was asked for, the report was that he had gone back to the park to see if any vehicles could be brought to transport the wounded.

In the end they were a mixed expedition. The two brachs had squeezed far to the back of the flitter, crouched down side by side, as if fully determined to stay where they were, daring anyone to pull them out. For the rest there were three Patrolmen, their leader, Finnerstan, who came up just before they slammed the hatch, the spaceport policeman, two rangers, plus Jellico, Rip, and Dane.

It was rather a tight fit, and the captain himself had the pilot’s seat, Finnerstan beside him, the rest of them packed in the back. This was no cargo flitter, rather a troop carrier from the port, so that they at least had seats—hard though those were—and did not have to squat.

Dane was behind Jellico, and as the captain lifted the flitter into the air, he asked without turning his head, “Which direction?”

“South and west—the best I can do, sir.”

Finnerstan turned a little around to give him a measuring stare. “There is nothing there. We combed that district for months—”

“They are in a basin,” Dane returned, “and have rigged a distort over it. From above you can’t see anything—”

“A distort!” Finnerstan sounded incredulous. “But on such a scale as that—it is impossible!”

“From what I have heard and seen”—Captain Jellico’s tone was cold—“these Trosti people have proved a lot of impossible things possible. I imagine once they are all run to earth, there are going to be a lot of preconceived scientific ideas turned inside out, back to fore. A distort, eh? How did you find it then?”

“We followed a crawler track.”