Andre Norton - Postmarked the Stars

“They can’t use a control beam if they are readying for a takeoff,” Rip observed thoughtfully. “That would interfere with a blast, set them off course from the first fire-down—”

“Even if they don’t use that, I can name about five other defenses,” Dane returned bleakly. He leaned his aching head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“Have a suck.” Something was thrust into his hand, and he glanced down to see he was holding a tube of E-ration; the heat cap had been twisted off so that a small thread of steam arose. For the first time Dane realized he was very hungry. He raised it to his mouth, his hand shaking a little, and squeezed the paste, warm enough to spread a welcome heat as it passed downward, into his mouth. It was a very long time, he thought, since that meal at Cartl’s holding, even longer since he had eaten regular food at established intervals.

But the E-ration, though it gave a man nothing to chew on and lacked much flavor, did banish hunger. And this time he was not limited to a quarter of a tube. He had a whole one to himself, while those about him were eating, too.

“The brachs?” For once memory worked as he swallowed the first mouthful.

“Have theirs.” Rip nodded toward the rear of the cabin. The light was limited, but Dane could see an E- tube protruding from each horned snout.

“What about them?” he asked a little later as he squeezed the last drop from the tube and rolled it into a tight ball.

“The kits are at the lab, being given Veep Treatment,” Rip answered. “But the female insisted upon coming with us. There has been a lot of excitement over them. If the brachs are degenerate intelligent life, then Xecho is going to have a problem. And it would seem that is true. It will probably be obligatory to do what can be done to return them to their proper intelligence—upsets a lot of history and will be quite a headache to all concerned.”

“Are they esper at all?” Dane wondered.

“We don’t know just what they are—yet. The lab has dropped all other experiments and is concentrating on them. It may be, since the principle of the retrogress machine is linked with the esper-inducing ore, that anything with a slight degree of such power has that power heightened. That’s another headache—”

“Ha—” That was the Patrol officer. He held out his wrist, and on it was a detect, not unlike the one Tau had carried, except more compact and much smaller. “Radiation of the right type, two degrees west—”

“Right!” Jellico made the correction in their course. “How far?”

“Less than two units. It is leaking through a shield.”

Dane saw the captain’s head give a little jerk. A moment later Jellico reported, “The brachs say there’s a ground transport of some kind, two of them, moving under us.”

“Could it be they are still pulling in men?” suggested Finnerstan.

“Pulling in men,” Dane thought, and yet just this flitter load proposed to go up against what might be a thoroughly warned, armed, and well-defended base. Yet, looking about him from face to face, he saw no concern. They might have been making a routine flight. Though he was no longer hungry, the pain in his head remained a steady throb, and he felt very tired. How long had it been since he had had normal sleep? He tried to recall events for the past days, days that now seemed to stretch to months. Jellico was not noted for taking reckless risks unless the situation was such he had no other choice. No Free Trader did and kept a ship for long. But apparently the captain was determined on this attack.

“Only one unit ahead now.” Finnerstan did not look up from the detect.

“Radar nil on anything airborne,” Jellico replied. “Mixed report from the ground, a lot of interference.”

Dane turned his head and tried to stretch to the point where he could look down from the cabin window. But it was physically impossible to see the ground from where he sat, even if it had been day instead of the dark of very early morning.

“No contact beam.” Jellico might be reporting to them or only thinking aloud.

“I’m getting something new—maybe your distort.” Finnerstan glanced back at Dane.

“All right, Thorson, what’s down there?” Jellico demanded, and Dane pulled his thoughts together. This was the time when he must justify his inclusion in his company.

“Spacer landing to the south.” He closed his eyes, picturing in his mind what he had seen during their quick sortie into the basin. “Then there are three bubble huts in a cluster about seven field lengths north— beyond those two long structures half buried in the earth, earth walls, turfed roofs—vehicle park by the bubbles. That’s it.” “They will be expecting their men back in a captured flitter perhaps,” Jellico said. “And that would come in without hesitation. So, we try to do it that way.”

And maybe meet blaster fire dead center if there was some recognition code, Dane knew. He wished vainly that he had some kind of protective shell into which he could withdraw during the next few minutes. But the Patrol officer made no objection to Jellico’s wild plan.

“Look there!” Finnerstan was against the cabin window on his side, staring down. But for the men behind him there was no chance to see what had caught his attention.

“Down.” Jellico’s hands were busy on the controls. “That must be the distort. Now, I’m going in on hover—”

Dane saw movement about him. The Patrolman by the exit hatch had his hands ready on the lock there.

And the flitter began its descent, straight down, using the slow speed of the hover.

There was an odd light outside the windows, light that brightened suddenly, as if it had been turned from low to high. Perhaps it had been the passing of a blanketing of diffuse lamps by the distort. But now they were apparently descending into a camp brightly aglow to aid activity.

“Now!” Finnerstan rather than the captain gave that order, only a second before the bump told them they touched earth.

The Patrolman wrenched open the hatch, made the practiced roll out and down, his neighbor following him in trained proficiency. The spaceport policeman and rangers followed with less agility.

Finnerstan himself had already disappeared through the front door. And now, before Rip and Dane pulled themselves out, the brachs flowed away with a speed surprising in their stocky bodies.

Rip jumped. Dane was the last to disembark, his reflexes slowed, but he held a stunner in one hand. Jellico had vanished and was probably on the other side of the flitter.

As his boots met the ground, the thump of contact transmitted to his aching head, Dane looked about. It was light, but by some lucky chance they had landed some distance from the scene of the activity. The spacer still stood, its nose pointed to the stars. Both its cargo hatches were wide open, and cranes were at work loading. There was a line of robo carriers speeding from the two earth-walled buildings, each bearing boxes and canisters, but their burdens were small. They were taking only lighter, easily stowed things,

Dane judged with the eye of one only too used to handling shipments. The rest they would probably destroy.

There was one crawler pulled up with two cages on board, covered. But that stood by, and no one was there. The ramp leading to the crew and passenger quarters was still on the ground and—

Dane was startled. That ramp was under guard. Two men in crew uniforms stood at its top, just within the open hatch. They were both armed with blasters, and they were looking steadily down the ramp. Now that he studied the scene, he could see in addition a similar guard on duty by the two cargo-hold openings, both eyeing the load the robos stacked to be taken on board.