Andre Norton - Time Traders

“If he, she or it does, he’ll get a pawful of spear points,” Ashe replied. “One advantage of this hole, nothing can get in if we’re firm in saying No!”

There was a second roar, from farther away, Travis noted with relief. Whatever meat hunter on the hoof prowled the hills, it would not have followed their trail. The rain must have cleansed their scent from grass and earth. Huddling there, stiff and cold, they managed now and then to change position of arms or legs so that morning would not find them too cramped to move. They remained until the sky did lighten with the first sign of dawn.

Travis crawled out and straightened up painfully. He bit back a stinging word or two, as a below zero morning breeze cut in under the flap of his cloak blanket. He decided that to properly prepare for roaming the Pleistocene world in the garb of its rightful inhabitants, one should practice beforehand by spending a month or so in a deep freeze stripped to one’s shorts. And he was pleased to see that neither Ashe nor Ross was any more agile when he emerged from the hole of refuge.

They mouthed food-concentrate bars from their storage bags. Travis, though knowing the energy-building uses of those small squares, longed for real meat, hot and juicy, straight from the fire. There was no taste to these concentrate things.

“Up we go.” Ashe wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slung his bag over his shoulder. He studied the way before them to find the best ascent. But Travis had already started, winding in and out between boulders which marked the debris of a landslide.

When the scouts at last reached the summit, they turned back to look into the valley of the lake. That smooth sheet of water occupied perhaps half of the basin. And it seemed to Travis that the mirror surface reached closer to the wrecked ship today than it had when they passed it the afternoon before. He said as much, and Ashe agreed.

“Water has to go somewhere and these rains feed all the streams heading down there. Another reason why we must make this a fast job. So—let’s get moving.”

But when they turned again to follow the line of the heights, Travis halted. Thin, watery sunlight broke through the clouds, carrying with it little or no warmth as yet, but providing more light. And—he peered intently westward and downslope on the other side of the hills . . . No, he had not been mistaken! That sunlight, feeble as it was, was reflecting from some point in the second valley. From water? No, the answering spark was too brilliant.

Ashe and Ross, following his direction, saw it too.

“Second ship?” Ross suggested.

“If so, it is not marked on our charts. But we’ll take a look. I agree that’s too bright to be sun on water.”

Had there been survivors from the other crash? Travis wondered. If so, had they established a camp down there? He had heard enough during the past few days to judge that any contact with the original owners of the galactic ships could be highly dangerous. Ross had been pursued by one of their patrols across miles of wilderness. He had escaped from the mind compulsion they exerted only by deliberately burning his hand in a fire and using pain to counter their mental demand for surrender. They were not human, those ship people. What powers or weapons they possessed were so alien as to defy human understanding so far.

So the three took to cover, making expert use of every bit of brush, every boulder, as they advanced to locate that source of reflection. Again Travis was amazed by the skill of his companions. He had hunted mountain lion, and lion in the beast’s native ground is very wary game. He could read trail with all the skill imparted to him by Chato who knew the ways of the old raiding warriors. But these two were equal to him at what he always considered a red man’s rather than a white man’s game.

They came at last to lie in a fringe of trees, parting the grass cautiously to look out on an expanse of open land. In the middle of it rested another globe-shaped ship. But this one was entirely above ground and it was small, a pygmy compared to the giant in the other valley. At first superficial examination it looked to have been landed normally, not crashed. Halfway up, the curve facing them showed the dark hole of an open entrance port, and from it dangled a ladder. Someone had survived this landing, come to earth here!

“Lifeboat?” Ashe’s voice was the slightest of whispers.

“It is not shaped like the one I saw before,” Ross hissed. “That was like a rocket.”

Wind sang across the clearing. It set the ladder clanging against the side of the globe. From the foot of the strange ship some birds tried to rise. But they moved sluggishly, awkwardly flopping their wings. And the wind brought to the three in hiding a sweetish, stomach-turning odor that could never be mistaken by those who had ever smelled it. Something lay dead there, very dead.

Ashe stood up, watching those birds narrowly. Then he stepped forward. A snarl rose from ground level. Travis’ spear came up. It sang through the air and a brown-coated, four-footed beast yelped, leaped pawing in the air, and crashed back into the grass. More of the gorged carrion birds fluttered and hopped away from their feast.

What lay about the foot of the ladder was not a pretty sight. Nor could the scouts tell at first glance how many bodies there had been. Ashe attempted to make a closer examination and came away, white-faced and gagging. Ross picked up a tatter of blue-green material.

“Baldies’ uniforms, all right.” He identified it. “This is one thing I’ll never forget. What happened here? A fight?”

“What ever it was, it happened some time ago,” Ashe, livid under tan and skin stain, got out the words carefully. “Since there was no burial, I’d say the crew must all have been finished.”

“Do we go in?” Travis laid a hand on the ladder.

“Yes. But don’t touch anything. Especially any of the instruments or installations.”

Ross laughed on a slightly hysterical high note. “That you do not need to underline for me, chief. After you, sir, after you.”

Thus, Ashe leading the way, they climbed the ladder and entered the gaping hole of the port. There was a second door a short distance inside, doubly thick and reinforced with heavy braces. But it, too, was ajar. Ashe pushed it back and then they were in a well from which another ladder-like stair arose.

Somehow Travis had expected darkness, since there were no windows or wall openings in the outer skin of the globe. But a blue light seeped from the walls about them, and not only light, but a comforting warmth.

“The ship’s still alive,” Ross commented. “And if she is intact—”

“Then,” Ashe finished softly for him, “we’ve made the big find, boys. We never hoped for luck like this.” He started to climb the inner ladder.

They came to a landing, or rather a platform from which opened three oval doors, all closed. Ross pushed against each, but they all held.

“Locked?” Travis asked.

“Might be—or else we don’t know how to turn the right buttons. Going on up, chief? If this follows the pattern of that other one, the control cabin is on top.”

“We’ll take a look. But no experiments, remember?”

Ross stroked his scarred hand. “I’m not forgetting that.”

A second ladder section brought them through a manhole in the floor of a hemisphere chamber occupying the whole top of the ship. And, before they were through that entrance, they knew that death had come that way before them.

There was only one body, crumpled forward against the straps of a seat which hung on springs and cords from the roof. The rigid corpse, clad in the blue-green material, had slumped toward a board crowded with dials, buttons, levers.