Old Sun was newly risen, but already it was hot. Lying in the fringe of the jungle, Stark could feel the runnels of sweat trickling on his naked back.
He was looking out from under a noisy canopy of trees where innumerable nameless creatures shouted and quarreled, going about the business of a new day.
He was looking at the starship.
Pedrallon had led them well since he woke from the drugged apathy of despair. The faint hope that he might yet defeat the Lords Protector and set his world free had been enough to kindle something of the old fire in him again. The sheer, vicious desire to strike a punishing blow against Penkawr-Che had done the rest.
By his direction, the Fallarin had given them a hurrying wind south, to a tiny inlet, where the boat was worked in under oars and concealed from passing ships and over-flying hoppers. The Fallarin remained, with the Tarf, to guard her and to gather strength. Pedrallon's enemies were not likely to accept his disappearance with equanimity, and once the pursuit was under way the fugitives would have to move fast to keep ahead of it.
In the breathless heat of noon, Pedrallon had brought the rest of the troop to a village. He had hunted these jungles many times, he said, and the man who had served him as guide and tracker knew every trail in this part of Andapell. He could take them directly to the ship.
"But will he serve you now?" asked Halk.
Stark glanced at the hounds, but Pedrallon shook his head. "You will not need them."
And they did not. Pedrallon entered the village and came back with a small, wiry man named Larg, who said that Pedrallon was his lord and his friend and that whatever Pedrallon wanted, he would do.
So they followed Larg, all that day and through the night, toward the place where Pedrallon had told him to go. They halted only to rest briefly and eat the hard rations they had brought with them. And all the way Stark was haunted by the fear that they were too late, that the ship had already gone to rendezvous with Penkawr-Che on the heath and that they were straining their hearts out for nothing.
It was not necessary to say this to Ashton. His anxious face mirrored the same fear.
They came at last, in the moonless morning time before Old Sun was up, to the edge of the jungle, and they saw the great towering shape gleaming faintly in the starshine and knew they were not too late.
The ship sat on a triangular plain of gravel laid down by the flooding of two small rivers, or by two branches of the same river, that came down over a rock wall in two separate waterfalls a quarter-mile apart to join again some distance below. This was not the flood season and the water was no more than ankle deep. It made a pleasant chuckling sound going over its stony bed. But Stark was not pleased by it. He saw the stream as an obstacle; not a large one, to be sure, but one he could have done without.
The ship was small by interstellar standards. Like Arkeshti, she was designed for use on the out-worlds, where port facilities were primitive or nonexistent. Small as she was, she bulked impressively on the plain, propped level on massive landing legs, her outer skin scored and pitted by alien atmospheres and the dust that drifts between the stars.
When Old Sun came up, Stark was able to see more detail than he had at first, and none of it was reassuring. Three hoppers squatted in a line close to the ship.
They were inside a perimeter guarded by three laser cannon on portable mounts. The cannon had their own power cells, and they were emplaced to cover all approaches to the open hatch of the ship. The two-man crews walked about or lounged between the canvas awnings that sheltered each emplacement.
"They run a tight ship," said Ashton, lying at Stark's left. "Without the hounds, I shouldn't care to face those cannon."
"My brother has not cared to, either," Pedrallon said. He was at Stark's right. "The Wandsmen impressed upon him the futility of an attack and he was only too eager to agree. The Wandsmen are pleased with the depredations because of the hatred they rouse against foreigners. They do not wish to have them stopped." He stared hungrily at the ship. "We must take her, Stark. If possible, we must destroy her."
Six men emerged from the ship. They spoke to the six men of the gun crews, who went up the ramp and inside—to get their breakfasts, Stark supposed, and then some sleep. The six newcomers took their places by the cannon.
Halk came up, from the place some distance away where the troop was resting, under orders to make no sound. He crouched down, glowering at the hoppers.
"Will they never take those damned things off?" he said.
"It's early yet."
"They must be near the end of their looting," Pedrallon said. "My brother has kept me supplied with each day's report of temples robbed and villages plundered. Even allowing for lies, Andapell must be nearly stripped, as well as the principalities that neighbor us."
"Let's hope the hoppers have one more day's work," Stark said. "If they open that cargo hatch to load the hoppers in, we'll have to hit them with all hands present, something I don't want to do."
"Surely," said Halk, "your Northhounds can carry all before them."
"The Northhounds are not immortal, and those are powerful weapons. A tramp like this one draws hands from all over the galaxy, and some of them may be like the Tarf, immune to the hounds. If there are too many immunes, or if there's just one and he happens to be in charge of a cannon, we won't have such an easy time of it."
"Look," said Pedrallon.
More men were coming out of the ship. They walked toward the hoppers and began to check them out.
Ashton gave a sigh of relief. "They're leaving, then."
The men completed their ground inspection. Four climbed into each of the hoppers. The rest sauntered back toward the ship. Motors woke to life. One by one the hoppers lifted, droning into the sky.
"Good," said Stark. "Now we wait a while."
"Wait?" said Halk. "What for?"
"For the hoppers to get so far away that they can't come whipping back in five minutes when somebody yells to them on the radio."
"Radio!" Halk growled. "These off-world toys are a pest."
"No doubt," said Stark, "but think how many times, on our journey north and back again, you would have given all you possessed to know what was going on at Irnan."
Stark settled himself for the wait, drowsing like a cat in the growing heat.
Pedrallon and Simon Ashton discussed between them what radio message would be sent to Galactic Center if they did actually gain their objective. The discussion was not entirely amicable.
Finally Ashton got the official steel in his voice and eye, and said, "The message must be brief and readily understood. I can't give the history of Skaith in ten words. There is no guarantee that any message is going to be received at Pax in time to do any of us any good; but I can tell you that if they receive a request for an armada to interfere in a civil war on a non-member planet, they'll pretend they never heard it. I will identify myself and ask for a rescue ship. I will also state that Penkawr-Che and two other captains are up to no good here—and they can do what they want to about that. For us, one ship is enough and all we can hope for. You'll still have to go to Pax to plead your case."
Pedrallon gave in, without enthusiasm. "Where will you rendezvous? If the ship comes at all."
Ashton scowled. That point had been a major problem between himself and Stark. The fact was that they could not guarantee to be in any particular place for any length of time. They could not even guarantee to be alive.
Ashton answered, "There must be a portable transceiver aboard the ship."
"And if there isn't?"
"We'll make an alternative arrangement." And hope, Ashton thought, remembering the inhospitable vastness of the planet.
Old Sun rose higher. The heat became a physical thing, a weight that dragged down drooping branches and pressed on the bodies of men so that breathing became a conscious labor and hardly worth the effort. The gravel plain shimmered. The starship seemed to float above it The gun crew dozed under their awnings.
All but one man.
He was short and round and his skin was grayish-green like the skin of a lizard. His head was naked and quite broad, with a ridiculously small face set in the middle of it. His birthworld circled a lusty young primary, so he was used to heat. He had not even bothered to open the collar of his tunic. He walked toward the stream, thinking of home and friends and calculating how much his share of the loot would come to.
The jungle stood like a green wall across the stream. It was very still. All the morning noises had died under the weight of approaching noon. The lizard man picked up a flat pebble and sent it skipping across the shallow water.
Inside the hatch, in the ship, it was cooler. Ventilators sucked and roared. The two men sitting in the open airlock were enjoying the breeze. They were relaxed and somnolent, eyes half closed against the swimming glare outside. They heard nothing but the ventilators; they did not expect to hear anything. They had heard nothing on any of the other days when they had been on guard here in this remote place. In any case, they were not worried. The people of Skaith had nothing with which to fight them.
Each of the two men had beside him a heavy automatic weapon. The hatch control was on the wall beside the opening. Their duty was to defend the hatch, activating the control if that should become necessary. They did not expect it to become necessary, and in fact they considered the duty superfluous, though they did not say so. At least it was comfortable. They could see the emplacements outside, baking in the sun, and were glad they were not in them.
They could see, also, that one of the men had gone down to the stream to skip stones. They thought he was crazy. But they did not understand it when he began suddenly to scream.
They saw him fall down, writhing in the water. Great white animals burst from the edge of the jungle and hurtled across the stream, jetting bright drops from under their paws.
Men came after them, running.