The inactivity caused by the storms began to bore the Combatants. At first they had been content to sleep much of the time, rebuilding the stores of energy worn out by the trek across the mountains. But now they roamed restlessly through the buildings, making reckless sorties from one to another during what they believed were lulls, or allowing their irritation to show in sudden snarling quarrels. But Hansu was prepared to meet this. There were drills in unarmed combat and scouting as well as follow-the-leader hunts in which a handful of veterans hid and the younger members of the teams traced them in silent pursuit.
Since the storm established a perpetual gray dusk one could no longer distinguish day from night. It might have been noon or well into evening when Kana climbed one of the perilously steep flights of narrow stairs to almost roof level of a warehouse. His eyes had long since adjusted to the pallid green light given off by the walls and he moved softly, intent upon reaching the small platform just under the curve of the domed roof. From there he would be able to see into the large storage space which occupied the center section of the building. He was a hound and Sim was hare today. It had become a matter of pride for the recruit to locate this one veteran, even if he must devote every moment until the sleep period to the problem.
As Kana climbed, the light faded. He put out a hand to touch the steps as a guide. But he was still at least three from the top when he stopped and shrank against the wall. He sensed that he was not alone.
From below he had estimated that the platform was about five feet square. There was a trap door above it which must give upon the roof—and in this wind nothing could perch outside for an instant. The roof!
Kana's shoulder rubbed the wall as he forced his memory to reconstruct the outline of this warehouse building as he had seen it from the headquarters two hours before. It was like all the rest, a rounded dome which offered small resistance to the wind. The roof—
He took the remaining steps cautiously. Then he stretched to his full height, raising his arms above his head until his fingers were on the surface above him. But what he expected he did not find.
Twice during these scout games he had climbed to these vantage points in warehouses and both times he had discovered that the roof vibrated faintly, a trembling born of the blasts beating across it. But here it was quiet, as if insulated against the outer world. And he still believed that he was not alone.
With his finger tips he explored the ceiling, locating the small trap door which should give on the roof. As his hands fingered its hinges he realized that here was a difference. There was no fastening on this side. The latch which kept the door from swinging down must be on the other side!
Kana slipped his torch from his belt and snapped it on at the lowest power, no longer caring if Sim sighted him. The platform was covered by that gritty dust which constantly sifted through the air during the storms. His boots had left plain tracks in it. But there were other marks too, though these were shapeless scuffs which could not have been left by a Terran unless he had purposely tried to conceal his spoor. And directly under the trap door were other marks he could not identify.
He beamed the torch up at the door. It was firmly set; he could hardly see the lines marking the square. The two hinges glistened. Kana investigated delicately. Grease—some sort of grease so recently applied that it was liquid instead of viscid and its strange odor was sharp as he brought his smeared finger to his nose. Someone was using this door. But to go outside—that was impossible!
Kana aimed the beam at the ceiling, beginning his examination farther out than the platform. After a careful study he was certain that there was a space overhead between the ceiling he saw and the outer dome of the building. The curve was curtailed, the angle between the side wall and the dome sharper than it should be. But what a perfect hiding place! No Terran would attempt to explore the roofs in the storm. He was prepared to take Knife-Oath that he had discovered the hiding place of the Venturi spy! Hansu need only station a guard here and—
A whisper of sound, so faint it barely reached his ears, made him snap off the torch and back against the wall to the left of the stairs. Some of the green radiance seeped up, but the light was so faint he could not really see. He must depend upon his ears—his nose.
For now he was aware of an odor. Below, where the bales of trade goods had once been stored, smells fought with one another and the general aroma was often sickening to a Terran. But this was different, faintly spicy and fresh—transporting him for an instant to the gambling establishment on Secundus. There was nothing unpleasant about it and it was growing stronger.
Next came a soft plop and Kana froze, hardly daring to breathe. Something, his ears told him, had fallen from the trap door to the platform. He swung his torch before him as if it were a flamer.
Other sounds reached him—movements he was not sure of.
He pressed the stud of the torch, setting the power at full. And it flashed on, pinning in its thick beam the creature who had just stepped from the last loop in a rope ladder to the floor. It made one grab for the rope and then froze, erect and quiet, accepting the fact that escape was now impossible.
The cushioned bed in the escape ship had been a clue right enough, but reality out-stripped imagination. If this were a Ventur—and Kana had no reason to doubt that—the second major race of Fronn had little or nothing in common with the Llor physically.
Its extreme slenderness gave it the appearance of greater height than it really possessed, for it was shorter than he. Its arms fitted to the barrel of the trunk without any width of shoulder and the pouchy neck was only a shade under the girth of the chest. The legs were long and as thin as a gu's ending in flat, webbed feet, and there were two sets of upper limbs, all equipped with six-fingered hands.
But the head was the least humanoid, four eyes set in pairs on either side, a wide mouth which now gaped in surprise, no visible chin—Kana started as with horror he realized where he had seen the like before—in miniature. This was a tif—a tif turned land dweller with only its size and greater brain case to distinguish it from the ferocious hunters of the river.
As Kana remembered the tif he knew the cold chill of fear—until he met those eyes blinking in the torture of his light The black beads of hate, promising all manner of evil to come, which had watched him from the stream were not here. These larger orbs were golden, intelligent, mildly peaceful. And the Arch guessed that the Ventur was as alarmed as he—tif the other might look, but tif in nature he was not.
None of those four hands had gone to the knife which was sheathed on the Ventur's hip. A shiver crossed the green-gray skin beneath the scanty tunic which covered it to mid-thigh. Abruptly Kana switched off the torch.
And then it was his turn to blink as a green beam, far under the power of his own, struck him, flitting from head to boots and back again.
"One only?" The question out of the dark did not sound as if it had come from between those wide loose lips, out of the wattled throat.
"Just one."
The light went to his hands and then to his sword-knife at his belt. It centered there for a moment as if the Ventur was studying the weapon—as if that undrawn blade answered some private question for the other.
"You will come?" The green light pinpointed the dangling ladder.
Kana did not hesitate. He thrust his own torch back in its loop and stepped forward.
He made the short climb up the rope and wedged his shoulders through the trap door. It was a tight fit. Above was a pocket-sized room. A spongy pad covered a third of the space and he sat down on one end of it as his host emerged from the floor and made some adjustment which brought more light from the walls. There was, in addition to the pad, a flat box and a neat pile of containers. By the end of the cushion was a small brazier emitting coils of spicy, scented smoke. The quarters might be cramped, but the hidy-hole was provided with Venturi comforts. And now the frog-man seated himself on the other end of the pad, pushing aside his folded robe.
"You have watched us?" Kana asked.
"I have watched you." The ungainly head, its four golden eyes fixed on the Terran, gave a twitch of agreement.
"For the Masters-of-Trade?"
"For the nation," the other corrected swiftly. "You are traders in death. Such bargains may be evil—"
"You are a speaker-for-many?"
"I train to be a speaker-for-many. I am but one of limited years and small wisdom. You are a lord over many swords?"
It was Kana's turn to deny honors. "I, too, am but a learner of this trade. This is my first battle journey."
"Tell me, why do you creep through these buildings spying upon one another?" the Ventur asked, a note of real puzzlement in his voice.
"We train ourselves—that we may come upon the enemy secretly. It is a practice of our art."
The four eyes continued to regard him unblinkingly. "And the Llor is now this enemy you would creep upon unseen. But why—did not the Llor summon you to Fronn in their service? Why should you now turn against them?"
"We were brought to serve the Chortha Skura. He made a bargain with our Masters-of-Trade. But he was killed in the first battle. According to custom we then ceased from battle and asked to be returned to our own place. But the Llor invited our Masters to hold a meeting over this matter, and when they were gathered together the Llor killed them treacherously. It was then that we discovered that they had with them certain outlaws of our own kind whose desire was to hunt us all down lest we return to our Masters-of-Trade and report the truth of what was done.
"Now our enemies hold Tharc where our spaceships land. We came to Po'ult hoping to find a trading spacer that would carry a messenger off-world for us—"
"But those which land here are not ships of war."
"It does not matter whether they are or not. They are not so small that they have not space for one or two men besides their crew. And once our Masters-of-Trade know what has happened they will send ships to take us off."
"Then you do not wish to stay on Fronn? With such arts of war as you know you might win the leadership of this world."
"We are of Terra. To us that is the world to call home. All we wish is to leave Fronn in peace."
The Ventur leaned forward to draw in deep breaths of the smoke arising from the brazier. Then, without a word, he opened a round box and brought out two small basins or handleless cups. They were fashioned in the form of spiraled shells of a delicate blue-green across which moved amethyst shadows. Into each of these he measured a minute portion of golden liquid poured from a small flagon as beautifully made as the cups. Then he held out one to Kana while he lifted the other, chanting some words in his own tongue.
Kana accepted the cup gingerly. He could not refuse to drink—it was offered with too much ceremony, though what effect the native liquor might have on a Terran stomach and head worried him, even as the stuff slid smoothly over his tongue and he swallowed. There was no sensation of heat such as Terran strong drink brought—only a coolness, a tingling which spread outward to the tips of his fingers and the surface of his skin. He set down the empty cup. Now what he sensed was mingled in some odd way with the scent from the brazier and the green radiance of the walls, as if taste, touch, smell and sight were suddenly one, all the keener and sharper for that uniting.
The Ventur shrugged his robe into place about his shoulders.
"We go now to your Master-of-Swords—"
Did he heard those words with his ears, mused Kana, or did they ring in his mind only? He stood up, this strange clarity of the senses persisting, and watched the frog-man drop the rope into the darkness below the trap door. On the platform the Ventur paused to adjust his hood, hiding his strange face.
"He's in the other building," Kana warned, remembering the storm.
"Yes—" The robed shadow glided noiselessly along, almost entirely invisible to anyone who did not know where he was. Kana knew that that must have protected him as he spied upon the Combatants.
They covered the few feet between the door of the warehouse and the recessed entrance of headquarters clinging to one another and both Kana's coat and the skirts of the other's robe were soaked with sea spray as they won to their goal.
Not only were his senses more acute, Kana decided, but his reactions were swifter. He was conscious of so much he had not noted before—that there were subtle differences in the shades of green light from room to room—that sounds hitherto drowned out by the muffled roar of the wind were perceptible.
"What's that—!" A Swordsman coming down the hall halted at the sight of the Ventur.
"Messenger to Hansu," Kana explained, hurrying his companion on to meet the Blademaster.
Hansu and two of the Swordtans glanced up frowning at the interruption. But they were alert at the sight of the trader.
"Where did you—?" the Blademaster began and then addressed the silent Ventur. "What is it that you wish?"
"It is rather what you wish, Master-of-Swords," the other returned. "You desire a meeting with our Masters-of-Trade. But I have not the right to answer in their name. This one of you"—the cowled head gave a half turn to indicate Kana— "has made clear to me why you are here and what you wish. Grant me"—he mentioned a space of Fronnian time— "and I shall have an answer for you."
Hansu did not hesitate. "Done! But how can you communicate with your people? In the storm—"
Kana received a vivid impression of the Ventur's amusement. "Do you then have no means among you of talking across distances, Terran? We have been rated a backward people by off-world races, but we have not displayed all our knowledge and resources before them. Come with me if you wish and see. There is no trickery in what I would do, only the use of things built by intelligent beings for their safety and comfort."
So it was that Kana and Hansu returned to that hidden room to watch the Ventur, his hampering robe discarded, open a thin box and display a silver mirror disc and a row of small levers. These he raised or lowered in a pattern, with infinite care, as if he worked out a complicated combination.
The mirror misted and at the coming of that film the Ventur moved quickly to snatch up a slender rod. With the pointed tip of that he traced a series of waving lines. They faded from the disc and there was a moment of waiting until the mist reappeared and a second collection of lines were inscribed. Four times that happened and then the trader put aside his pen.
"There is a matter of time now," he informed the Combatants. "We must wait until the Masters reply. I only report, it is for them to give orders."
Hansu grunted. There were cruel lines of weariness about the Blademaster's mouth, a cloud of fatigue in his eyes. Hansu was a man worn close to the edge of endurance. And what ate into him was not only the future of the Horde—but something even more important. He was fighting for more than their escape from Fronn—for a goal which might be of far greater importance than the lives of all the Archs on this world.
The Ventur inhaled the brazier smoke, but his golden eyes watched the Terrans.
"Master," he said to the Blademaster, "this much I can tell you—there has not been any off-world ship land here for ten tens of clors—"
Kana tried to translate the time measure. Close to four months' ship time! His mouth set hard.
"And that is not as it was in the past?"
"It is not," the Blademaster was answered. "We do not care for off-world trade, so its lack did not disturb us. But now—perhaps you can read another meaning into this. Also, what can you do if the trade ship comes not? Your enemies hold the port at Tharc."
"One thing at a time. Let me speak to your Masters and then we shall see—"
A tinkle of sound came from the box. The Ventur looked at the mirror. Although the Terrans could make nothing of what he saw there he spoke in a moment or two.
"The Masters summon you to Po'ult to speak with them in private council. And because you have met with treachery on Fronn, there shall be those of master rank who shall sit among your men as hostages while you are gone. To this do you agree?"
"I agree. But when do I go?"
"The first fury of the storm will ebb tonight. They will send a ship in, but you must be ready to return with it at once, for this lull will not last long."
"Am I to go alone?"
"Take one man if you wish. May I suggest this one." A claw finger pointed at Kana. "He speaks the trade tongue well."
Hansu did not object. "Let it be so."
The lull came as the Ventur had foretold. And the two Terrans went with the trader down the sea-slimed steps to the dock. Kana saw the vee of spray cutting down the bay, heralding the approach of a Venturi vessel. It arose from the water and came in to the pier with perfection of handling. Then a hatch in the conning tower opened and four robed figures disembarked. Three glided up to the Terrans, the other remained by the ship.
"This Master Roo'uf, Under-Master Rs'ad, and Under-Master Rr'ol—they shall stay with your men."
Hansu escorted the Venturi back to introduce them to his Swordtans. Then, with Kana at his heels, he climbed the ladder leading to the hatch. Within was a second ladder dropping into green dimness and the Combatants descended while strange odors and stranger noises closed about them as they went. The Venturi spy touched Kana's sleeve and drew him to the left.
"It is the thought of the master of this ship that you would be interested in watching from the lookout as we travel— This way."
They squeezed along a passage which was almost too narrow to accommodate Terrans and found themselves in a circular space where a wide seat pad ran three-quarters of the way around, broken only by the door through which they had entered. Directly facing them was a section of what appeared to be transparent glass. And beyond that they could see the clustered buildings of the Landing.
A Ventur without a robe was seated on the pad watching the scene intently. He gave them only a casual gesture of greeting before the dock began to recede and the whole shore line whipped to the right as the ship turned. The voyage to Po'ult had begun.