Storm Over Warlock

A >> Andre Norton >> Storm Over Warlock

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Shann stopped brushing the sand from the tough fabric above his knee.
Ragnar Thorvald ... He remembered back to the port landing apron on
another world, remembered with a sense of loss he could not define. That
had been about the second biggest day of his short life; the biggest had
come earlier when they had actually allowed him to sign on for Survey
duty.

He had tumbled off the cross-continent cargo carrier, his kit--a very
meager kit--slung over his thin shoulder, a hot eagerness expanding
inside him until he thought that he could not continue to throttle down
that wild happiness. There was a waiting starship. And he--Shann Lantee
from the Dumps of Tyr, without any influence or schooling--was going to
blast off in her, wearing the brown-green uniform of Survey!

Then he had hesitated uncertainly, had not quite dared cross the few
feet of apron lying between him and that compact group wearing the same
uniform--with a slight difference, that of service bars and completion
badges and rank insignia--with the unconscious self-assurance of men who
had done this many times before.

But after a moment that whole group had become in his own shy appraisal
just a background for one man. Shann had never before known in his
pinched and limited childhood, his lost boyhood, anyone who aroused in
him hero worship. And he could not have put a name to the new emotion
that added so suddenly to his burning desire to make good, not only to
hold the small niche in Survey which he had already so painfully
achieved, but to climb, until he could stand so in such a group talking
easily to that tall man, his uncovered head bronze-yellow in the
sunlight, his cool gray eyes pale in his brown face.

Not that any of those wild dreams born in that minute or two had been
realized in the ensuing months. Probably those dreams had always been as
wild as the ones reported by the first scout on Warlock. Shann grinned
wryly now at the short period of childish hope and half-confidence that
he could do big things. Only one Thorvald had ever noticed Shann's
existence in the Survey camp, and that had been Garth.

Garth Thorvald, a far less impressive--one could say "smudged"--copy of
his brother. Swaggering with an arrogance Ragnar never showed, Garth was
a cadet on his first mission, intent upon making Shann realize the
unbridgeable gulf between a labor hand and an officer-to-be. He had
appeared to know right from their first meeting just how to make Shann's
life a misery.

Now, in this slit of valley well away from the domes, Shann's fists
balled. He pounded them against the earth in a way he had so often hoped
to plant them on Garth's smoothly handsome face, his well-muscled body.
One didn't survive the Dumps of Tyr without learning how to use fists,
and boots, and a list of tricks they didn't teach in any academy. He had
always been sure that he could take Garth if they mixed it up. But if he
had loosed the tight rein he had kept on his temper and offered that
challenge, he would have lost his chance with Survey. Garth had proved
himself able to talk his way out of any scrape, even minor derelictions
of duty, and he far out-ranked Shann. The laborer from Tyr had had to
swallow all that the other could dish out and hope that on his next
assignment he would not be a member of young Thorvald's team. Though,
because of Garth Thorvald, Shann's toll of black record marks had
mounted dangerously high and each day the chance for any more duty tours
had grown dimmer.

Shann laughed, and the sound was ugly. That was one thing he didn't have
to worry about any longer. There would be no other assignments for him,
the Throgs had seen to that. And Garth ... well, there would never be a
showdown between them now. He stood up. The Throg ship had disappeared;
they could push on.

He found a break in the cliff wall which was climbable, and he coaxed
the wolverines after him. When they stood on the heights from which the
falls tumbled, Taggi and Togi rubbed against him, cried for his
attention. They, too, appeared to need the reassurance they got from
contact with him, for they were also fugitives on this alien world, the
only representatives of their kind.

Since he did not have any definite goal in view, Shann continued to be
guided by the stream, following its wanderings across a plateau. The sun
was warm, so he carried his jacket slung across one shoulder. Taggi and
Togi ranged ahead, twice catching skitterers, which they devoured
voraciously. A shadow on a sun-baked rock sent the Terran skidding for
cover until he saw that it was cast by one of the questing falcons from
the upper peaks. But that shook his confidence, so he again sought
cover, ashamed at his own carelessness.

In the late afternoon he reached the far end of the plateau, faced a
climb to peaks which still bore cones of snow, now tinted a soft peach
by the sun. Shann studied that possible path and distrusted his own
powers to take it without proper equipment or supplies. He must turn
either north or south, though he would then have to abandon a sure water
supply in the stream. Tonight he would camp where he was. He had not
realized how tired he was until he found a likely half-cave in the
mountain wall and crawled in. There was too much danger in fire here; he
would have to do without that first comfort of his kind.

Luckily, the wolverines squeezed in beside him to fill the hole. With
their warm furred bodies sandwiching him, Shann dozed, awoke, and dozed
again, listening to night sounds--the screams, cries, hunting calls, of
the Warlock wilds. Now and again one of the wolverines whined and moved
uneasily.

Fingers of sun picked at Shann through a shaft among the rocks, striking
his eyes. He moved, blinked blearily awake, unable for the first few
seconds to understand why the smooth plasta wall of his bunk had become
rough red stone. Then he remembered. He was alone and he threw himself
frantically out of the cave, afraid the wolverines had wandered off.
Only both animals were busy clawing under a boulder with a steady
persistence which argued there was a purpose behind that effort.

A sharp sting on the back of one hand made that purpose only too clear
to Shann, and he retreated hurriedly from the vicinity of the
excavation. They had found an earth-wasp's burrow and were hunting
grubs, naturally arousing the rightful inhabitants to bitter resentment.

Shann faced the problem of his own breakfast. He had had the immunity
shots given to all members of the team, and he had eaten game brought in
by exploring parties and labeled "safe." But how long he could keep to
the varieties of native food he knew was uncertain. Sooner or later he
must experiment for himself. Already he drank the stream water without
the aid of purifiers, and so far there had been no ill results from that
necessary recklessness. Now the stream suggested fish. But instead he
chanced upon another water inhabitant which had crawled up on land for
some obscure purpose of its own. It was a sluggish scaled thing, an easy
victim to his club, with thin, weak legs it could project at will from a
finned and armor-plated body.

Shann offered the head and guts to Togi, who had abandoned the wasp
nest. She sniffed in careful investigation and then gulped. Shann built
a small fire and seared the firm greenish flesh. The taste was flat,
lacking salt, but the food eased his emptiness. Enheartened, he started
south, hoping to find water sometime during the morning.

By noon he had his optimism justified with the discovery of a spring,
and the wolverines had brought down a slender-legged animal whose coat
was close in shade to the dusky purple of the vegetation. Smaller than a
Terran deer, its head bore, not horns, but a ridge of stiffened hair
rising in a point some twelve inches about the skull dome. Shann haggled
off some ragged steaks while the wolverines feasted in earnest,
carefully burying the head afterward.

It was when Shann knelt by the spring pool to wash that he caught the
clamor of the clak-claks. He had seen or heard nothing of the flyers
since he had left the lake valley. But from the noise now rising in an
earsplitting volume, he thought there was a sizable colony near-by and
that the inhabitants were thoroughly aroused.

He crept on his hands and knees to near-by brush cover, heading toward
the source of that outburst. If the claks were announcing a Throg
scouting party, he wanted to know it.

Lying flat, with branches forming a screen over him, the Terran gazed
out on a stretch of grassland which sloped at a fairly steep angle to
the south and which must lead to a portion of countryside well below the
level he was now traversing.

The clak-claks were skimming back and forth, shrieking their staccato
war cries. Following the erratic dashes of their flight formation,
Shann decided that whatever they railed against was on the lower level,
out of his sight from that point. Should he simply withdraw, since the
disturbance was not near him? Prudence dictated that; yet still he
hesitated.

He had no desire to travel north, or to try and scale the mountains. No,
south was his best path, and he should be very sure that route was
closed before he retreated.

Since any additional fuss the clak-claks might make on sighting him
would be undistinguished in their now general clamor, the Terran crawled
on to where tall grass provided a screen at the top of the slope. There
he stopped short, his hands digging into the earth in sudden braking
action.

Below, the ground steamed from a rocket flare-back, grasses burned away
from the fins of a small scoutship. But even as Shann rose to one knee,
his shout of welcome choked in his throat. One of those fins sank,
canting the ship crookedly, preventing any new take-off. And over the
crown of a low hill to the west swung the ominous black plate of a Throg
flyer.

The Throg ship came up in a burst of speed, and Shann waited tensely for
some countermove from the scout. Those small speedy Terran ships were
prudently provided with weapons triply deadly in proportion to their
size. He was sure that the Terran ship could hold its own against the
Throg, even eliminate the enemy. But there was no fire from the slanting
pencil of the scout. The Throg circled warily, obviously expecting a
trap. Twice it darted back in the direction from which it had come. As
it returned from its second retreat, another of its kind showed, a black
coin dot against the amber of the sky.

Shann felt sick inside. Now the Terran scout had lost any advantage and
perhaps all hope. The Throgs could box the other in, cut the downed ship
to pieces with their energy beams. He wanted to crawl away and not
witness this last disaster for his kind. But some stubborn core of will
kept him where he was.

The Throgs began to circle while beneath them the flock of clak-claks
screamed and dived at the slanting nose of the Terran ship. Then that
same slashing energy he had watched quarter the camp snapped from the
far plate across the stricken scout. The man who had piloted her, if not
dead already (which might account for the lack of defense), must have
fallen victim to that. But the Throg was going to make very sure. The
second flyer halted, remaining poised long enough to unleash a second
bolt--dazzling any watching eyes and broadcasting a vibration to make
Shann's skin crawl when the last faint ripple reached his lookout post.

What happened then the overconfident Throg was not prepared to take.
Shann cried out, burying his face on his arm, as pinwheels of scarlet
light blotted out normal sight. There was an explosion, a deafening
blast. He cowered, blind, unable to hear. Then, rubbing at his eyes, he
tried to see what had happened.

Through watery blurs he made out the Throg ship, not swinging now in
serene indifference to Warlock's gravity, but whirling end over end
across the sky as might a leaf tossed in a gust of wind. Its rim caught
against a rust-red cliff, it rebounded and crumpled. Then it came down,
smashing perhaps half a mile away from the smoking crater in which lay
the mangled wreckage of the Terran ship. The disabled scout pilot must
have played a last desperate game, making of his ship bait for a trap.

The Terran had taken one Throg with him. Shann rubbed again at his eyes,
just barely able to catch a glimpse of the second ship flashing away
westward. Perhaps it was only his impaired sight, but it appeared to him
that the Throg followed an erratic path, either as if the pilot feared
to be caught by a second shot, or because that ship had also suffered
some injury.

Acid smoke wreathed up from the valley making Shann retch and cough.
There could be no survivor from the Terran scout, and he did not believe
that any Throg had lived to crawl free of the crumpled plate. But there
would be other beetles swarming here soon. They would not dare to leave
the scene unsearched. He wondered about that scout. Had the pilot been
aiming for the Survey camp, the absence of any rider beam from there
warning him off so that he made the detour which brought him here? Or
had the Throgs tried to blast the Terran ship in the upper atmosphere,
crippling it, making this a forced landing? But at least this battle had
cost the Throgs, settling a small portion of the Terran debt for the
lost camp.

The length of time between Shann's sighting of the grounded ship and the
attack by the Throgs had been so short that he had not really developed
any strong hope of rescue to be destroyed by the end of the crippled
ship. On the other hand, seeing the Throgs take a beating had exploded
his subconscious acceptance of their superiority. He might not have even
the resources of a damaged scout at his command. But he did have Taggi,
Togi, and his own brain. Since he was fated to permanent exile on
Warlock, there might just be some way to make the beetles pay for that.

He licked his lips. Real action against the aliens would take a lot of
planning. Shann would have to know more about what made a Throg a Throg,
more than all the wild stories he had heard over the years. There _had_
to be some way a Terran could move effectively against a beetle-head.
And he had a lot of time, maybe the rest of his life to work out a few
answers. That Throg ship lying wrecked at the foot of the cliff ...
perhaps he could do a little investigating before any rescue squad
arrived. Shann decided such a move was worth the try and whistled to the
wolverines.

3. TO CLOSE RANKS

Shann made his way at an angle to avoid the smoking pit cradling the
wreckage of the Terran ship. There were no signs of life about the Throg
plate as he approached. A quarter of its bulk was telescoped back into
the rest, and surely none of the aliens could have survived such a
smash, tough as they were reputed to be with those horny carapaces
serving them in place of more vulnerable human skin.

He sniffed. There was a nauseous odor heavy on the morning air, one
which would make a lasting impression on any human nose. The port door
in the black ship stood open, perhaps having burst in the impact against
the cliff. Shann had almost reached it when a crackle of chain lightning
beat across the ground before him, turning the edge of the buckled
entrance panel red.

Shann dropped to the ground, drawing his stunner, knowing at the same
moment that such a weapon was about as much use in meeting a blaster as
a straw wand would be to ward off a blazing coal. A chill numbness held
him as he waited for a second blast to charr the flesh between his
shoulders. So there had been a Throg survivor, after all.

But as moments passed and the Throg did not move in to make an easy
kill, Shann collected his wits. Only one shot! Was the beetle injured,
unable to make sure of even an almost defenseless prey? The Throgs
seldom took prisoners. When they did....

The Terran's lips tightened. He worked his hand under his prone body,
feeling for the hilt of his knife. With that he could speedily remove
himself from the status of Throg prisoner, and he would do it gladly if
there was no hope of escape. Had there been only one charge left in that
blaster? Shann could make half a dozen guesses as to why the other had
made no move, but that shot had come from behind him, and he dared not
turn his head or otherwise make an effort to see what the other might be
doing.

Was it only his imagination, or had that stench grown stronger during
the last few seconds? Could the Throg be creeping up on him? Shann
strained his ears, trying to catch some sound he could interpret. The
few clak-claks that had survived the blast about the ship were shrieking
overhead, and Shann made one attempt at counterattack.

He whistled the wolverines' call. The pair had not been too willing to
follow him down into this valley, and they had avoided the crater at a
very wide circle. But if they would obey him now, he just might have a
chance.

There! That _had_ been a sound, and the smell _was_ stronger. The Throg
must be coming to him. Again Shann whistled, holding in his mind his
hatred for the beetle-head, the need for finishing off that alien. If
the animals could pick either thoughts or emotions out of their human
companion, this was the time for him to get those unspoken half-orders
across.

Shann slammed his hand hard against the ground, sent his body rolling,
his stunner up and ready.

And now he could see that grotesque thing, swaying weakly back and forth
on its thin legs, yet holding a blaster, bringing that weapon up to
center it on him. The Throg was hunched over and perhaps to Taggi
presented the outline of some four-footed creature to be hunted. For the
wolverine male sprang for the horn-shelled shoulders.

Under that impact that Throg sagged forward. But Taggi, outraged at the
nature of creature he had attacked, squalled and retreated. Shann had
had his precious seconds of distraction. He fired, the core of the stun
beam striking full into the flat dish of the alien's "face."

That bolt, which would have shocked a mammal into insensibility, only
slowed the Throg. Shann rolled again, gaining a temporary cover behind
the wrecked ship. He squirmed under metal hot enough to scorch his
jacket and saw the reflection of a second blaster shot which had been
fired seconds late.

Now the Throg had him tied down. But to get at the Terran the alien
would have to show himself, and Shann had one chance in fifty, which was
better than that of three minutes ago--when the odds had been set at one
in a hundred. He knew that he could not press the wolverines in again.
Taggi's distaste was too manifest; Shann had been lucky that the animal
had made one abortive attack.

Perhaps the Terran's escape and Taggi's action had made the alien
reckless. Shann had no clue to the thinking processes of the non-human,
but now the Throg staggered around the end of the plate, his digits,
which were closer to claws than fingers, fumbling with his weapon. The
Terran snapped another shot from his stunner, hoping to slow the enemy
down. But he was trapped. If he turned to climb the cliff at his back,
the beetle-head could easily pick him off.

A rock hurtled from the heights above, striking with deadly accuracy on
the domed, hairless head of the Throg. His armored body crashed forward,
struck against the ship, and rebounded to the ground. Shann darted
forward to seize the blaster, kicking loose the claws which still
grasped it, before he flattened back to the cliff, the strange weapon
over his arm, his heart beating wildly.

That rock had not bounded down the mountainside by chance; it had been
hurled with intent and aimed carefully at its target. And no Throg would
kill one of his fellows. Or would he? Suppose orders had been issued to
take a Terran prisoner and the Throg by the ship had disobeyed? Then,
why a rock and not a blaster bolt?

Shann edged along until the upslanted, broken side of the Throg flyer
provided him with protection from any overhead attack. Under that
shelter he waited for the next move from his unknown rescuer.

The clak-claks wheeled closer to earth. One lit boldly on the carapace
of the inert Throg, shuffling ungainly along that horny ridge. Cradling
the blaster, the Terran continued to wait. His patience was rewarded
when that investigating clak-clak took off uttering an enraged snap or
two. He heard what might be the scrape of boots across rock, but that
might also have come from horny skin meeting stone.

Then the other must have lost his footing not too far above. Accompanied
by a miniature landslide of stones and earth, a figure slid down several
yards away. Shann waited in a half-crouch, his looted blaster covering
the man now getting to his feet. There was no mistaking the familiar
uniform, or even the man. How Ragnar Thorvald had reached that
particular spot on Warlock or why, Shann could not know. But that he was
there, there was no denying.

Shann hurried forward. It had been when he caught his first sight of
Thorvald that he realized just how deep his unacknowledged loneliness
had bit. There were two Terrans on Warlock now, and he did not need to
know why. But Thorvald was staring back at him with the blankness of
non-recognition.

"Who are you?" The demand held something close to suspicion.

That note in the other's voice wiped away a measure of Shann's
confidence, threatened something which had flowered in him since he had
struck into the wilderness on his own. Three words had reduced him again
to Lantee, unskilled laborer.

"Lantee. I'm from the camp...."

Thorvald's eagerness was plain in his next question: "How many of you
got away? Where are the rest?" He gazed past Shann up the plateau slope
as if he expected to see the personnel of the camp sprout out of the
cloak of grass along the verge.

"Just me and the wolverines," Shann answered in a colorless voice. He
cradled the blaster on his hip, turned a little away from the officer.

"You ... and the wolverines?" Thorvald was plainly startled. "But ...
where? How?"

"The Throgs hit very early yesterday morning. They caught the rest in
camp. The wolverines had escaped from their cage, and I was out hunting
them...." He told his story baldly.

"You're sure about the rest?" Thorvald had a thin steel of rage edging
his voice. Almost, Shann thought, as if he could turn that blade of rage
against one Shann Lantee for being yet alive when more important men had
not survived.

"I saw the attack from an upper ridge," the younger man said, having
been put on the defensive. Yet he had a right to be alive, hadn't he? Or
did Thorvald believe that he should have gone running down to meet the
beetle-heads with his useless stunner? "They used energy beams ...
didn't land until it was all over."

"I knew there was something wrong when the camp didn't answer our
enter-atmosphere signal," Thorvald said absently. "Then one of those
platters jumped us on braking orbit, and my pilot was killed. When we
set down on the automatics here I had just time to rig a surprise for
any trackers before I took to the hills----"

"The blast got one of them," Shann pointed out.

"Yes, they'd nicked the booster rocket; she wouldn't climb again. But
they'll be back here to pick over the remains."

Shann looked at the dead Throg. "Thanks for taking a hand." His tone was
as chill as the other's this time. "I'm heading south...."

And, he added silently, I intend to keep on that way. The Throg attack
had dissolved the pattern of the Survey team. He didn't owe Thorvald any
allegiance. And he had been successfully on his own here since the camp
had been overrun.

"South," Thorvald repeated. "Well, that's as good a direction as any
right now."

But they were not united. Shann found the wolverines and patiently
coaxed and wheedled them into coming with him over a circuitous route
which kept them away from both ships. Thorvald went up the cliff, swung
down again, a supply bag slung over one shoulder. He stood watching as
Shann brought the animals in.

Then Thorvald's arm swept out, his fingers closing possessively about
the barrel of the blaster. Shann's own hold on the weapon tightened, and
the force of the other's pull dragged him partly around.

"Let's have that----"

"Why?" Shann supposed that because it had been the other's well-aimed
rock which had put the Throg out of commission permanently, the officer
was going to claim their only spoils of war as personal booty, and a hot
resentment flowered in the younger man.

"We don't take that away from here." Thorvald made the weapon his with a
quick twist.

To Shann's utter astonishment, the Survey officer walked back to kneel
beside the dead Throg. He worked the grip of the blaster under the
alien's lax claws and inspected the result with the care of one
arranging a special and highly important display. Shann's protest became
vocal. "We'll need that!"

"It'll do us far more good right where it is...." Thorvald paused and
then added, with impatience roughening his voice as if he disliked the
need for making any explanations, "There is no reason for us to
advertise our being alive. If the Throgs found a blaster missing, they'd
start thinking and looking around. I want to have a breathing spell
before I have to play quarry in one of their hunts."

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