The inner bark of the torva bush--actually a low-growing tree--made a subst.i.tute for rope or twine, according to Hovan. But it was tough by Traiti standards, and d.a.m.n near impenetrable for a human, even with a knife. By the time he'd peeled off a half-dozen strips, one hand was blistered and the sun was getting low.

He settled on salvis root for dinner, apprehensive about handling a plant that bore a strong outward resemblance to poison oak, but he was hungry. The small patch of salvis yielded plenty for him, though it would have barely whetted a Traiti's appet.i.te. Dessert came from a toli vine that was strangling a nearby soh tree--orange berries that looked something like jelly beans and smelled like dirty socks.

Despite Hovan's a.s.surances, he bit into the first one cautiously.

Nothing that smelled that bad had a right to taste even halfway decent . . . Well, it might not have the right, he discovered, but it certainly had the taste. He should have remembered Limburger cheese.

These--he grinned and ate another--"Limburger berries" were sweet, just tart enough to bring out their flavor. They could easily become a trade item, a gourmet delicacy, if he managed to achieve a peace.

Back at his camp, Tarlac dug a shallow hole for the salvis roots off-center of his cleared fire area, and covered them with a thin layer of dirt. He wished he could bake them coated with mud instead, but he had nothing to carry water in. He swore briefly at the tradition that demanded a candidate spend the first night where he was dropped off, but it was a minor inconvenience, and he'd be travelling the next day anyway.

Sc.r.a.pings of dry bark smoldered in the sparks made by his knifeblade and the fragment of quartz, grew into tiny flames, and, with the addition of large twigs and then branches, became a small fire that would burn down into coals to cook his dinner. While he waited, he could set his traps. Snare loops for small game would have to be st.u.r.dier than on Terra, since like most things on Homeworld, the rabbit-equivalents tended toward the large economy size.

It was dark when he reached camp again after setting the snares and pausing to dig a small latrine pit. He pushed the coals of his fire aside with a green stick and built them back into a blaze, which gave him enough light to unearth his dinner--and he burned his fingers, incautiously trying to pick up the roots by hand. He called himself several varieties of stupid while he sucked his fingers and speared the salvis roots with his knife, setting them on soh leaves to cool. By the time they got down to eating temperature, his fingers had stopped hurting, but he still wasn't too happy with himself. All right, it had been quite a few years since he'd done any cooking, but that was no excuse--he'd simply been careless. He'd also been lucky that there was no real damage done.

What was done was done. Forget it.

He wiped his knife semi-clean on his shorts, sc.r.a.ped dirt and rind off the roots, and ate. They might not be his favorite food, but they were good enough, and filling. After a handful of Limburger berries, he sat comfortably near the crackling fire, his thoughts wandering as he watched the dancing flames.

Hovan. His sponsor. He still didn't know exactly what that relationship meant, but the Traiti commando had come to mean a great deal to the human Ranger. More, perhaps, than anyone else he'd met.

He visualized Hovan in forest green, then smiled at himself. Hovan would never make a Ranger--he was too old, too molded by Fleet discipline, and far too clan-oriented--but there would be non-human Rangers someday, and eventually a non-human Sovereign. He liked that idea. Intelligence was what counted, and the Traiti certainly had as much of that as any of the Imperial races.

There was no doubt in Tarlac's mind that if he made it through the Ordeal to end the war, it would be Hovan's doing as much as his own.

Hovan's teaching, his quiet support, and most of all his caring, were what would bring the Ranger through his Ordeal if it were humanly possible. He'd have to see that Hovan got the credit he deserved.

It was time to feed the fire and get some rest, if he wanted to make an early start in the morning. His bed was leaves that rustled under his weight as he settled down, then lay watching firelight reflect off the inside of his shelter. It was odd . . . he'd slept alone from the time he was six until he boarded the Hermnaen, and he'd thought he would enjoy his privacy here--but he didn't. He missed the sleeproom, the comfortable presence of his n'ruhar and the sounds of their quiet breathing as they slept. He smiled drowsily, thinking that he'd shared sleeprooms with a lot of Traiti, and he'd never heard one snore . . .

As always outdoors, he slept lightly, waking from time to time to feed the fire until dawn finally roused him for the day. Leftover roots made an adequate breakfast, and when he checked his snares he decided that either he was extremely lucky or noxi were even stupider than Hovan had told him. Three of his snares held prey, the beagle-eared Homeworld version of rabbits, and one was still reasonably intact. The two carca.s.ses a derybach had reached before he did meant that at least one well-fed derybach should have no interest in human prey today, and one noxi was enough to supply him with moccasins and meat.

Satisfied, Tarlac salvaged his bark strips and returned to camp. He improvised a spit--a straight limb that would make a good spear, shaped to a point and fire-hardened--and put a haunch on to roast for lunch.

Thanking whatever Traiti metallurgist had developed a knife alloy that held an edge under steady abuse, he set about making moccasins from the tough noxi skin, using his own foot as the pattern, gut for thread, and his knife as an awl.

The crude lopsided moccasins felt good on his feet; he had soh-leaf pouches to hold coals and the jerky he'd let the sun dry; and the spit did indeed make a workable spear. Looking around his camp before he left, Tarlac couldn't help feeling a sense of accomplishment. His shelter and equipment might not look like much, but they were his, in the most personal way possible. It had been a long time since he'd concerned himself with such basic essentials of survival, and somewhat to his surprise, he found the past day as satisfying as anything he'd done for the Empire. He almost hated to leave the shaky leanto.

He set off toward the stream that would serve as his guide and water supply. He wouldn't get far today, probably only three or four kilometers, but it was a start, and his need to finish the Ordeal wouldn't let him delay.

His leanto that night was considerably st.u.r.dier, thanks to the bark strips, and he made camp closer to water, which let him wash his knife and himself and provided cooking mud. Tarlac couldn't help laughing at that incongruous idea, even as he slathered a thick layer onto the day's find of salvis roots. There were more than enough for a human, though again, not for a Traiti. It might be logical after all to insist that candidates spend at least their first night in the richly productive test area near the clearing, and it was an equally good reason, given Traiti food requirements, for most candidates to choose to remain there.

The next five days settled into a routine of hiking and foraging, living on produce and his stored jerky. Other than a brief but heavy shower the third afternoon, the weather remained good; food was abundant, if monotonous, and the only hostile wildlife he ran into was a variety of insect something like an Alaskan mosquito with a decided taste for human flesh. Except for an occasional feeling of being watched, and his urgent reasons for being here at all, Tarlac was enjoying himself. It was hard work, yes, and he looked forward to the comfort of a sleeping mat and his n'ruhar's presence--but as he built his shelter for the seventh and probably last night in the wilderness, he couldn't help feeling some regret that the closest thing he'd had to a vacation in ten years was coming to an end.

Chapter VI

One moment Tarlac was falling asleep, warm and secure in his shelter with the fire keeping out the night's chill--

--the next, he was waking in the c.o.c.kpit of a crashed biplane, a fighter.

A biplane? What the h.e.l.l--! Terra hadn't used biplanes in combat for centuries!

And Homeworld hadn't for millennia.

How did he know that?

He picked splinters of gla.s.s from the bipe's shattered instrument faces out of his leathery gray skin, working deftly with his extended claws.

Gray skin? Claws? For an instant, they seemed alien. Shouldn't he have flat fingernails and a pinkish-tan skin?

Kranath smiled, dismissing such ridiculous thoughts. He was groggy from the crash, that was all. This was no more than a dream, insignificant.

He climbed from what was left of the c.o.c.kpit and surveyed the remains of his aircraft. Not much of the little biplane still held together, he saw with regret. The wings were splinters and shredded fabric, the fuselage little more.

His head was beginning to clear, so he decided to check the engine.

The prop would be shattered, of course, but the engine might be salvageable, if the brush that had cushioned the crash for him had done the same for it. Engines were handmade and expensive, not to be abandoned lightly even by a rich clan--which St'nar was not.

Kranath was relieved to see only minor damage. St'nar's artisans would have no difficulty repairing a cracked cylinder head and a bent push rod. His problem, then, was to get back to the clanhome. He smiled at that thought. To a scout-pilot, walking out of the wilderness in spring should be almost a vacation. He wore flying leathers, was armed with a dagger and a medium-caliber handgun, and the plane carried a full survival kit. It was far more equipment than he'd had for wilderness survival during his Ordeal of Honor, and he'd managed quite comfortably even then.

This hike would be shorter, probably less than three days, and there was no point in delay. Returning to the c.o.c.kpit, he dug out the survival kit and slung it on his back, then detached the compa.s.s, which fortunately was undamaged, from the control panel and consulted his flight map.

Kranath saw with dismay that St'nar's clanhome was almost directly south, but taking that route directly was just asking for trouble.

He'd have to go around. He headed southeast and began his trek.

The underbrush, while light, was growing too irregularly for him to settle into the ground-eating lope a Traiti fighter could maintain all day. Keeping down to walking speed frustrated him since St'nar needed all its pilots, including him, in the current battle with N'chark. But he'd survived the crash; he'd fly for St'nar again. He enjoyed flying and fighting, though the toll interclan battles were taking of late disturbed him more than he cared to admit. The death rate was too high, far higher now than the birth rate.

(So the Traiti had almost been wiped out in a genocidal war once before, thought a tiny detached fragment that was still Steve Tarlac.

It was an interesting parallel to the problem he faced.)

Kranath shoved those thoughts aside. He was a fighter, not supposed to be concerned with interclan policy. He'd often wondered why he shouldn't be, but tradition insisted his Ka'ruchaya was wiser than he in such matters.

Instead, he tried to figure out what had caused his crash. It wasn't pilot error, he was sure. The flight had been routine, the air calm.

The engine had run smoothly, without even a cough, and the controls had been responding as well as they ever did. So why had he crashed?

It nagged at him, but even after a full tenth-day of pondering while he walked, he still had no idea. By that time he was a good five n'liu from the crash site, a respectable half-morning's walk. He was also approaching a low hill, the legendary place known as G.o.dhome.

That was the reason he'd had to plan an indirect route to St'nar.

n.o.body went to G.o.dhome voluntarily, and Kranath cursed at himself for allowing speculation about the crash to distract his attention from his course. He'd come too far south! He began to veer east, trying to put some distance between himself and the ominous hill before the madness of the place seized him.

The first eastward steps were easy, but soon he began to feel as if he were wading in something sticky, something invisible that was getting deeper. He could see normal ground, ordinary bushes and shrubs like woodlands he'd walked in hundreds of times--yet something was making him struggle for progress. When the sticky invisibility reached his waist, he decided this route was futile.

So was north, he discovered when he tried to retrace his steps to the crash site. The only way open to him was south, straight toward G.o.dhome. He was beginning to realize with dismay that he would not be able to avoid it, desperately though he wanted to. He stood still, hesitating.

Then something nudged him in the back, just hard enough to make him stumble a couple of startled steps forward--south. He looked around, not really surprised to see nothing behind him, and remained standing where he had stopped. Moments later another nudge, more insistent, propelled him several steps further.

Bitterly sure it would be useless, that he was as much a prisoner as if he were surrounded by armed guards, Kranath stopped again. What had he done to deserve captivity? Madness at least brought no disgrace to the victim; why should his accidental trespa.s.s be any worse than anyone else's, that he should be humiliated and dishonored?

The next prompting he got wasn't a nudge. The pressure at his back became constant, gentle but irresistible, and it forced him toward the hill at a steady walk.

It was over, Kranath thought. Captive, with no hope of escape from whatever was wielding enough power to compel him this way, he would die. The only chance he had to regain honor now was to kill himself before the continuing knowledge of captivity exhausted his will to act and, within a few days, his will to live.

Grimly determined to at least die in what honor he could, Kranath reached for his weapons. Either gun or dagger would be fast and clean.

He touched them, got his hands firmly on the grips--and was unable to draw either. Whatever held him had left him his weapons, but made them a useless mockery. That didn't mean he was completely disarmed, though.