"Would I?" Joktar returned dryly.

He answered with a smile. "No, probably not. You've guessed rightly just how far their grat.i.tude would reach."

"I know the streets."

"And you're lucky. About one man in a thousand ever escapes, and out of that number, one in five hundred lasts out his first week of freedom."

"You get your recruits the hard way."

"We have exactly two escaped emigrants in this mob. The rest of us are free trappers and a few who do not explain their past occupations."

"But you all hate the companies."

"Not the companies," the other corrected him. "Fenris would be a deserted h.e.l.l hole without the mines. But we are at war with their methods and their deliberate hogging of this planet. The alibite mines occupy a few pimples on this continent, the companies exploit them and that's that. They will do nothing to build up trade or import any goods save the supplies they themselves need. They won't sell pa.s.sage on their ships to free men, but they bring in their bonded employees and emigrants they can control utterly. The freeze-out is on and has been for two years. Not a single free trader can get field clearance at Siwaki. No ship save a company one or a patrol cruiser can set down here. They think they have' Fenris sewn up tight and they want to keep it that way.

"If free men can establish independent holdings on this world the companies can't hold their emigrant gangs without triple the number of guards they now employ or other expensive safety devices. Now the country itself is a barrier against escape, with settlements it wouldn't be.

"They want alibite only. We want other things. Sure, this climate is grim, almost six months of winter, or what seems winter to Terrans. But second generation settlers from Kambod, or Nord, or Aesir could live well here. Men can adapt, you're an example."

Of what? Joktar wanted to ask when the chief was hailed from outside the hut.

(Closed com between Kronfeld and Morle) M: Scouts aren't on to our man. The one who took the disc really thought subject had helped mug his partner. He's shipped out since. Serves in the Third Sector, no contact with critical Fifth in the past. Doesn't know Lennox as far as I can learn. So that angle can be washed out.

K: It's pleasant to be able to eliminate one one small factor anyway. Did your man get to Kern? small factor anyway. Did your man get to Kern?

M: We're trying. Kern's a vip on the streets. Even the port authorities are touchy about pushing him.

K: Why was he raided then?

M: Funny thing about that. The word around is that Kern arranged that bit of action himself, to get rid of some underlings he didn't trust. And the E-men exceeded their instructions, making a clean sweep. I know he never intended our our man to be held and he unpocketed for ten others who were pulled in. Hudd did discover that Kern took in the woman and child. Woman died soon after. She was ill when she arrived. He can now establish that the child was our subject. What about the Fenris angle, any word from there? man to be held and he unpocketed for ten others who were pulled in. Hudd did discover that Kern took in the woman and child. Woman died soon after. She was ill when she arrived. He can now establish that the child was our subject. What about the Fenris angle, any word from there?

K: One of Thorn's agents tried to bid him in at the auction, but didn't make it; couldn't press that without blowing his cover. He'll pa.s.s the word in the outlands. There's a brawl cooking up there and maybe we can spring him during the trouble. But if our information is correct, this lad can take worse than Fenris and still come up fighting. We have to have him. I'd cheerfully fry those service fanatics if I could get these two hands on them and had a hot enough fire handy.

(Report to home office, Harband Mining Company, Project 65, Fenris) Prospect Hole, Blue Mountain district destroyed by local outlaw group. Request permission to go all out against these woods runners. May we appeal to the patrol for a.s.sistance? (Reply from home office) Do nothing. Committee on way to investigate situation. Ramifications reach beyond Fenris. Must be no trouble. Repeat, no trouble while Councilor Cullan is on Loki.

Chapter Seven.

"SAMMS is GOING to move. Since he's had the blast out with Raymark and made himself top man in the Kortoski mob, everything's been quiet. Now he wants a general council."

Joktar stood within the slightly open hut door. The major portion of the men housed on the mound-fort were gathered outside listening to a report from a man dressed in full trail kit.

"His runner's going through the Five Peak district. They want us and Ebers' crowd. Samms aims to make it a big parley. Swears he has a major chance for all of us now-"

Rysd.y.k.e interrupted. "This could be the break we've been waiting for, Hogan. Raymark was no good to deal with, he wanted our sections kept separate so we wouldn't have to share any good loot. Samms may be a different sort."

"Samms and Ebers," the chief repeated thoughtfully. "Well, a meet won't do any harm. We can listen to what they have to offer but we don't have to commit ourselves. That is, if this is on a straight orbit. Suppose we say we'll meet them at the River Island," he glanced at the sky, "and, since the signs look promising for a quiet weather spell, make that three days from now. You can tell that to this runner, Marco. Then you take two of the boys with vorps and full supplies. I just want to make sure that no one is planning an incident."

Several of the listening men grinned wolfishly. Joktar gathered that one's trust in one's fellow men did not spread any further on Fenris than it had in the streets. The company broke apart and only Rysd.y.k.e and the chief remained before Joktar's hut.

"What do you make of this?" the ex-s.p.a.ceman wanted to know.

The other's answer was cryptic. "Perks supported Samms just before he called Raymark out."

"Perks? But he turned yellow-belly, sold out to the companies. He doesn't dare leave the Harband compound, he'd be shot on sight after what happened to his squad in that ambush. Oh, do you think Samms might be following the same flight pattern? That why you sent the vorps ahead?"

"Might be," there was a lazy, teasing note in that answer. "Joktar!" He had not turned his head, but he spoke the eavesdropper's name with certainty. The quasi-prisoner opened the makeshift door of the hut.

"Here's the problem, boy," Hogan continued, "you should know its like from the streets. The Kortoski mob-they range north of here-had Raymark for their boss. He wasn't too bright when it came to planning capers, but he was a good fighter and had what it took to keep his boys in hand, an old time trapper. Then his mob picked up an escapee last year. He'd had luck about as spectacular as yours. Seems Samms is a third generation Martian colonist and so adapts better to this G.o.d-forsaken climate.

"Samms began to pick up a following of his own inside the mob, among them one very bright boy, Perks. Perks had furnished a lot of the brains behind Raymark before then. He can plan but he's no leader, most of the mob hate his guts. Then, about four months ago, Perks apparently got fed up. He and a squad he was leading were captured in a quite obvious trap. And since then Perks has fared well at company hands."

"Sold out his own men!" Rysd.y.k.e exploded.

"So it appears. Then, a very short time ago, Samms called Raymark to a blast out. Raymark was erased, and Samms is top man. Now," Hogan glanced at Joktar for the first time, "give me your your unvarnished appraisal of the situation." unvarnished appraisal of the situation."

"I'd say Samms was planted."

"Where, by whom, for what?" Hogan inquired in that lazy voice.

"On the surface, by the companies, maybe to do just what he did, climb to the top in some mob then to take it out of running, or use it to cut down some of the other independents."

"And Perks?"

"Was his runner."

"But you said on the 'surface,' what could lie under that surface?"

"That Samms is straight and the Perks situation is in reverse. Perks has been planted on the company by Samms. When he's rooted there solid, Samms moves to take over the mob. Maybe Perks got news to him to spark that jump."

Hogan laughed. Rysd.y.k.e's scowl faded as he chewed on that.

"So speaks a man who knows the streets. That the way a vip such as Kern would move?"

Joktar shrugged, bit his lip as that gesture pulled his sore shoulder.

"With variations. Both are pretty simple set-ups for a man like Kern." He gave credit where it was due. Kern, the intriguer, had been fascinating to watch in operation, and Kern's plans had always worked with the precision of well-tended machinery.

"Then this hot news Samms wants to share with us-" Rysd.y.k.e began.

"Could conceivably be the real goods. So well attend Samms' council, with our own precautions laid down in advance. My young friend," he spoke again directly to Joktar, "the criminal mind is sometimes a distinct a.s.set. I think you should meet Samms, your private estimation of him and his proposal may be enlightening. Suppose you set yourself to the business of getting on your feet in time to accompany us."

The party which left on the third day was a small, select one. As yet Joktar knew only a small portion of the mob. Most of them had been trappers, individualists who had pioneered in the Fenrian backlands before the companies took over. One or two had been prospectors frozen out by the monopolies. The two major exceptions were Rysd.y.k.e, a cashiered s.p.a.ceman, and the chief, Hogan, who had once been a trader in Siwaki, losing his business when the companies closed the port to free ships.

Now Hogan, Rysd.y.k.e, Roose, and another trapper named Tolkus, with Joktar in tow, left for the council. But the Terran believed that others had gone before them more secretly.

The day was a fine one with no wind and Joktar stripped off his face mask, having learned that he could do as well without that added covering. Their trail wove into the grove and the Terran tried to picture this country as it was when the big thaw was in progress. Fenris must be a totally different world then. Another track joined the trail they followed. Roose pointed to it.

"Lamby bull, and big!"

"How long ago?"

The trapper dropped to one knee, inspected the indentations in the snow with his nose only a few inches above the markings.

"Maybe an hour, could be less."

"The boys went along here two hours ago, and they'd keep an eye on their back trail," Rysd.y.k.e offered.

But Roose was troubled. "Bull following a man trail, that way means he has a real mad on. Might even have been creased by some soft head who didn't hunt him down for the real kill. Those cracked guards along the road take shots at everything moving, and a lamby can travel pretty far with a crease to stir him up. A wounded bull is a bad risk anyway you look at it."

"Well, you know the drill, Roose, we'll make this your party. And, Tolkus, start weaving. This is no time for any of us to get mixed up with a lamby that wants to chew up a human."

Roose quickened pace, keeping to the trail. While Tolkus wove a new path first to the right, and then to the left, investigating all thick strands of brush or clumps of trees.

"Why did they ever name those devils lambys' in the first place?" Rysd.y.k.e wondered.

"Some one with an infernal sense of humor pulled that," Hogan remarked. "Anything less less like a lamb would be hard to find. Only maybe it's the texture of the fur which gave them that designation." like a lamb would be hard to find. Only maybe it's the texture of the fur which gave them that designation."

"Just a tourist guide at heart, aren't you?" Rysd.y.k.e laughed, "not that we ever have any tourists to guide, though I'd like to introduce some of the company vips to a lamby. Those bulls are always mean. You get one really mad and he's going to wipe the earth with you or the nearest thing which looks, smells, and moves like you. A lamby will trail a man for miles, hide in the bush along a path, and spike his horns into the first traveler who pa.s.ses. And since he makes about as much noise as a feather floating in air, he usually wins the first round. Then, if the traveler has had any companions, the lamby will get his in return."

"But does that satisfy, the first victim?" asked Joktar. "Lots of little surprises on this world, aren't there?" He remembered his own sudden entanglement with the zazaar.

"Quite true," Hogan agreed. "So try always to make your first attack the last and in your own favor. Yes, this is not what you might term a pleasant world for a restful vacation."

"But it could be a half-way decent one for men to live on," the ex-s.p.a.ceman defended the wasteland.

"To what other end do we labor?" the lazy note was back in Hogan's voice. "Break the companies' hold, free Fenris, then comes the millennium."

Rysd.y.k.e laughed half angrily. "Don't you believe in anything?"

"Oh, the power of words is well known. And maybe we can badger the companies into recognizing a few rights besides those they sit upon for themselves. But Fenris will never be a garden spot, and men are never going to quit grabbing all they can reach with their grubby fingers. Sweep away the companies here and the vacuum left will be speedily filled. Well then have master trappers, big traders crowding in, eating up the smaller men, building a kingdom in their turn. And some day the last lamby will be skinned, the last zazaar tracked and denuded of its pelt. Then new deposits of alibite, or something similar will be located, the companies will come back." He rubbed the back of his hand across his mask, "History will repeat itself. That is what is so fatiguing about history, it's so repet.i.tious. Personalities change, the pattern never. Nothing but the same boring mistakes, rises and falls, catastrophes and achievements, balancing each other without end. If man were offered something else-" Hogan's eyes lifted from the trail, to the sky behind the ragged mountain peaks, "he probably wouldn't dare to take it. No, we'll go on and on in our own twisted way until we're finished like the others before us."

"Those who built your mound-fort?" asked Joktar.

"Yes. Doubtless that was thrown together by some company who had the blah-blah concession here and was determined to hold it against a band of miserable, dirty outlaws. This is a wolfhead planet, now, and it always has been. The very climate pulls men into its pattern. Whoever did grub up that artificial mountain must have had a major enemy breathing down their necks. The situation must have been the same: greed, defense of one's treasures, probably eventual loss to other and stronger attackers. Ah-"

A crack of sound, carrying sharply through the air, put the three into action before its echoes had died away. Joktar, favoring his tender shoulder, shoved sideways, squatting behind the best protection he could find, a tree bole surrounded by a draggle of underbrush. And Rysd.y.k.e and Hogan disappeared so skillfully and completely that they might have been permanently removed from the landscape by one of the primitive atomic explosions of Terra's past.

Joktar had not been provided with a blaster and he was wondering how he was expected to defend himself. There was a wisp of smoke curling into the air from a heat shriveled twig. That bit of branch had caught the outer edge of a blaster beam, and it hung only a pace or so beyond where they would have been in another short moment. Since none of them in the least resembled a lamby bull, there was reason to think they had been selected for elimination. Joktar froze, no use provoking another shot from that hidden marksman.

Was someone in Hogan's own organization getting ambitious, wanting to move up as Samms had done, but not willing to risk the face down of a call out where his chief would have an equal chance? Joktar frowned. This was quite like the streets, treachery against treachery, the most cunning player to sweep the board.

Were Hogan and Rysd.y.k.e pinned down now as he was, or using their superior knowledge of woodcraft to scout around behind the man in ambush? He would swear there was nothing moving about.

Snow creaked. Joktar turned his head with infinite stealth, feeling that perhaps the lurking menace might be able to catch the whisper of his hood furs as he moved. But what he saw was not a man.

Matted fur? Hair? Wool? Blue-gray in color, so close in shade to the branches which framed it that the actual outlines were blurred. Sprouting from that mat of hair were two sharp, upward-pointing horns, a third centering a broad toad's snout. And all three of those horns were sticky with red clots, clots, which had dribbled down to the fur. A drip of mucous from the nose flaps was also discolored with that tell-tale scarlet. This thing had gored to kill and recently.

The eyes, deep-set in that stained fur, blinked. Joktar pressed against his tree, feeling that trunk had suddenly become transparent.

Again that creak of snow. The head pushed forward, bringing into visibility thickly maned shoulders, forefeet with sharply split hooves as dreadfully bedabbled as the horns. Slowly, with caution but no fear, the lamby bull came out into the open path, head up, nostril flaps open to the full.

Those first few steps brought the beast almost level with Joktar. The Terran expected every second to see that head swing in his direction. And for the first time in his life he knew a wave of the kind of fear which saps wits, weakens muscle, makes a man wait supinely for death. He fought against that as the lamby minced almost delicately past his tree. And he could not at first believe the creature was not hunting him.

There came a rush, but not in his direction. The beast leaped along the trail, making an impetuous dive, carrying on into a brush wall between two trees. Crack of blaster bolt. A thin, high wail which could come from an animal or a man. Another crack of blaster, then an inhuman scream of agony.

The stench of burned flesh and hair hung foul on a rising wind. Joktar pulled away from the tree, stumbled into a run which took him along the lamby's route. Why he was impelled to trace that charge he could not have said. But he knew he would find death before him.

He ploughed through the break in the underbrush to a scene of butchery. The lamby, most of its head charred away, lay on the human body it had been trampling. And working to free the latter were Roose and Hogan. A moment later Rysd.y.k.e crashed into the small clearing from the other side.

"Tolkus? "

Hogan caught a fragment of torn hood, tugged at it until the head it had once protected rolled limply to display the features of the dead. To Joktar the man was a stranger.

"Who?" Rysd.y.k.e's question was half protest. Roose's breath puffed out in a thin white cloud through his mask.

"Never saw this one before, chief." He shoved at the carca.s.s of the lamby, forcing it off the body. The rent and bloodied fur of the stranger's coat bore no company badge.

"Now I wonder," Hogan considered the corpse impersonally. "Could he have been an envoy from Samms or Ebers? Or is someone in our mob ambitious enough to set up a swap."

"That just isn't so!" Roose spun around in the stained snow to stare indignantly up at his leader. "You know that none of the boys'd stand for a swap on you, chief. Never!"

"So I had thought," Hogan commented lazily. "But there can always be sudden changes in the wind of policy. We, or I, was set up for this one. Whether the lamby was part of the original scheme, an extemporaneous last minute double check which failed, or just a coincidence which worked to save the skins of the righteous, we'll never know. In the meantime, I propose we push the pace a little. It would never do for us to be late to the meeting now."

"No," Rysd.y.k.e was breathing a little hard. "I want to see who looks surprised when we do arrive."

"Yes, that point has also occurred to me. Joktar, suppose you carry this." Hogan picked up the blaster which had been the property of the dead sniper and tossed it over.

The rock island Hogan had designated for the meeting proved to be another of the remains left by the forgotten earlier inhabitants of Fenris. Once there had been an island in the middle of a now ice-bound river... or perhaps there had only been the projection of a reef. But based on that limited foundation was a circular wall of blocks, fitted together with fine skill, supporting now, well above water level, a hollow cone. Smoke ascended from the broken top of the cone, to be tattered by the wind.

"Somebody's there," Rysd.y.k.e observed.

But Roose was more intent upon the mountains beyond and Joktar, ignorant as he was of the Fenrian weather signs, could note those banks of gathering clouds in a thick roll to the northeast.

"Weather's not holding," the trapper pointed to the sky. "There's a blanket coming."

"Right," Hogan's voice was clipped, urgent. "Tolkus," he ordered the man who had joined them just as they left the forest clearing, "you circle and warn all our boys. Tell them to hunt shelter-quick!"

"But-" Rysd.y.k.e began to protest.

"We're not the only ones to see those clouds," Hogan replied. "No one is going to start trouble with a blanket coming. If we do have to face a show down, the action will come after the storm clears. And the sooner we all get to cover the better!"

The ice covering the river was patterned with the tracks of men and sleds. The sleds themselves were staked out at a break in the cone wall. Hogan made a sharp turn to the left at that point and Joktar, copying him, found a narrow flight of stairs set in the wall itself, the tread stones projecting only inches. The pa.s.sage was a funnel and the Terran's imagination provided him with a picture of what would happen should a rock be hurled down that grade to meet upward bound traffic.