The Iron Breed (21 page)

Voak dipped his head.

“It is still there?”

“Long time—who knows?” came the clansman's answer.

“Could you find it?” Jony persisted.

Again that moment of silence before the People spoke together. Finally Voak replied: “No know.”

“Would you seek for it?” This was one of the first of the most important points he must make. Jony had persuaded the People to approach the city, but would they actually enter it?

“Why?” Voak's counter question was a single gesture.

“If the trap there, perhaps catch these also,” Jony answered.

“They no sick, they have bad things. Make People go sleep—wake in sky ship again.”

“I go—alone . . . place of stones. I find those, make them think I am clankin. They listen, I tell of things to be found. Take them to trap.”

There, he had outlined his poor plan, and, even as he had proposed it, Jony knew that there were so many ways it could go wrong. If those on the ship had contacted the party in the city, then they would know Jony for the enemy. And . . .

“I go,” Maba said, first aloud, and then in sign for the People to read. “Don't you see, Jony,” she added in speech, “I can say you made me believe things were wrong. But I have changed now, and I need to be with Geogee, that I want to be friends with them. They know me, they would believe me sooner than they would you.”

“No!” Jony's refusal was sharp. There was logic in what she urged. Only, if any message had come from the ship, those down in the city would be aware of the important part the girl had played in their escape.

“They would believe
me,”
she repeated with much of her usual stubbornness, “before they would you.”

Voak could not have understood their exchange. However, he arose ponderously to his feet, the rest moving with him.

“We go—place of stones.” He made a statement of that, as forceful as an order.

* * *

They did not descend the ridge in plain sight of any who might have been watching, as Jony half-feared they might, but turned more to the east. Voak took the lead; Trush and old Gorni fell in behind him. Then came Jony and Maba, the others furnishing a rear guard. Their path led along a narrow valley below the ridge, heading on toward those taller heights behind the city.

And, as the clansmen had earlier done on their visit to the cave of the cage, the People strode along in a matched step, bringing their staffs (those who had them) butt down against the ground with a regular thumping. As yet they had not raised their voices, but Jony was worried. Such a noisy advance could possibly betray them to some machine of the flyer. Only he knew better than to try to urge caution on the People at this point. They knew the danger. Undoubtedly they were moving to counteract it in their own way.

The valley became a very narrow slit. Then, for the first time, Jony saw stones cropping out of the thin soil. The city builders had been here also.

It was against certain of those stones (he could not tell why, for their choices seemed to follow no pattern that Jony could determine) that the clansmen now thudded their staffs. The resulting sound was hollow and echoing. Jony tried to listen beyond that muffled pounding, fearing to hear the buzz of the investigating flyer.

At last the valley came to an abrupt end in a wall which a fall of earth had revealed completely. The stones which formed this obstruction were not all alike. Even with the weathering and discoloring to confuse the eye, Jony could make out the outline of a former opening into which rougher and less finished rocks had been forced as a plug.

Two of the clansmen drew apart, stood thumping the butts of their staffs, not against those stones sealing the old opening, but aiming at the solid wall on either side. Voak, Trush, and Otik padded forward, extending their claws to pry between the plug rocks, digging to free them from their long setting. Jony pushed up to join them. Motioning the clansmen back, he inserted the point of his metal staff into those crevices, digging free soil, levering them apart.

They cleared the way at last, to be faced by a dark opening from which issued cold, dank air. Jony uneasily surveyed the way ahead. He had no liking for venturing into an unknown dark.

Then Voak signed to him. “Give staff!”

Amazed, Jony gaped at the other's outstretched paw-hand. For a moment he thought that the clansman again mistrusted him, wanted him unarmed as they advanced. So his grasp on the weapon tightened. He was determined not to yield.

Voak must have read his fears, for once more the clansman's fingers moved.

“Must have staff—need for going.”

Well, Jony and Maba still had the two stunners they had brought from the ship. And Voak certainly knew more about this hidden way than he did. Reluctantly the boy passed over his find to the clansman.

Voak raised the metal length, seemed to weigh it in hand for the best grip, before he sent the butt thudding against the wall, his round, furred head unmoving as if he listened for some necessary answering sound. The thump was certainly sharper and clearer than that which came from meeting of the wooden ones with the wall. Voak gave one last mighty swing, to clang against rock, and then advanced, passing into the dark passage, thumping the staff as he went. The others fell into the same line of march they had earlier held. As they went, Maba's hand caught Jony's and her fingers tightened.

“Where are we going?” she asked in a voice hardly above a whisper.

“Into the city—somehow,” he answered her, trying to make his tone casual and reassuring. Though, as the light behind them grew dimmer and dimmer, the way before darker, he found it hard to hold to any high pitch of confidence.

The beat of the staff butts continued regularly. Jony wished he knew the reason for this. Was the gesture one only of ceremony, to be used when approaching a place forbidden now to their kind? Or did that pounding have a more definite and practical purpose? At least this passage remained level; there was no sudden drop to slide down into the unknown as had been part of his earlier adventure.

The air was flat and held strong earthy odors. Jony's head began to ache a little, a condition increased by every thump of staff butt.

The boy tried to guess what lay about them in the dark. It seemed to him this was no longer a narrow passage but a wider space, for he fancied there was a different ring to the faint echoing of their pounding. If he turned his head for a second or two, he could catch the faint gleam of his companions' eyes.

Maba said nothing, but her grip on his hand continued very tight, and he could gauge her tenseness by that. Jony longed to give her some assurance that there would soon be an end. But that he could not know.

Again, as had happened earlier, there grew slowly a show of gray light ahead. Shortly, the light showed that they were indeed in a much vaster open area. Voak kept to a straight course between two rows of the stone pillars. Was this another part of the storehouse? If so they must be doubly on their guard, or they might be betrayed by the noise the People continued to make. But there were no signs of any of those boxed containers, no paintings on the walls. This was only a bare, grim-looking burrow revealed in a limited amount of dusky light. They neared another wall. At last Jony could make out against that a series of ledges which the people of the city had used to gain heights above.

Voak had not thumped for the last two strides, nor had any of the others. His head now stretched to the highest angle he could hold it, so his muzzle pointed up the rise of the ledges. There was light enough for Jony to see that the clansmen were sniffing.

To Jony's less sensitive nose there was nothing to be scented but the musty smell which had hung about them ever since they had entered this way. But he knew that the People were far better endowed than he.

Whatever Voak searched for, he seemed satisfied. Without any signed explanation, he began to climb. Now there was no pounding with their staffs, they moved in that absolute silence their big hind paws could keep when there was need.

Before long they emerged into the full light of sunset. That rich glow lay in a broad path directly to the head of the ascent, as if to welcome them, issuing through a wall slit placed well above Jony's head. He looked around, and, not too far ahead, saw the place of the sleeper. The hidden underground ways had led them straight to the heart of the city.

As the clansmen hesitated for the first time, Jony pressed past them. Sounds kept him from advancing very far. Voices, surely; only so muffled that he could not make out separate words. The spacemen—down in the passage to the storage room!

Geogee? Once more Jony concentrated on reaching the boy. No barrier here as he had feared. The force of his thought swept swiftly into the boy's mind. Too swiftly, too forcefully perhaps. Jony withdrew. Had Geogee betrayed them to the others with his shock as Jony made contact?

He wriggled the stunner out of the front of his ship garment where he had stowed it for safekeeping. If their party could now only take the spacemen by surprise while the invaders explored below . . .

Voices coming nearer . . . Jony did not really have to make any warning sign. The People had already melted away into the shadows, Maba with them. Jony slipped from one pillar to the next, using those huge rounds of stone for cover just as he would the trees of a wood.

He was nearly opposite the other entrance, and he already had proof that the spacemen were doing more than just exploring below. After all, they had had some time to select from the stores of the city people. So there was a tall stack of the colored boxes built up in a wall-like pile, their brilliant hues all mixed together. In how many were power rods? Jony could not possibly guess, and he had no time to investigate. For two of the suited invaders advanced into the open, another box carried between them.

They were pulled to one side by the weight of what they carried. Jony took a long chance to aim in a way which he hoped would catch them both. He pressed the firing button.

One slumped, the other gave a startled cry, dropped his end of the box, staggered a step or two, until Jony caught him full on with a second beam. The noise of the box hitting the floor—that cry! Had the sounds given the alarm to the party still below?

Voak and his clansmen needed no orders. They flitted silently between the pillars, caught up the two unconscious men, bundling them fast in large nets they had brought with them. How many more of the enemy were here? Maba had thought that four had gone with the flyer from the ship with Geogee; but she was not sure.

Now Jony struck in another fashion. He could not aim at either of Geogee's two other companions with mental compulsion, because he neither had them in view, nor knew them well enough to form a mind-picture. However, through the boy, he ought to be able to deal easily with the opposition, as he had once before.

Rutee—his far off promise! Only Rutee could not have foreseen such a situation as this. She would certainly not hold him to any word, if keeping such meant ill to the People who had saved her and her children.

Geogee! Jony aimed an order with the same precision as he had just used the stunner.

Come!

He had the boy! Geogee was obeying.

Come!

Geogee must have been well up the ascent from the storage room, because their contact was so clear, so immediate. Jony held communication to top pitch, until the smaller form of the boy did appear in the open, his eyes as wide and set as any mind-controlled. Jony winced at the sight. But this must be done.

Now Maba ran lightly forward, caught her twin by a dangling hand, hurried him with her, back into the dusk behind where that single high window laid its path of light.

“What's with the boy!” Spoken words Jony could pick up and understand.

“Maybe he can't take this hole any longer. I'm beat out myself. Let's call this the last—for now.”

“The last? It will take us months to clear out that place. What a find! I don't think anything like it—so complete—has ever been uncovered before. Who were these city builders? They look like pure Terran stock in those pictures.”

“Could be. There were a lot of colony ships which took off and just went into nowhere as far as the records are concerned. Or colonies of colonies of colonies. What I'd like to know is what happened to . . .”

The speakers had reached the top of the ramp. Again they carried between them a box. However, directly in their path lay the first which the now-prisoners had dropped. Sighting that, the newcomers stopped short.

“Down!” One of them loosed his end of their own burden, fell to the floor behind it. His fellow was only a fraction late in following him. What had alerted them Jony could not tell. But he heard them slithering along behind the barrier of that loot they had already brought out. He shot the stunner twice. Apparently its power could not penetrate that barrier. And, when he tried mind control, he met with the dampening effect of some safe coverage.

They were heading for the open by the sounds, to get out to their flyer. He could guess that much. And, also, if they reached that and were able to rise he and the People would have lost.

Jony began to run along the other side of the boxes. Would one of the invaders now produce a power rod and use it? He could taste his fear, but that did not slow his desperate chase.

FIFTEEN

The off-worlders broke from behind the end of the line of boxes. Raising his stunner, and aiming as best as he could, Jony was about to press the firing button when he himself was struck. Not by any blow, but with that same weakening of the muscles, that inability to keep on his feet which had made him easy prey for the spacemen before. Only this time he did not lose consciousness; even though he wilted forward, to lie face down, unable to raise or turn his head.

Geogee! Jony received in his still-alert mind the impact of the twin's anger and fear. He could hear the thud of running feet. The escaping spacemen must be well on their way out of the building. But Geogee did not accompany them.

Once again Jony tried mind-touch, control, if he could force it. Now he met the same barrier which the ship people could raise. He fought with all his will against the inert disobedience of his body, but was unable to break whatever bonds held him.