The Space Guardian (17 page)

Ten sd later, Lahks was warned by her personal detectors of the near-space presence of the ship and the group retreated to their igloo. If the tent was sprayed with a stunner from the landing craft, it must have been a direct, narrow-beam hit. They suffered no ill effects in their hideaway. As the ramp came down, Fanny, Lahks, and Stoat removed sections of carapace from their exit places, slithered out, and lay ready in the camouflaged area alongside the pile of hides.

With immense dignity and no hurry, grinning and nodding, four droms marched toward the craft. Lahks heard Stoat’s breath hiss; she held her own. If the Guildsmen were familiar with Wumeera, they would know what the droms were—as much as any man living knew—and no harm would be done. If they did not recognize the creatures, they might feel they were being attacked, and then . . .

The backwash of a stunner blast made Lahks’ vision blur and her ears ring. Dimly she heard shouts of consternation. As her eyes focused properly again, she saw a red-violet pencil of light reach from the ship’s entrance to the leading drom and break into a coruscating glory of sparks and prismatic displays. Once more, as if their intelligence simply would not accept what their eyes witnessed, the Guildsmen’s deadly pencil reached out. More cries of fear and disbelief were uttered as the laser failed to damage the advancing creatures. The droms, without seeming to increase their pace, were devouring the distance that separated them from the ship.

The ramp quivered, began to rise. A sob of frustration shook Lahks. Stoat uttered a low, bitter oath. The leading drom reached the craft. With mincing delicacy it placed its large flat forefeet on the ramp, extended its long neck, as if to peer into the ship, and grinned amiably. The ramp groaned but rose no farther. The second drom had also reached the ship. This one turned about and, looking over its own shoulder, backed up carefully and sat down on the very end of the ramp. There was a faint thud as ramp and drom returned to the ground. The other two droms, apparently beaming with pleasure, squatted to either side of the ramp and nodded vigorous approval.

Lahks was shaking with silent mirth. She did not dare permit her eyes to meet Stoat’s for fear she would whoop aloud.

“What are doing?” Fanny asked in a stunned, disbelieving whisper.

“Damned droms! Damned droms!” Stoat muttered, sounding slightly hysterical.

He was, however, controlled enough to recognize the craft, It was old-fashioned, as was natural for such a peripheral area, and lacking in certain refinements. Although it had comcov detects, to either side of the ramp there was an area blind to the ship’s sensors, and, therefore, not covered by the ship’s weapons. Under normal circumstances the blind spots were easily protected by the men on board, but, with the droms blocking both the view and the line of fire, it might be safe to approach. The danger was in the distance between the igloo and the blind spot, but the attention of the crew was probably centered on the droms.

A few whispered phrases settled the plan of action. Shom was put to sleep with a mild narcotic that could be counteracted in seconds. Stoat and Fanny wiggled to the best position they could and made a dash for the sides while Lahks, to further distract attention, approached the front openly, her hood thrown back to show her features clearly and her streaming hair. To mark herself as a female was multiply valuable. Many humanoid groups still protected their breeders and therefore regarded females as weak. In general, even those cultures that marked no difference between male and female sociologically assumed that humanoid females would be physically smaller and probably weaker. There was, then, less threat to the crew in Lahks’ approach and less chance of their attacking without cause.

Whether for these reasons or because there had never been any intention of using force on the ground when it was so simple and untraceable a matter to expel unwanted passengers from an air lock, Lahks reached the area in which the droms were squatting without incident. She passed between the two that were sitting to each side of the ramp and then, moved by an irresistible impulse, stretched up and planted a loud kiss on the snout of the drom whose rump anchored the ramp to the ground.

This mark of affection was accepted with the identical idiotic amiability that had greeted kicks and blows. A tiny spurt of disappointment flickered through Lahks, but she had no time to indulge it.

“Guildsmen,” she called, “I am Tamar Shomra. I have trade goods—and something else—to barter for passage and profit. Where is your Cargomaster?”

“Here,” a voice replied from inside, beside the opening. “Drive away the beasts, and I will come out so that we can Deal.”

Lahks laughed, “if your laser would not drive them away, do you think my great strength will? They do as they like. They are the blessing and the curse of this land,” she said, continuing without a tremor of consideration for the truth, “for they are the peace-keepers. Have you ever heard of a war on Wumeera? There never has been one. [This happened to be true because of the low population and because war was almost as difficult logistically on Wumeera as between solar systems.] The droms are opposed to violence. Do not misunderstand me. They are only beasts—I think. But to see violence awakens in them such rage that they destroy everything. As long as we do not come to blows, they are as harmless as kittens and useful, too. They will carry the goods, if need be.”

By now, Lahks had sidled around the great rump and was standing directly under the snout of the drom whose forelegs were on the ramp. Cautiously the Cargomaster appeared in the opening.

“We have cargo robots, but we cannot get them out if this thing sits in the way.”

“I am sorry, Cargomaster,” Lahks said. “I can offer you no suggestion.” Her voice quivered with memory. “I have on occasion tried to move a drom.” She choked. “I was not successful. I give you leave to try, however. They do not mind if you attack them, only if you offer violence to another of your own kind.”

The man sidled cautiously forward. The drom turned its head to look at him but only nodded, its eyes bobbing up and down wildly, and grinned. He took another step. “You are alone, Freelady?”

“Oh, no. My companions are to either side of your ship and are well armed”—she laughed aloud—“although I do not know what good that will do us or what harm it can do you. We cannot do anything while the droms are here any more than you can. Come, Cargomaster, and look at our goods.”

“And what good will that do,” he asked peevishly, “if I cannot load them?’

Nevertheless, he came out, jumping down from the ramp to avoid passing under the drom’s head, with its fang-exposing grin, and walked with Lahks toward the cache. He started nervously as the two squatting droms rose and followed.

“They are following us. What do they want?”

“Who knows? They always follow.” Lahks paused, as if for thought, then said, “If we load some goods on these, perhaps the others will come to be loaded also. Or perhaps you could push the one sitting on the ramp off with a cargo robot.”

Considering that, the Cargomaster stepped out more briskly. He examined the hides and carapaces with cautious approval, going so far as to nod and say, “Prime and unused. There is a market. But that”—his eyes narrowed—“is not what brought us here, Freelady.”

Lahks smiled sweetly. “That I have also. And when you are patched in to Guild Central, I will bring it from where it is laid away safely so that we may all agree on price.”

By necessity a Cargomaster had total mastery of his expression, and he must have known from the moment Lahks said her companions were in the ship’s blind spots that she was suspicious. He shrugged. If she thought Guild Central could protect her. . . A gasp was drawn from him as a hard snout nudged him from behind. Could the creatures guess?

“They want to be loaded,” Lahks said, but the Cargomaster thought the smile she turned on him was sly. Nonetheless, he kept his mind carefully blank and only a trifle reluctantly began to load skins and carapaces onto a flat area on the drom’s back that he had not previously noticed.

The drom sitting on the ramp rose and walked away as the loaded ones approached, although the one with its forefeet on the ramp did not move. It continued to crane its neck toward the ship with a curiosity more characteristic of the anthropoids than of the reptilia. For a little while Lahks had thought the droms would enter the ship, but they merely squatted to either side of the ramp as they had before, permitting the skins and carapaces to slide to the ground.

Now a cargo robot trundled out. Lahks made haste to explain that Shom was under the trade goods. “He is brainsick from the stone,” she explained glibly. “It was necessary to drug him to keep him quiet.” The Guildsman looked at her, his eyes so totally devoid of meaning that she added hastily, “He is dear to all of us and not dangerous. We will have him treated when we reach a civilized planet.”

So Shom was loaded tenderly and trundled in with the goods. The Cargomaster gestured politely for Lahks to precede him, but she smiled and shook her head, and Stoat and Fanny, pressed tight along the side of the ship, sidled toward them. Inside they relaxed. Most of their precautions had been in vain. There was no crew, only one young Guildsman directing the cargo robots. They were not too worried about the Cargomaster alone. He did not yet have the stone and he would do nothing until he saw the easiest way to obtain it. In fact, it soon became apparent that they had another lever.

When the Cargomaster saw Fanny, his lips tightened. “A gorl!” he exclaimed.

Lahks smiled demurely. “Prince and Clanmaster Fanny,” she offered, bowing her head a trifle in respect.

“People remember favor—even well paid,” Fanny said.

In spite of his habit of control, indecision flickered across the Cargomaster’s face. Then he turned and headed for the control section of the craft. Their least-favored contingency plan would have to be used. He was not going to harm a gorl Prince and possibly have the Captain slough off the responsibility for that onto him. The original idea had been to relieve the clients of their stone on the landing craft. Then the one crew member who had accompanied him could be killed. His death could be blamed on the clients, all the bodies could be disposed of in space, and the crew as a whole could be kept in ignorance of the prize the Captain and Cargomaster had obtained. Now the crew would have to know about the stone. The elimination of four clients . . .

His thought checked as a hollow metallic sound and a shriek of surprise from the crewman drew them all back to the hatch. Nodding and grinning, a drom squatted just clear of the ramp closure inside the craft. That the three clients had no part in the drom’s behavior was clear. They were open-mouthed, stunned. It must have been his thought about. . . No, he would not even think it again. But how to get rid of the thing? How? For one irresolute moment the Cargomaster considered using a cargo robot to push the drom out. The notion passed in a flash; he knew no cargo robot could move that mountain of flesh—if it was flesh.

Schooling face and eyes to blankness, the Cargomaster moved again to the com area, with Lahks, Stoat, and Fanny trailing in a rather bemused manner. Lahks woke up enough as soon as connection with the ship was made to stand well within vision range. She did not want anything said between Captain and Cargomaster that would commit them to an action they no longer wished to take. To patch through to Sector headquarters took longer, but no hesitation on the Captain’s part gave even a hint of reluctance, indeed, he was not reluctant. The Guild had improved itself since Stoat’s day. Any com sent or received was monitored at Sector so that they already knew about Lahks’ party. The Captain had a market for a heartstone and, being from a rim planet himself, felt he could avoid Guild retribution.

It was his very readiness that gave him away. Nonetheless, Lahks made her Deal with Sector, and she bargained hard because she hoped to be able to keep her part of the Deal, whatever the Captain did. The Guild was too useful to Guardians to annoy them more than necessary. Fanny stood beside her, screening Stoat from view with seeming carelessness. When the Deal was closed and recorded, the Cargomaster turned to Lahks.

“And now, Freelady. . .” In spite of rigid control, his lips were a little dry and his eyes glittered. “Will you unearth the stone from its hiding place and deliver it?”

Lahks’ eyes danced; her lips twitched. She reached into the pocket of her windsuit and drew forth a medium-sized heartstone that responded to handling with a burst of light waves. Rage flickered in the Cargomaster’s eyes as he realized she had made a game of him and had been carrying the stone all along, it died as quickly as it rose. He stretched his hand eagerly toward the jewel. The tiny prick he felt, he disregarded for the few heartbeats in which his mind continued to function.

Lahks waited only long enough to be sure the drug had firm hold on him and then turned to Stoat. “Can you take the craft up to the ship, or should we chance his doing it right in this state?”

Stoat checked the controls. They were familiar. “I can, but it makes no difference. They will needle him and us, too, if he walks aboard in this condition. Guildsmen are not backward planet dwellers. If Tanguli’s men were suspicious, these will not be deceived for a sec. And what about the crewman back in cargo? And what about that damned drom?”

“Hmmm.” Obviously Lahks reconsidered her plan of walking aboard with the Cargomaster as a shield, If Stoat said they would needle down their own Cargomaster, he was sure of it. Lahks turned back to the mind-frozen man.

“When you wake up,” she said slowly and clearly, “you will not remember that I gave you instructions or carried the stone with me. This time of waiting will have been spent by my going to take the stone from its hiding place. What you do after you wake up will be your own idea. You will make us your prisoners, bind us and take our weapons, but you will not permit any harm to come to us. You have the stone and you have decided it would be safer, because of the gorl Prince and my connection with Trade, to set us down on some rim planet.”