Troy's eyes were shut. He willed nerves and muscles to relax, trying to hit by chance, since he had no better guide, on the pattern that had aided him that other night to tune in upon the exchange that was not conversation. Through the coms all the usual noises from the bird and animal rooms reached him, and he tried not to listen.
"—here. Out—"
Not really words, rather impressions—a signal, a plea. Troy's eyes opened; he sat up—and that whisper of contact was gone. Angry at his own lack of control, he settled himself once more on the bunk, tried again to tap that band of communication.
"Out—out—danger—"
He lay, hardly breathing, trying to hold that line.
"Out—"
Yes, it was a plea; he was certain of that. But there was no way of discovering from whom or from where it came. He might have stumbled upon a small loop of rope in the middle of a large room, to be told to find the coil from which it had been cut.
"Where?" He tried to frame that word in his own mind, force the inquiry into the band he could not locate.
Then he received an impression of surprise—so strong it was like an exclamation his ears could pick up.
"Who? Who?" The query was eager, demanding.
"Troy—" He thought his own name but was answered by a sense of bafflement, disappointment. Maybe names meant nothing in this eerie exchange. Troy tried to build up a mental picture of his own face as he had seen it in mirrors. He thought intensely of that face, of each detail of his own features.
The sensation of bafflement faded, though he was sure he had not lost contact.
"Who?" he asked silently in return, certain that he was communicating with the kinkajou.
But instead an oddly shaped and distorted picture of a triangular mask, sharp-pointed nose, glittering eyes, pricked ears—the fox!
Troy slipped out of his bunk. He did not foresee any trouble. If Kyger or Zul turned up, he could always say he was investigating some unusual sound. Yet he took the stunner from its wall niche before he left the small room and went as noiselessly as he could down the corridor to the animal room.
There was a cover over the front of the fox cage. Troy raised that flap. Both animals sat there, watching him. He glanced about the room. Even in the dim night light he could see nothing amiss. This could not be a case of an intruder as it had been when the kinkajou's warning had saved his life.
"What is wrong?" At the moment there was nothing strange in his standing there thinking that question at a pair of Terran foxes.
"The big one—he threatens."
It was as if someone with a strictly curtailed number of words was trying to convey a complex thought. The big one—Kyger?
"Yes!" The assent was quick, eager.
"What is wrong?"
"He fears—thinks better dead—"
"Who is better dead?" Troy's grip on the stunner tightened. He felt a cold stab between his shoulders giving birth to a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
"Those who know—all those who know—"
"Me?" Troy countered quickly. Though of what Kyger might suspect him or why he had no idea.
There was no answer. Either he had presented them with a new puzzle, or, unable to give a definite reply, they gave none at all.
"You?"
"Yes—" But there was an element of doubt in that yes.
"Others like you?" Troy pushed.
"Yes!" Now there was no mistaking the vehemence of that.
He thought of the kinkajou. One of the foxes reared, put front paws against the screening of the cage. "It was here. Now it is there."
"Where?" Troy tried to follow.
His mind pictured for him a cage, hooded and stored—but not in any room of the shop he had seen.
"In the yard pens?" he asked.
There was a long moment before the answer came and then it was evasive.
"Cool air, many smells—maybe outside."
Was the fox only relaying for the kinkajou? Troy thought that might be true.
"Cage covered—not to see—"
That fitted. The animal might well be in one of the outside pens still in a carrying cage. But to find it tonight would be a risky project, and what could he do if he did locate it?
"Hide!"
They had picked that out of his thoughts, replied to it. The standing fox was panting a little, its red tongue lolling from its jaws.
Troy considered the problem. For some reason Kyger had hidden the kinkajou, intending to get rid of it. To meddle in this at all was simply asking for trouble. Not only would the merchant break contract, but he was entitled to black-list Troy with the C.L.C. so that he could never hope for another day's labor on Korwar. That had happened to Dipplemen in the past, and for less cause. He had only to fasten down the cover of the foxes' cage, leave the room, forget everything, and he was safe.
How safe? He stared down at the fox. The kinkajou, the foxes, even the cats, all knew that he was able to communicate with them. Suppose they passed the information on to Kyger? That interrupted conversation the other night—if Kyger knew he had "heard" that—Yes, a refusal to help might cut two ways now.
He jerked the flap of the cage cover into place, making no further attempt to talk to the foxes. Then, thrusting the stunner into the top of his rider's belt, he padded to the rear door and let himself out cautiously, ducking into a convenient pool of shadow.
Just as he patrolled the shop during the night, the senior yardman made the rounds out here. And Troy's presence near some of the larger animal pens could arouse their inhabitants to noisy protest, betraying him at once. Nor did Horan have the least idea in which of these enclosures the kinkajou was now housed, if it was here at all.
He slipped along the wall, his left shoulder against it, making a quick dart across an open space to the shelter of a doorway. From that came the scent of hay, seeds, dried vegetation. And those mingled odors took him back to his twenty-four hours in the Wild. Perhaps it was then that the first flick of an idea was born—not concrete enough yet to be called a plan, just a hazy half-dream suggesting a way of escape if Kyger did dismiss him again to the Dipple.
Troy felt the door yield to his gentle push and he went in. Under his hand the panel swung almost closed once more, but through the crack he was able to reconnoiter the rest of the courtyard. In which of the pens and cages about its circumference could what he sought be effectively hidden? And would Kyger have undertaken that mission himself or left it to one of the yardmen—or Zul?
Kyger—or Zul, the most likely. Zul had not wanted Troy to be left in the shop tonight; he was certain of that. He wished he knew where that small man was right now.
There was a stir by the door that gave on the passage leading to Kyger's private apartment. A figure moved into the open and Troy saw Zul, by his present actions a Zul who did not want to be observed, for, as Troy had done, the other took advantage of every shadow to cover his journey along the row of pens.
Perhaps the creatures penned there were used to his scent and such nighttime journeys, for none of them roused. Then Zul disappeared, seemingly into a patch of wall. Where his flitting had been soundless, the tap of footsteps now sounded briskly down the opposite side of the yard, and Troy held his breath as they approached the supply room. He gently eased the panel fully shut and waited tensely to see if the patrolling guard would try it.
When the footfalls passed without pausing, Horan again opened the door a crack. He could not see the retreating yardman from this position, but he heard the door at the other end of the court close. Then he saw Zul detach himself from the wall and move on. So—Zul was keeping this a secret from the regular guard? That was most interesting.
Two, three more pens the other passed. Then he stopped before the last in that row, a larger enclosure where two small trasi from Longus were kept. They were very tame and most affectionate creatures of a subspecies of deer.
The pen door opened and Zul disappeared within, the darkness there hiding him entirely.
"Obey!"
Troy's hand went to his head at the force of that menacing thought-order, which struck like a blow. But to it there was not the faintest trace of an answer, either agreement or protest. Somehow Troy could imagine Zul stooped above a shrouded cage, trying to arouse a ball of fur that remained stubbornly impervious to his commands.
"Listen!" Again that whip crack of order. "You will obey!"
Again only complete silence. Will against will—animal opposing man? Troy leaned his forehead against the cool surface of the door behind which he half crouched, trying with every fiber of will and strength to listen in on the duel that he was sure was being waged across the courtyard.
Minutes dragged. Then Zul slid out of the pen, made his way back along the wall, disappeared into the same passage the spacers used when they visited the shop. Troy counted slowly under his breath. When he reached fifty and there was no movement in the courtyard, he came out of the storeroom, went to the trasi pen.
The animals stirred as he lifted the latch and let himself in. Only a little of the limited light in the yard reached here, and at first he thought that he must have been mistaken; there was no cage in sight. He stooped, brushed through the hay piled against the far wall, to bark his knuckles painfully against solid surface. Then he hunkered down, feeling over the covered cage for the fastenings. They had been doubly tied and he had difficulty in loosening them.
Though the kinkajou must have been aware of his efforts, it made no move, neither a stir nor a mind touch. The flap of the cover was up now, but Troy could not see into the cage. He unfastened the catch of the door.
Troy fell back as a half-seen thing flashed into the loose hay, tossing up a small whirlwind of scattered wisps, squeezed under the bottom of the pen door and was gone—before the man half comprehended that the captive had been poised ready for escape. There was no use now trying to find it in the courtyard. There were a hundred places that might have been designed to conceal a fast-moving arboreal animal such as the kinkajou—which left Troy where?
He snapped shut the cage, refastened the covering the same way he had found it. Brushing hay from his coveralls, he detached a last telltale length from his belt. There was no use in looking for more trouble. The kinkajou was loose, and he could not help believing that the animal was far safer at this moment than it had been in that cage. Let its empty prison provide a morning mystery for Kyger or Zul.
Troy went back to his bunk. He was convinced now that his employer had a part in a game more important than smuggling, a game in which the animals were involved. And as he dozed off, he wondered just how many four-footed Terrans with strange mental powers had been loosed on Korwar—and why.
If the kinkajou had been missed, there was no alarm given the next day. The routine followed the same pattern it had every morning that Troy had been employed by Kyger's, with the exception that Zul now took over a major portion of the indoor work and Troy was relegated to sweeping and cleaning jobs, which were the least desirable. But at noon he was summoned to the bird room, for it appeared that competent as he might be in other ways, Zul was not the handler favored by the fussel.
Troy could hear the bird's angry screams while he was still in the corridor. And Kyger, scowling, stood waving him to hurry. Zul, chattering in some language other than Galbasic, was fairly dancing in his own heat of rage, a bleeding hand held now and again to his wide-lipped mouth as he sucked a deep tear in the flesh.
Troy spoke to the merchant. "We shall have to have quiet."
Kyger nodded, reached out for Zul, and manhandled the struggling man out. The fussel was beating its wings, its beak stretched to the limit as it screamed.
Troy approached the bird slowly, crooning a monotone of such small soothing sounds as, he had discovered during his night rounds, combatted the suspicions and alarms of any disturbed cage dweller. There was no hurrying this. To arouse the fussel to the state of fighting against the cage would be to damage the bird, if not physically, then emotionally. Troy summoned all his concentration of mind and body, unconsciously trying to reach the bird's mind by the same method he had used to communicate with the Terran animals. He was aware of no response in return, but the fussel did quiet, until, at last, Troy could take it out on his wrist. He moved to the door, eager to walk the bird in the open where it might lose its agitation.
Kyger stood aside for him. "The courtyard," he suggested. "I will see you have it free for a space."
An hour later the great hawk was restored to good humor and Troy returned it to the cage. He was pulling off his glove when Kyger joined him.
"That was well done. We can use you on staff. Will you take full contract?"
This was what he had hardly dared hope for—a contract that would register him as a subcitizen! He would be free of the Dipple forever, since you were not demoted from a full contract except for a very serious criminal cause; the laws of Korwar would operate in his favor, not against him, from now on. Yet—there were all those nagging little doubts, and the affair of the kinkajou. Beneath that was something else as well, the feeling that he did not want to be a loyal employee of Kyger's, tied by custom and ethics to the purposes of the shop. What he did want he had sensed only vaguely that morning on the plateau in the Wild—a freedom not to be found in Tikil. But that was stupid. Troy disciplined his wishes never to be realized and looked to his employer with all the gratitude he could muster.
"Yes, Merchant, I accept."
"Another day for the old contract to run—then the new. Meanwhile"—Kyger observed the fussel—"we don't want any more trouble with this one. I will com the Hunter Headquarters in the city and if they will accept delivery on Rerne's behalf, you can take the bird there tonight."
But within the hour Zul brought a message from Kyger, and Troy came to the office to find the merchant striding up and down, his fingers picking at his scar. He had never given the impression of an easily disturbed man, but he was not the calm and confident purveyor of luxuries to Tikil now.
"We close early," he told Troy. "Do not answer any queries on the door com. And make your rounds on time. I will not be here—but if there is any trouble, hit the alarms at once. Do not try to handle it yourself. The patrollers will take over."
What did Kyger expect, an armed invasion? Troy knew that this was not the time to ask anything. The other had gathered up a hooded night cloak—usually the garment for one venturing into the less reputable portions of the town—and he was wearing his service blaster. It was a certain bleak look in his eyes, a set to his jaw, that warned off questions.
To Troy's satisfaction Zul accompanied his master. Now, with the shop closed and yet the hour early, he would have a chance to look about the courtyard. He did not believe that the kinkajou would remain in hiding there unless the fact that it must have imported food would tie it to the source of supply. But maybe he could prove or disprove that theory tonight.
There were only two places that had not been open to constant view during the day—the storeroom in which he had taken refuge the night before and Kyger's own quarters. The latter he had no hope of exploring. They would be locked, to be opened only by the pressure of the merchant's own hand—or a blaster.
But the storeroom, filled with boxes, bales, containers, had a score of hiding places into which a frightened animal could tuck itself. The foxes in the animal room—the kinkajou free. Troy could not rid himself of the thought that those three might be in contact. Would he be able to reach and influence the fugitive through the two still in the cage? And why were they still in the shop? To Troy's knowledge there had been no message sent to the Grand Leader One that her pets had arrived.
Armed with a food box, he went to the animal room. Again the foxes' prison was curtained. Troy loosened the flap. One of the animals was sleeping, or seeming to sleep. The other also sprawled, its eyes half closed. And seeing them, Troy could almost doubt his belief in their powers.
"Where is the other?" he thought, trying to get into that demand a little of the force Zul had used in his questioning of the kinkajou.
The waking fox yawned, then brought its jaws together with a snap, its eyes still bemused—with no outward interest in Troy at all. The man tried again, throttling down his impatience, using the same gentle approach he had brought to the soothing of the fussel—with no result. If there was any contact between the foxes and the fugitive, they would not employ it for Troy. He would have to hunt on his own.
He was on his way back to the courtyard when the com shrilled, drawing him to the nearest viewplate. The clouded image there settled into a rather fuzzy focus of Kyger's features.
"Horan?"
Troy thumbed the answer lever. "Here, Merchant."
"You will turn guard duty over to Jingu and deliver the fussel to the Hunter Headquarters in the Torrent District. Understand?"
"Understood," Troy assented. There went his hopes for exploring the storeroom. He went to tidy his clothes, and then to select a traveling cage for the bird. Would Rerne be there, back from his mysterious errand? He found himself hoping so.