Tightly gripping his .58 Hawken, Caleb Pasco eased into the icy creek. His keen gaze moved from bank to bank as his moccasin-clad feet felt their way across the pebbly bottom. Ahead of him the stake anchoring his trap protruded from the rippling water.
Took the bait, he thought, now let's see what I got. Constantly scanning both banks, he ran his left hand down the stake and found the chain, hefted it and made a low whistle.
"By the almighty, this here's a big 'un." He continued watching the woods on either side of the creek. Blackfoot seldom announced their presence with aught but an arrow.
With practiced motions he slid the steel ring up the stake and towed the beaver carcass to the bank where his two horses waited. Caleb looked away from the surrounding trees long enough to free the mangled leg of the drowned rodent. He knew it didn't pay to open traps without minding your work.
He let his eyes rest on the animal for a long moment before glancing around.
If this don't beat all. Just when I thought all the streams in these mountains was done played out, I find this place.
But it just didn't calculate. This creek wasn't that far off the well-traveled trails. Just two years ago his old friend, Jim Bridger, had built himself a trading post on Black's Fork of the Green River not three days' steady travel from here. The beaver had played out long before that.
He let himself reflect on the heady days of the '20s and early '30s when he and the beaver were in their prime. Behind him, his horse snorted, bringing Caleb's gaze sweeping over the tree line. He dropped the trap and cocked the Hawken.
Spring had nearly trumped winter, new leaves hovered at bud stage, but dirty snow stubbornly lingered in shaded clefts. Nothing moved. He eased back to where his horses stood tied to a cottonwood. Clark, his mount, possessed more brains than Lewis, his packhorse.
Clark's ears twitched, and his eyes rolled from side to side. Spooked, Caleb decided. But by man or beast?
* * *
Ta'ffil ceased forward movement, thrillingly appreciative of the alert perception of one of the quadruped creatures she previously perceived as non-sapient. Slowly Ta'ffil extended a limb up into the massive celluloid stalk beside her, wrapped it about a horizontal division and pulled herself up into the juncture. The alpha creature clutched a chemical projectile weapon and peered about with its unenhanced primitive receptors. Barely sapient, she decided.
It looked at her, and she swiftly modified her skin to match the mottled green protuberances around her. The slave creature wiggled its antennae in Ta'ffil's direction. She considered retreat to her craft. Her mission concerned fuel, not the collection of yet another intelligent alien, but there was the wager.
The alpha creature touched the slave creature. "What's the matter, Clark?" Its clacking made no sense to her, not even registering in the upper frequencies where her species communicated.
The alpha creature continued twisting its sensory appendage back and forth, futilely seeking reason for the beta creature's discomfort. Ta'ffil's neural net oscillated between superiority and disdain. Her symbiote, Na'znn, was about to lose the mock wager between them.
The now-sure acquisition of this creature would put her two captures ahead of him. A swift tendril of glee pulsed through her. A ripple in the atmosphere abruptly claimed her attention.
The alpha creature stood beneath the celluloid stalk refuge and seemed to be regarding her.
"What the blue blazes is that, Clark?"
Despite the creature's ability to perceive only a limited spectrum, Ta'ffil realized it really saw her. She sent limbs upward while altering her chroma to match the rough textured cellulose.
Fear-tinged humiliation replaced superiority as she tried to meld with the plant, pushing her mass as close to integration with the stalk as possible. Her chroma now matched the rough exterior. Perhaps the creature would lose sight of her.
"Jehosaphat, Clark, that critter just turned into a piece of tree!"
Ta'ffil sensed awe in the polyglot nuances. Her superiority and elation flared anew as the creature suddenly hurried around the area, picking up unattached pieces of celluloid lying on the planet surface. Perhaps it intended to treat her as a deity, bow to her superior intelligence and abilities?
Still moving quickly, the creature carefully piled the loose celluloid around the base of her hiding-stalk. Ta'ffil's high emotion suddenly plummeted as the creature created sparks from objects grasped in its appendages. A smoke cilia wafted past her as small tongues of flame crept into the piled celluloid.
Ta'ffil realized her extreme peril and opened her sensory capability to maximum. No other stalks stood close enough to allow safe transfer. If she descended to the planet surface the creature would surely do her harm, and her nulgrav lay in her scout ship.
The flames rapidly oxidized the loose pieces. Heat rose and Ta'ffil experienced a ripple of panic that she instantly quashed. Quickly she ranged through her short span of options.
Retreat without the nulgrav would be useless. The Race could approach an enemy undetected without equipage. But, being conquerors, their retreats wanted mechanical aid.
She must descend or be consumed by the growing fire.
With hope of reflecting as much thermal radiation as possible, she altered her chroma to nil. Her mantle became chitinous, complete with defense points, and she felt the sharp hooks form in her locomotive limbs. The heat intensified and, with no other option left, she launched herself at the creature.
* * *
Caleb watched the thing turn white, thought maybe he'd killed it already. But it kept changing. He felt his hackles lift when the critter suddenly turned hard with sharp points rising out of its back.
Anything that hides in a tree at the edge of a man's camp has to be up to no good. Not to mention this thing was so skin crawling different from anything he had ever seen before, and he'd seen plenty. He reached over and grabbed his Hawken, holding it ready, just in case-
The critter suddenly snapped out of the tree at him like a flat tailless painter, shrilling like the banshees his momma told him about decades ago. Caleb instantly shouldered the Hawken and shot the critter dead center.
The heavy caliber ball went right through it, causing it to fall short - onto a bucking, screaming, firmly tied Lewis. The critter flopped on the horse like a slimy wet blanket, thrusting claws into the animal's body.
Lewis shrieked and jumped so hard all four hooves cleared the ground. The horse twisted in the air, desperately trying to throw the critter, biting at it. Then Lewis came down on his neck, snapping it with a loud crack.
"You sonuvabitch!" Caleb bellowed at the critter, racing over to Clark to get his horse pistol. Clark's eyes rolled whitely and froth ringed his nostrils as he lunged against the rope holding him to the fallen cottonwood. The tree had already gouged six feet of dirt.
"Clark, Clark," Caleb called, trying to sooth the horse but unable to disguise the fear and excitement in himself. He grabbed the reins and jerked hard, hating himself for hurting the animal.
Clark stopped jerking for a moment, his sides heaving and running with sweat. Caleb yanked open the pannier and grabbed the thick-handled pistol.
Cocking it while turning, he raced back to the mound of flesh he once called Lewis. The critter slowly slipped off the dead horse, oozing something black, no, dark green, Caleb decided.
As Caleb neared the critter, it stopped and bunched up on itself, raising its closest side slightly into the air. He shook powder into the pistol pan, took careful aim at the middle part, and fired.
A bright eye of fire suddenly appeared in its mass. The ball knocked the critter backward and part of it fell on the fire. It shrilled again, but not as loud as the first time, and slowly began pulling its parts out of the flames.
All Caleb had left was his skinning knife and the trap he'd pulled off the beaver. Instantly he grabbed the chain and swung the trap over and down on the critter as hard as he could. It shuddered like a gut-shot buffalo, trying to edge away.
Caleb, grinning like a madman, swung the trap again.
* * *
Ta'ffil neared insanity from the waves of agony. The heavy projectiles had torn through her assimilation organ and the plexus controlling locomotion. She knew this creature had killed her.
Her scout craft lay hidden only a few multiples away on the fuel deposit she was to collect. But it might as well be in orbit with the alpha ship for all it could offer her now. The Prime Maxim from her training burned through her agonized mind.
She touched her command pad, rippling code into it as quickly as possible. The heavy thing smashed into her again and she felt her consciousness ebbing. She rippled the last sequence and, with a feeling of victorious loss, died.
* * *
Caleb pulled the trap back and started to swing again. Three hundred feet up-slope, a tremendous explosion tore a hole in the mountain. Sixty-foot trees blew into flinders, and the shock wave knocked both man and horse off their feet. The burning tree slammed to the ground, barely missing Caleb, but obliterating the critter.
Caleb and Clark scrambled to their feet. The horse no longer tried to flee, but remained agitated. Caleb tried to see what the critter looked like, but pitch popped and snapped out of the burning fir tree, completely engulfing the creature.
Caleb stepped back from the heat. "What the hell? Nobody will believe this one. They'll think I'm a bigger liar than Coulter when he first told 'em about the Yellowstone country."
He turned and walked to Clark, ran his hands over the shuddering horse. "It's all right, Clark. It's all over now."
* * *
Na'znn abruptly regained full cognizance as the gel nest's pulse shifted to an irritating stutter. He silenced the alarm and caused the nest to expel him. Deftly spurting through the ship he caught a junction rod and changed direction without losing momentum.
Coming to rest at the pilot console, he scanned the readouts. The automatic communication link to Ta'ffil's craft had ceased. The only way the link could be destroyed was to destroy the scout craft itself.
Desolation and loss swept through him. Her essence now ranged beyond comprehension somewhere in the Transfer Plane. Why? How?
On their outward journey through this sector they had located a massive amount of fuel on this planet and placed a stasis field over the source. A thorough exploration revealed none of the primitive sapient creatures, and what sentient life existed inside the field would not suffer for the exclusion of outside creatures.
Only the arrival of Ta'ffil's scout craft could negate the field, so nothing could have been lying in wait for her.
This new situation lacked symmetry and Na'znn felt confused anger.
Self-preservation told him to leave this planet and continue toward home. Emotion cried for revenge against whatever had taken the essence of his symbiote. He ignored both. He must accede to the needs of the ship with its cargo of information and specimen.
Without the fuel supply on the planet's surface, the ship could not reach home. They had carefully extended their outward journey only after locating adequate fuel deposits on planets and asteroids they encountered along the way. Na'znn engaged the long-range sensors.
Ta'ffil's craft had self-destructed directly over the fuel deposit, vaporizing a third of the soft, pure metal.
He quickly calculated the remainder and discovered he needed almost all of it to return home safely. Now he must consider why Ta'ffil perished. Although he reveled in her seasonal sexual embrace, there had been much about the younger female that displeased him.
Impetuous to a fault, aggressive, and smug, she seldom considered the possible negative consequences of her actions. Her mental acuity ranked second to none, which accounted for her presence on this mission. While cogitating, he methodically set the ship for unattended duty, prepared the remaining scout craft for departure, and considered beginning the dirge for a fallen comrade.
Automatically, he directed a visual orb over the read-outs monitoring the specimen hold. All hovered close to death, locked in deep stasis.
After his return he would complete the rites for a lost symbiote. Now he didn't have the luxury of time. Without further ado he slipped through the auxiliary bay hatch and sealed it behind him.
The empty berth, which Ta'ffil's ship would never again fill, mocked him, causing him pause and heightening his grief. Moments later his scout craft emerged from the alpha ship and angled toward the bright blue-green planet below.
* * *
Caleb's mind seethed with questions as he finished quartering Lewis. At least the animal wouldn't go to waste. Caleb had acquired a taste for horseflesh during his first winter with the Shoshone, twenty, twenty-five years ago.
"You ain't quite as sweet as buff, but you'll do," he muttered to the meat while slicing flesh and expertly separating bones at the joints. All the while, his mind pondered the last three days.
The sudden discovery of a new valley had put him into a frazzle to begin with. He'd been through these parts a couple dozen times in the past forty years and he'd never seen this stream. A valley like this should have been one of the first to get picked clean.
Old Ned Bedlam had been one of those philosopher types before getting rubbed out by the Blackfoot. Claimed formal schooling from back east. He'd called the other trappers "fine examples of noble men, free-living and pure." He also talked about how these mountains had formed and the creeks, streams, and rivers had cut valleys and all.
Of course Caleb and the other mountain men had laughed hugely at his stories and pronouncements in genuine appreciation. But Caleb listened hard just the same, and he never forgot any of the things Old Ned told him. As far as Caleb knew, these mountains and streams had been here since Lucifer was a pup, unchanging and unchangeable.
But since then he'd noticed how things slowly did change; new channels cut in streams, oxbows cut off and left to dry up. Even the mountains changed slowly.
But new valleys didn't just happen. Three-year-old beaver didn't show up plump and sassy in an area where skittish one-year-olds were hard to find, let alone trap.
Caleb finished his butchering, wishing he had time to smoke the meat. He salted down the hide, folded it and tied it with his pile of beaver pelts. Clark would have to carry the hides and traps.
Caleb would walk out of the mountains this summer. That meant an early start. But once he finished with this creek, there probably wouldn't be anything else worth lollygagging about anyway.
He was leaving the mountains for good. Forty years of "pure, free living" had taken their toll, eroding his optimism and hubris down to mere shadows of their former selves. He wanted at least a decade of soft, civilized life before he died.
Last summer he'd tied the remains of Talking Woman, his Nez Perce wife, into a scaffold in a tree far up in the Grand Tetons. At first he didn't want the bother of another wife, but after a winter sleeping alone, he'd softened his mind. A nice, soft, plump little dumpling of a lady would be just the ticket to keep his bony ass warm through his remaining winters.
He eyed the pile of ashes left from the burnt tree, and lifted his gaze to where the explosion had bit a chunk out of the mountain. After a long thought he picked up his Hawken and moved cautiously up the slope.
The hole yawned widely, scooped out of solid rock on a small plateau. An unfamiliar stink hung in the air. In an odd way, Caleb decided, it smelled somewhat of heated metal, like a blacksmithy.
Something glinted at him from the hole. He surveyed every direction, taking his time, looking for movement, before deciding he could chance a quick trip to the bottom.
He tested every step with his toes, knowing a broken leg could mean a hard death. He reached the bottom and peered at the bright spot in the wall, a gouge in the wide band undulating across the face of the torn rock. After carving out a blob with his knife, Caleb examined it carefully.
Wonder flooded through him as he realized he had discovered a large vein of pure gold.
* * *
Na'znn allowed the planet's rotation to cloak the fuel deposit in darkness before landing nearby. He prepared the scout craft; activating the security and intruder systems, as well as the stasis shield, watching to ensure it redirected all local spectra. To the uninitiated, the small ship became invisible.
Unlike the younger and more adventurous Ta'ffil, Na'znn wore his nulgrav unit. No creeping about for him. She had mocked him in the past for using technology that gave him an advantage over local beings. Her adolescent games probably contributed to her death.
He refused to dwell on her void; the journey home would not be quick. Na'znn nullified local gravity and expertly caught the prevailing breeze to carry him to the fuel deposit. In less time than required for a mate-meld, he neared the fuel.
The scent of fresh fuel in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere pushed his ancient warrior-brain into the forefront of his reason. Following orders, Ta'ffil had landed directly over the deposit. The self-destruction of her craft had cost him a great deal.
Na'znn pulsed the nulgrav to stasis and settled near the gaping hole reeking of fuel and glowing strangely. The remaining task of placing the molecular transfer would take moments. Suddenly, a creature from the depths of his worst night-knots, illuminated from below, rose from the hole in front of him.
* * *
Caleb's body ran with sweat by the time he tossed the first two beaver skin bags of gold out of the hole. They made satisfying thuds. He grinned into the darkness, knew he was a fool to be mining at night. But the Blackfoot didn't roam after dark.
He dropped back into the hole to stare at the seam of gold in the wavering light of his small fire. Just the sight of it made his heart speed. After years in the mountains living hand-to-mouth he now found himself rich.
Visions of a mansion in St. Louis wafted through his mind. Forgetting the plump little lady: he saw himself surrounded by beautiful, young, alabaster-skinned women in fancy dresses, all vying for his attention. They would smell of perfume instead of woodsmoke, buckskin, and bad teeth.
The notion of it made him light-headed, nearly putting him in a faint.
"By the almighty," he muttered, "I can have anything I want. Nothing can stand in the way of wealth like this. I'll never have to worry about having enough meat."
He attacked the seam again, gouging out the soft, flawless metal with his heavy knife. The next two bags filled quickly. He tied them off with sinew and arched his back to relieve the ache.
"This is harder than trapping," he said with a groan. He grinned, realizing that each bag held at least the equivalent of three years' wages. This had happened at the right time, too; on his way out of the mountains.
He carried the two bags up and tossed them on the ground next - the first two bags weren't there. Instinctively, he grabbed his Hawken, cocking the heavy hammer as he brought it level with his waist, aiming into the night. Nothing moved.
No human could have snuck up and taken the bags, not that quickly. Caleb's senses heightened as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Nothing broke the skyline. Every shadow remained stationary in the warm night.
Sweat slid down his forehead, dripped off his nose. His eyes inched over memorized ground. Tension built in his chest.
The only thing that could have taken the gold was one of those critters. Nothing else could move silently enough to be undetectable to his trained ears.
"Why would something like that want gold?" Caleb asked aloud.
A tremor of hysterical mirth rose in him and he held it back, not allowing it freedom. Not since his expedition days in Blackfoot country had he been this frightened.
He'd been an eighteen-year-old private with the party of Meriwether Lewis when the Field brothers had knifed a Blackfoot to death in an argument gone bad, forever cursing the white race with an implacable foe. Remembering that frantic, mad dash the party made down through Blackfoot territory, until finally making contact with the force Clark led, had kept him looking over his shoulder to this day for the roached hair and hard, glittering eyes. And with spring now fully underway, the young bucks would be ready for stealing horses and women, and happily killing any washicu they happened across.
This fear was different. He understood the Blackfoot. He didn't understand this.
He eased off one foot and onto the other. The Hawken seemed to want to slip out of his sweaty hands and he strengthened his grip. He had been lucky to kill the last one.
He hoped his luck would hold.
* * *
Na'znn flowed into the hole as the creature left, flattening himself against the cold, bare mineral wall, quickly adopting its texture and chroma. He retained the small clutches of fuel. Exactly what did the creature mean by its act?
Had this creature caused Ta'ffil's death and now offered the fuel as an act of atonement? Or had the creature witnessed the death of Na'znn's companion and thought them superior beings? If the act was an offering, why did the creature advance and brandish a weapon?
While parsing coherency from the confusion offered, Na'znn became aware of the creature's oral communications.
"It don't float, Clark. What would a walking porcupine rug want with gold?"
Na'znn determined that the creature spoke to the quadruped. It didn't seem sapient, but definitely sentient. While the first creature communicated, the second creature stared fixedly at the hole. Na'znn retracted the pseudopod, altering the cells from sensory to protection.
Na'znn flowed over to the thick streak of fuel and anchored the molecular transfer node. With a slight tick, the apparatus began converting the mineral into plasma. Almost instantly the transfer beam hummed in the air between hole and scout craft, glowing redly as fuel plasma began flowing across the space.
"What the hell!" The creature suddenly loomed over the hole, weapon pointing at the molecular transfer. "It's eating up my gold?"
Before Na'znn could react, the creature lifted its weapon and a sensory-withering blast smashed the molecular transfer node into atoms. He adapted his coloration to fit the cold wall, feeling exposed and vulnerable.
The beam winked out of existence and fuel thudded to the planet surface in a long glistening line pointing toward the hidden scout craft.
The creature hurried to the soft metal and grabbed a fragment, then quickly dropped it, waving one appendage in the air.
"Shee-it!" It bellowed. "This gold's hotter'n banked coals!"
Na'znn realized the creature also wanted the fuel; there had been no offering, no contrition for killing his mate.
After extending a visual orb over the lip of the hole to ascertain the creature's location, Na'znn flowed out into the surrounding plants undetected. From his concealment, he watched the creature make piles of loose celluloid equidistant around the hole and then transfer them into bright, hot oxidization.
Na'znn knew a defensive perimeter when he saw one. He realized war had been declared. Rippling commands into his nulgrav, he lifted silently into the night.
* * *
Caleb added fuel to the fires and peered about in the dark. The gold vein glinted invitingly from the hole. Nothing stirred in the surrounding area.
He slipped into the hole and began gouging gold from the vein, letting it fall into the bottom of the pit. He would collect it later. Rather than worrying about every ounce freed from the wall, he would dig as much as possible and collect what he could.
He realized there must be another creature out there, and this one was smarter than the first. Faced with actual wealth and the opportunity to spend his last years being totally profligate, one of the best words Ned Bedlam ever taught him, he wasn't going to run from this. The new critter would have to best him.
Every few minutes he would drop his knife, grab his Hawken and survey the area around the hole. Nothing. He went back to the vein.
Dawn washed over the eastern horizon by the time Caleb finished filling his sacks with gold. Exhaustion weighted every fiber of his being, and his hands shook as he set the bags on the rim of the hole. Finally, he grabbed his Hawken and clambered out to sit and survey the surrounding area.
He was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. But he knew if he let his guard down now, he might lose everything he had mined during the night. He didn't know why the critter wanted the gold, but why didn't matter; the fact was enough.
Caleb added fuel to all the fires and hurried over to where Clark waited. The horse followed the lead readily, which told Caleb that no critter lurked in the area. Within a quarter of an hour he had his panniers packed with the precious metal.
His confidence climbed to new heights. Certain wealth gave a man a stiffer spine. For the first time the thought of trapping the critter crossed his mind.
* * *
Na'znn scouted the hole at three multiples, safely concealed behind the celluloid stalks ringing the site. The creature had departed. Immediately he flowed into the hole and measured the fuel lode.
The remainder proved inadequate for the ship's needs. The creature had taken an amazing amount of the metal during the dark phase. Na'znn cautiously circled the primitive dwelling where the creature lay.
When he neared six multiples of the shelter, the quadruped became highly agitated, jerking at its lashing and emitting high-pitched sounds. Na'znn reversed his course immediately and settled among the celluloid stalks. The creature stumbled out of its shelter, chemical-projectile -weapon at the ready.
"What's wrong Clark, the critter back?" He peered around the small clearing. He rubbed at his visual sensors; the weapon in his other hand wavered.
"Damn, but I need me some sleep." The weapon sagged. "Keep watch, Clark, I can't do more right now."
Na'znn watched the creature vanish into his small shelter. He fastened his attention on the quadruped. If he could eliminate the ancillary creature, he could easily surprise and eliminate or capture the alpha creature.
A cilia of new self-realization flashed though him. He realized a part of him wanted to capture the creature that killed his symbiote. The other specimen now held in stasis on the ship were intelligent or dangerous in their own right, but they hadn't come close to killing a member of his race. Taking the creature back to his home planet would achieve symmetry.
The quadruped ate at the small ground-cover cellulose but continually lifted its head to stare in Na'znn's direction. There would be no surprising this creature. Unless he attacked from above.
He couldn't use the weapons on the scout ship for fear of destroying the shelter and the collected fuel along with the two creatures. He would have sink to more primitive means to realize his objective. The heavy gravity of this planet would become an ally.
Na'znn found a piece of worthless mineral roughly the size of the alpha creature's head and extruded appendages around it. Once he had a firm grip, he flowed commands into his nulgrav. The device lifted him slowly, whining at the extra load.
He knew he must gain many multiples to rise above the quadruped's awareness. The personal nulgrav was not designed to lift as much as a large material-handler. It now generated enough heat to make Na'znn uncomfortable physically as well as mentally.
He couldn't gain the elevation he wished. Perhaps he was high enough? At the maximum speed he could achieve he came at the creature from behind, hoping its hearing was not as keen as its smell and vision.
Mere seconds before his calculated release of the crude missile, the quadruped jerked at its lashing and jumped to the side, eyes rolling whitely and shrilling loudly. The alpha creature burst from its shelter, quickly determining the direction of the quadruped's alarm. The creature aimed its weapon at Na'znn, shouted, "Went for the bait, didn't ya?" and fired at the same moment Na'znn launched the rock into its trajectory.
The creature's projectile hit the waste material as Na'znn's nulgrav, free of the massive load, immediately pulled him upward in a rapid climb. He steered it back toward the largest stand of celluloid and came to rest high in the thin appendages of the tallest specimen he could find.
A combination of fear and respect coalesced in his mind as he realized this creature was a worthy opponent - exactly what he did not need at this stage of his homeward journey. Their search had borne success unimaginable. They had found two worlds where they thought their race could prosper unthreatened.
Na'znn found it bitter that this world was half of their discovery. He faced vast distances before he could rest, and no early-chemical-era creature was going to stop him.
* * *
Caleb sat in shock, staring at his mangled left leg. The rock had shattered the knee and most of the leg beneath it. He knew if the leg didn't come off immediately, he would die, that he might anyway.
"Didn't realize I was using my leg as bait..."
The critter hadn't pressed its advantage, flying away as quick as any bat or swift. How long would it be before the thing took advantage of his debilitation?
Struggling to remain conscious he wrapped a leather thong around his thigh above the carnage, twisted it tight with a stick, and tied it off. The pain lanced through the shock and he put a second stick between his teeth so he wouldn't grind them to bits. Caleb thrust the wide blade of his largest knife into the coals of the smoldering fire.
He pulled out his sharpest skinning knife and without hesitation sliced through skin and muscle to separate his left knee joint.
He tried to scream past the stick as he worked, finally accepting the pain as the world he lived in while finishing the job. The smashed and splintered limb fell away. Caleb rolled over to the smoldering campfire embers, grabbed his large knife, and held it firmly against the bloody stump.
The stench of seared flesh saturated the air along with his scream of agony. Tears coursed down his face as he wrapped the stump in the cleanest piece of cloth he owned and tied it tight with rawhide lashings. Finally he crawled into the small tent and, despite threat from without, allowed himself unconsciousness.
* * *
Na'znn stirred from his comatose state and opened all senses to their widest spectrum. The familiar pilot nest of the scout craft invigorated his determination. He ingested sustenance from one of the combination of tubes at his side.
Energy surged through him and he directed the major portion to his brain. Fear still lurked in the edges of his mind and only a solution to his problem would banish it forever. Why was the creature being so possessive of the fuel?
If any void drives existed on this planet they were superior to the point they didn't emit the telling radiation inherent in the exhaust process. He doubted the technology necessary for construction of a sophisticated craft like his existed on this world. The fuel could not be ingested by any living creature Na'znn had yet encountered, including the one with which he now vied.
This defied logic; what possible use could the creature have for soft metal of such dense complexity?
Na'znn ceased his thought processes. He was wasting precious time. When they established orbit around this planet all those cycles ago, they had investigated most of the non-liquid surface with their electronic probes.
They found many deposits of fuel, but this one lay closest to the surface and by far had the purest concentration of all, considering its bulk. He flushed his mind in exasperation. Of all the times to be challenged by a technically inferior race!
By his own count he had physically touched the surface of over a thousand different worlds. His name would forever be recited at the beginning of every new cycle as one of the Race's most prolific cosmic explorers. The Race had even named a distant star system for him. This voyage with a nubile female of great intelligence potential had been a reward unto itself.
The sex had been memorable. His mental glow chilled and splintered. Ta'ffil had been killed by a creature who, through its savage seizure and defense of valuable fuel, now threatened Na'znn's life as well.
His ship's disrupters were designed to eliminate herds of threats, not single ones. Nor did they discriminate between enemy and fuel: they disrupted all atoms completely and irrevocably. He would have to trap the creature away from the fuel, and kill it.
* * *
Caleb jerked in response to a dream, and the instant agony in his knee jerked him into howling consciousness. He dragged himself out into the light of a new dawn and pulled down the remnants of his breeches to examine the left thigh.
"No dark streaks," he grated, "...no pizen in the blood."
He ignored the pain thumping in tandem with his heart, taking stock of his situation. There was a critter from a man's sweatiest nightmares out there, and it wanted to kill him. It had damn near succeeded.
He chewed his pipe and wistfully dwelt on how much he would welcome a plug of real tobacco. Grinding his teeth on the stem, he realized he didn't have the luxury of thinking about anything other than how to kill that damned critter out there. It sure as hell wasn't going to let him haul the gold out of here without a fight.
What the hell would a thing like that want with gold? Did they deem the metal precious even in hell? After a moment's reflection, he decided there might be some currency in that notion after all.
How do you beat the devil, especially with only one leg?
The obvious hit him between the eyes like a Galena pill: you use the right bait!
Once he had the critter out of the way, Clark could carry him, or the gold, back to civilization. The animal couldn't bear both burdens.
Watching the sky and his surroundings constantly, using his Hawken as a staff, he hobbled around the area until he found a sapling with a gentle fork. With a few deft hatchet strokes the sapling became a crutch complete with a beaver pelt pad for his armpit. After a few stumbles, he decided he needed a second crutch to allow him to move faster.
Within an hour he moved about the area smartly on two sticks. He fashioned a sling for the Hawken to hang across his back and practiced pulling the weapon around for instant presentation.
Using pain as a prod, he went about setting his trap.
* * *
Na'znn regained acuity before the preset alarm could wake him. Realizing he wasn't getting the amount of neural-cleansing unconsciousness his age and mass required gave him more pause and self-searching. Perhaps he should abandon this deposit and find another; alternative locations existed on this planet.
But none so remote, the Divine Fruit alone knew what had happened on the alternate sites, assuming they still existed in the pristine state he and Ta'ffil had discovered so many cycles ago. He didn't like chance or ungoverned cilia.
Just how many cycles had passed on this planet? He relaxed his mind into computation mode, where he had always excelled since gaining cognizance. The answer surprised and subdued him instantly.
Six hundred and eighty-nine orbits around the planet's prime star had passed since he and, and his crew had stopped here to explore. Much could happen among these short-lived creatures in that amount of time. Such civilizations had been encountered before in the history of the Race and all had proved bothersome, unable to appreciate the future as species goal beyond their own immediate needs and desires.
Greedy. This creature is greedy, Na'znn realized with blinding clarity. Offer it what it most desires. Na'znn began checking the resources of his scout craft.
* * *
After a breakfast of roasted horsemeat, Caleb felt ready to fight. The morning sky held no clouds but a scent of newness in the air hinted at full spring, just a few weeks away. Another prod, Caleb thought. He didn't want to be in the mountains when the hostile tribes began stretching their legs.
Crutches were worthless in a running fight.
He finished loading the gold into the panniers on Clark. The horse was his best weapon. Clark could sense that rug from hell before Caleb even knew it was close. He rubbed the horse's bony skull between the upright ears.
"We get outta this one, old friend, and you'll never work again as long as you live. I'll feed you corn and fresh apples till you bust."
Clark swung his head around and regarded Caleb for a moment with one large, brown eye, and snorted in response.
Caleb missed Lewis, but the animal hadn't possessed half the brains Clark had. He hoped he could eventually find a woman with as much common sense as his horse. Abruptly he pushed those thoughts into the back of his mind; he didn't have time for daydreaming.
"C'mon, Clark, let's go bait the trap."
He looped Clark's reins through his leather belt and slung the Hawken on his back. He hated having to use both hands to ambulate; it just wasn't safe.
Slowly they traversed the meadow and stopped at a rock ledge that cupped slightly. A thick stand of fir grew on top of the ledge, offering concealment for his critter trap. Caleb took a deep breath and started climbing the gentle slope of the ridge; he knew this would be the hardest part. Clark followed, completely at ease.
Once they gained the top of the ridge, Caleb allowed himself a rest and some mouthfuls of water. Then he pulled his double-bladed axe out from its lashings atop the panniers and got to work.
* * *
Na'znn expelled a few densometers of fuel onto the planet surface, leaving only enough to return to the alpha ship. If he did not return with fuel, he would die in orbit around this backward planet, unsung and missed by few. He ejected himself from the scout craft without further consideration of his position, fearing he would not be at his warrior best.
For this expedition he wore both his personal nulgrav and his material-handler. If called to do so, he could lift a mass twice the size of the alpha ship in this gravity. The neural net he brought with him was powered high enough to render unconsciousness to any species known to the Race.
He was angry beyond the dictates of good breeding and more than ready to rid himself of an inferior creature who had thus far thwarted him by pure chance. In moments he moved forward to where the fuel lay on the planet's surface. It did have a certain alluring sheen in its purest state, he decided, receptors firmly focused on visual.
The creature's vision, he had analyzed and decided, used only a third of the visual spectra available to the Race. Therefore he reduced his visual awareness to the same spectrum. Since he had such a technological advantage, he felt it worthy to at least narrow the conflict to the same spectra.
He attached the fuel to his material-handler and moved out to create his deception. The Race depended on him.
* * *
Caleb pushed the last boulder up the rough ramp and groaned when it fell onto the others. He wiped his brow and considered the prospect of defeat. Once he placed the counter-weight, how on earth would he release the force holding it in check?
He eyed the trees around him and spied two prospective allies in exactly the correct position. He grinned. More work, but now he knew his trap would work.
With a groan he rolled off the log and crutched over to an even larger rock. Half the day elapsed before Caleb finished his labors. Worried that it seemed obvious to the casual passerby, he cut more disguising fronds than he really needed.
He was ready for the critter.
* * *
Na'znn regarded his work and deemed it convincing. The amount of fuel used to lure the creature was small enough that if destroyed he wouldn't jeopardize his journey home. He engaged both his personal nulgrav and the material handler. They worked together as designed, lifting him quickly into the nitrogen-rich atmosphere.
Despite the indigenous creatures, this planet invigorated him to the point he felt multiples of cycles younger than his span. The thought gave him pause and a flicker of regret. This creature was obviously the dominant species on this planet. If they could be found in this remote location, they probably swarmed the rest of the landmasses.
The Laws of Exploration forbade displacing any species evolved sufficiently to the point of tool making. Na'znn doubted the creature he faced had created the primitive weapons he used so skillfully. Lost in his negative contemplation of his situation, he missed the lure on his first pass over the area.
The entire clutch of fuel the creature had appropriated lay in a pile at the base of a mineral up-thrust, directly in front of an impenetrable mass of the large celluloid stalks prevalent in this area. Na'znn powered down and anchored to a lateral juncture of the tallest stalk with a clear view of the clutch. Based on recent experience, something suspect hid in this situation.
It was everything he wanted on this planet.
The adversary creature was remote to the point that Na'znn's heat signature indicator detected nothing larger than the small cilia-covered warm-bloods that hopped around seemingly unaware and constantly fell prey to larger warm-bloods or the variety of swift sky-creatures.
It had to be a trap.
But how? He heightened his visual acuity to the maximum and carefully surveyed the areas above, and around the clutch. Nothing registered, nothing of importance moved. Keeping his first impulse firmly in mind, he moved to the second.
Could it be a gesture of acquiescence? He felt quite negative about that postulant. Had the creature become incapacitated?
Na'znn felt a charge of elation course through his body. Of course, that was it! He thought back to his attack; had he seen the piece of waste mineral actually hit the planet?
No.
Had he actually hit his target despite his equipment failure and the extraordinary senses of the beta animal? He wasn't sure. He could bite himself for leaving the scene before the attack reached total conclusion.
Doubt led to conjecture and he finally decided that this could actually be a gesture of, if not surrender, perhaps truce. If true, he could go home, immediately. Na'znn played his detection equipment over the area one more time, and found naught.
At full alert, and with all senses wide open, he settled next to the clutch.
* * *
Caleb nearly fainted when the critter landed next to the gold.
The sonuvabitch actually took the bait! But it just sat there next to the pile. It needed to crawl up on it, so his aim would be perfect.
He didn't want to use his entire arsenal; it would mean a lot more work for him, and summer was coming fast.
The critter fluttered, or something, and it was on the close side of the pile. He wished he'd had the forethought to cock his Hawken. From here he could drill it clean and save everybody a mess of trouble.
But he knew the softest movement of metal on metal would spook that thing worse than shaking a Sioux rattle in a wild colt's face. So he waited, knife bared and resting on the rope of horsehide crafted earlier. The horsehide not being cured even a little, stretched constantly with little groaning sounds, and he wondered how well, exactly, that critter could hear.
The critter did something and suddenly half the leather bags holding the gold just went away like ice melting. A hum filled the air and a line of gold suddenly shot through the air like a rope and the pile began to shrink in on itself.
Hidden in the den he had dug out in the soil over the rock face, Caleb, without thinking, cocked the Hawken and aimed down at the device the critter had lit off. He fired and hit the thing dead center, blowing it into pieces.
"How many of them damn things does that critter have?"
Without hesitation he grabbed his knife, reached up and severed the horsehide rope. He pulled back into hole, knowing he had shot his bolt and if it didn't work, he was a goner.
* * *
Na'znn abruptly sequenced into attack mode when the molecular transfer node exploded. The roar of the chemical projectile came from above and he fired his disrupter at the source, activating the material handler at the same time and created a stasis field over the fuel clutch.
He started to lift off with the entire mass when the rock face above him roared down, burying him with the fuel.
* * *
"Damn, damn, damn!" Caleb screamed.
This wasn't what he had planned. That damn critter had botched everything. He pulled himself out of his little den and made his way down to the pile of rubble covering his gold.
Whatever that critter had shot at him must be powerful poison. The blast had dislodged rocks three times the weight of Clark. There was no chance of Caleb digging the gold out by himself.
He eyed the thumb-thick line of gold heading ruler-straight toward the woods on the other side of the meadow. Getting Clark from his hiding place took longer than he liked, but his stump ached; his leg wanted rest.
The sun hung directly overhead by the time Caleb started picking up the gold. It had broken in many places but he still could find lengths up to a yard long. They were wonderfully heavy.
As he picked the metal off the ground, he loaded the two panniers on Clark at an even rate, so as not to throw the animal off balance. The gold stopped about fifty feet shy of the tree line. That critter's contraption would make a wonderful miner, Caleb decided.
The gold was completely pure; the humming thing had rejected any waste rock that might have stuck to it. After picking up the last of the gold, Caleb sat on one of the many large boulders in the meadow. He had enough to set himself up in St. Louis or perhaps somewhere smaller.
He'd always liked St. Genevieve just downriver from St. Louis. Real smart little town and the folks were friendly. Lots of pretty girls lived there, too, if memory served. A cloud had moved over the sun and when it passed something glinted in the grass near the tree line where the gold had been headed.
Caleb slowly looked all around the area before pushing himself upright, grunting a little with the bite of new pain. After adjusting the Hawken he crutched slowly toward the glint. He stopped and looked around again before staring down in disbelief.
More of the pure gold lay scattered about like a load of firewood dropped after stumbling. The critter had to have put it there, but why? As bait, sure as winter snow.
It had planned to trap him! Caleb laughed out loud for a minute before remembering there might be other threats nearby. But this threat was buried under a ton of rocks; he knew that for fact.
Still he waited while he parsed it all out. The critter was the trapper, not the trap. Look as he might Caleb couldn't see any waiting jaws in the grass.
But that thing could fly, and might have traps that he couldn't even understand, let alone see. He had enough gold to buy land, build a house and probably purchase a successful business. Owning a mill had always appealed to him; folks always need the service of a good miller.
He didn't need that gold lying there, but it would sure as hell make a welcome addition to a man's old age. Something kept him from moving, something he couldn't put his finger on nagged at the back of his mind.
"Follow yer gut," Caleb said to himself.
He felt itchy, like the time he and Frenchy Joe found the burnt trapper cabin up in the Tetons. Caleb had counseled taking a different trail. Frenchy Joe insisted on continuing their direction and they stumbled into the midst of a Blackfoot war party.
Four of the nine Blackfoot had perished along with Frenchy Joe, and Caleb had hightailed out of there with an arrow through the thigh. He'd been double lucky that day; the arrow had missed the big artery in his leg. The old wound still troubled him when the weather changed.
Now he stared at the gold as dispassionately as he was able, and wondered what sort of trap a critter like that had in his outfit. He remembered the explosion after he killed the first critter, and wondered why there hadn't been an explosion after the second one was buried by a ton of rock.
Part of the trap, maybe?
What would it take to spring the trap, closer inspection? He was too far from the gold to reach it with his crutch. He needed a curved piece on the end of a pole.
After placing a piece of fringe from his coat on the ground to mark his closest advance, Caleb crutched backward away from the gold, worried something might charge out of the woods at him. Nothing moved. He glanced around at the saplings and found one that suited to perfection.
After another hard look around his horizon, he pulled his hatchet free and with a few economical strokes, converted the sapling into a two-pronged rake. He tied Clark to another sapling to keep him out of the way if somehow he tripped a trigger. Clutching the rake and his crutch in his right hand was cumbersome and a bit painful, but possible.
He advanced to where the fringe lay on the ground. Raking four pieces of the gold over to where he stood proved simple. Another nine lay farther away. For the life of him he just couldn't see any trap.
"But neither does the beaver," he muttered to himself in a grim tone.
He shifted his left crutch and the arrow hit it instead of piercing through his side and into his heart.
"Damn! The Blackfoot found my trail." He threw himself to the ground behind one of the boulders as a small flurry of arrows whisked through space he had just vacated.
He pulled his Hawken around and cocked it. Resting it on the rock he pulled his heavy horse pistol out of his belt and cocked it as well. Somehow the pain in his leg didn't seem as intense as it had just moments ago.
He wished he'd had the presence of mind to count the arrows, but he knew he faced at least six warriors, maybe more. He glanced down at the shaft that had gone so far into the two-inch-thick crutch that the point of the arrow showed on the other side.
"One 'a them bastards out there's got a strong arm fer certain."
He forced himself silent. One of the bad habits a loner develops is talking out loud. Nervous as he might be, he had to keep his mouth shut. It was a pure wonder they couldn't hear his heart thudding in his chest.
It's been long enough, he thought, the one most excited about making a name for himself is going to do something brave, and stupid -
"Ei-yi-yi-yi!" the scream shot across the meadow ahead of the racing warrior. Caleb watched him for a long moment, admiring the physical sleekness of the young man, probably not twenty summers yet, as his greased muscles rippled and moved in a sinuous concert of power and agility. The warrior wore yellow and vermilion paint on his face, and some sort of bird and feather arrangement flopped in his knotted hair.
The brave waved a steel bladed hatchet in one hand and a fearsome war club in the other.
Caleb laid the Hawken down and picked up the horse pistol. When the screaming Blackfoot got within ten feet, Caleb shot him through the head. The ball hit him mid stride and dropped him flat on his back.
For a few moments the feet kept trying to run, drumming heels in the grass, and then stopped. Caleb had already reloaded the pistol. He twisted around, trying to look everywhere at once.
Another one or two would come at him from a different direction and the rest from a third compass point. Even if he had two legs this would be a bad spot. He figured he wouldn't have to worry about the gold any longer. "Dead men cain't spend," he whispered.
Running feet, there, behind him. They were between him and Clark now, grinning as they ran, proud owners of a new horse and a full season's pelts. Neither carried a firearm, both bore long handled, deadly steel hatchets traded from the French.
Caleb pulled both his knives free of their sheaths. Holding the big one in his left hand, he flipped the smaller one in his right and grasped it by the front of the blade, then threw. He sank the little knife into the closest brave's chest from twenty paces.
The second attacker glanced at his dying friend, and checked his rush maybe a half step, before throwing his enraged self at the washicu. Caleb parried the hatchet swing with his hastily grabbed right crutch and, holding his big knife blade downward and edge out, swung out and severed the second warrior's throat.
Panting, he threw himself to the ground before his adversary had time to stumble forward and fall. Three arrows whizzed over him. He lay on the ground longer than he dared, but he was completely winded and covered with sweat.
I'm too old for this life. Mebbe I stayed one season too long. But this was the season of the gold, he reflected.
Were only three left, maybe four? I might get out of this after all.
Shrieks filled the air and he twisted around to see five Blackfoot charging from the other side of the tree line straight at him. Earlier he had figured the dead critter's trap zone was at least a fifty-foot circle and he knew it was close to the gold bait. They were going to run right through it!
One of the Blackfoot had a Pennsylvania rifle and pulled up short to shoot at Caleb. The ball took Caleb's left ear lobe off and pissed him mightily.
"Yew bastard!" He leveled the Hawken and shot the Indian through the chest. The man spun and dropped.
The other four shrieked all the louder, knowing Caleb didn't have time to reload, and that they had him outnumbered-
A piercing, unearthly, gleet rang out from the denser woods. The two braves closest to the sound slowed and turned their attention to a possible new threat. The other two continued their shrieking attack - and suddenly blew to bits as a high-pitched, jaw-aching sound issued from the woods.
Caleb's jaw dropped open as he tried to see pieces of the two men or their weapons. The just weren't there any more! The last two Indians stared at Caleb in astonishment, glanced at each other, then turned and fled in the other direction.
At any other time Caleb would have hugely enjoyed the obvious misconstruction of the situation by the Blackfoot. But he was still trying to find some evidence that the other two braves had ever existed. There wasn't even a feather left.
He stood and looked down at the gold on the ground. Pursing his lips, he nodded toward the gold and whatever else was back there, and turned to collect his weapons. He took one step and halted in astonishment.
A small mountain sailed through the air, directly at him. The instant realization that he had underestimated the critter didn't give him pause. That thing had just saved his bacon and no mistake, whether it did it on purpose or not.
A fierce kinship bloomed in him and he cheered as rock and dirt tumbled to the ground and the critter flew over him with the bait gold.
* * *
When the rock face fell on him, a large piece of stone had hit Na'znn's core lump and knocked him into a comatose state. After some degrees of the planet's revolution, he collected his synapses and surveyed his situation. The material handler held its field effortlessly and Na'znn thanked the Divine Fruit for the solid technical expertise of the Race.
He heard the defense perimeter sound its warning and then the disrupter fire. The creature had taken his bait! Na'znn rippled instructions into the material lifter and his personal nulgrav, then he and the mass of waste rock above him lifted into the air.
With a deft twitch he rocked the material lifter to the side and the mass of waste material smashed to the planet surface. Carrying only the clutch of precious fuel, he set course for his scout ship.
And felt complete bewilderment when he sailed directly over the equally astonished creature. He settled over the ship and instantly fed the fuel into the sorter maw. He rotated in the atmosphere and looked back at the creature.
He could leave now, he had enough fuel to make it to the next star system where two planets held impressive amounts of fuel. But would this creature contest his acquisition of the fuel it held in such high regard?
It finally moved. Holding its chemical weapon above its body, it raised and lowered the weapon in two quick jerks. Then it turned and juttered away. One of its lower limbs had been lost. Na'znn allowed a touch of smugness to cloud his mind before diving into the scout craft. His trajectory had been perfect but for the chemical projectile offsetting it a mere fraction of a multiple.
He slid into the pilot's perch and activated the ship.
* * *
The farther Caleb got from the situation, the less he believed what he had witnessed. But two panniers stuffed with gold validated all his recollections, no matter how strange.
"It went straight up into the air, clear out of sight! You saw it, Clark, didn't ya?"
The horse swung its head to the left enough to acknowledge the question and then faced forward as the two slowly moved east, out of the mountains, and toward St. Genevieve.
* * *