Chapter IV

GORP HUNT

But the interruption had disturbed the tenor of trading. The small chief

who had so eagerly taken Paft's place had only two Koros stones to offer

and even to Dane's inexperienced eyes they were inferior in size and

color to those the other clan leader had tendered. The Terrans were aware

that Koros mining was a dangerous business but they had not known that

the stock of available stones was so very small. Within ten minutes the

last of the serious bargaining was concluded and the clansmen were

drifting away from the burned over space about the Queen's standing fins.

Dane folded up the bargain cloth, glad for a task. He sensed that he was

far from being back in Van Rycke's good graces. The fact that his

superior did not discuss any of the aspects of the deals with him was a

bad sign.

Captain Jellico stretched. Although his was not, or never, what might be

termed a good-humored face, he was at peace with his world. "That would

seem to be all. What's the haul, Van?"

"Ten first class stones, about fifty second grade, and twenty or so of

third. The chiefs will go to the fisheries tomorrow. _Then_ we'll be in

to see the really good stuff."

"And how's the herbs holding out?" That interested Dane too. Surely the

few plants in the hydro and the dried leaves could not be stretched too

far.

"As well as we could expect." Van Rycke frowned. "But Craig thinks he's

on the trail of something to help--"

The storm priests had uprooted the staff marking the trading station and

were wrapping the white streamer about it. Their leader had already gone

and now Tau came up to the group by the ramp.

"Van says you have an idea," the Captain hailed him.

"We haven't tried it yet. And we can't unless the priests give it a clear

lane--"

"That goes without saying--" Jellico agreed.

The Captain had not addressed that remark to him personally, but Dane was

sure it had been directed at him. Well, they needn't worry--never again

was he going to make that mistake, they could be very sure of that.

He was part of the conference which followed in the mess cabin only

because he was a member of the crew. How far the reason for his disgrace

had spread he had no way of telling, but he made no overtures, even to

Rip.

Tau had the floor with Mura as an efficient lieutenant. He discussed the

properties of catnip and gave information on the limited supply the Queen

carried. Then he launched into a new suggestion.

"Felines of Terra, in fact a great many other of our native mammals, have

a similar affinity for this."

Mura produced a small flask and Tau opened it, passing it to Captain

Jellico and so from hand to hand about the room. Each crewman sniffed at

the strong aroma. It was a heavier scent than that given off by the

crushed catnip--Dane was not sure he liked it. But a moment later Sinbad

streaked in from the corridor and committed the unpardonable sin of

leaping to the table top just before Mura who had taken the flask from

Dane. He miaowed plaintively and clawed at the steward's cuff. Mura

stoppered the flask and put the cat down on the floor.

"What is it?" Jellico wanted to know.

"Anisette, a liquor made from the oil of anise--from seeds of the anise

plant. It is a stimulant, but we use it mainly as a condiment. If it is

harmless for the Salariki it ought to be a bigger bargaining point than

any perfumes or spices, I-S can import. And remember, with their

unlimited capital, they can flood the market with products we can't

touch, selling at a loss if need be to cut us out. Because their ship is

not going to lift from Sargol just because she has no legal right here."

"There's this point," Van Rycke added to the lecture. "The Eysies are

trading or want to trade perfumes. But they stock only manufactured

products, exotic stuff, but synthetic." He took from his belt pouch two

tiny boxes.

Before he caught the rich scent of the paste inside them Dane had already

identified each as luxury items from Casper--chemical products which sold

well and at high prices in the civilized ports of the Galaxy. The

Cargo-master turned the boxes over, exposing the symbol on their

undersides--the mark of I-S.

"These were offered to me in trade by a Salarik. I took them, just to

have proof that the Eysies are operating here. But--note--they were

offered to me in trade, along with two top Koros for what? One spoonful

of dried catnip leaves. Does that suggest anything?"

Mura answered first. "The Salariki prefer natural products to synthetic."

"I think so."

"D'you suppose that was Cam's secret?" speculated Astrogator Steen

Wilcox.

"If it was," Jellico cut in, "he certainly kept it! If we had only known

this earlier--"

They were all thinking of that, of their storage space carefully packed

with useless trade goods. Where, if they had known, the same space could

have carried herbs with five or twenty-five times as much buying power.

"Maybe now that their sales' resistance is broken, we _can_ switch to

some of the other stuff," Tang Ya, torn away from his beloved

communicators for the conference, said wistfully. "They like color--how

about breaking out some rolls of Harlinian moth silk?"

Van Rycke sighed wearily. "Oh, we'll try. We'll bring out everything and

anything. But we could have done so much better--" he brooded over the

tricks of fate which had landed them on a planet wild for trade with no

proper trade goods in either of their holds.

There was a nervous little sound of a throat being apologetically

cleared. Jasper Weeks, the small wiper from the engine room detail, the

third generation Venusian colonist whom the more vocal members of the

Queen's complement were apt to forget upon occasion, seeing all eyes upon

him, spoke though his voice was hardly above a hoarse whisper.

"Cedar--lacquel bark--forsh weed--"

"Cinnamon," Mura added to the list. "Imported in small quantities--"

"Naturally! Only the problem now is--how much cedar, lacquel bark, forsh

weed, cinnamon do we have on board?" demanded Van Rycke.

His sarcasm did not register with Weeks for the little man pushed by Dane

and left the cabin to their surprise. In the quiet which followed they

could hear the clatter of his boots on ladder rungs as he descended to

the quarters of the engine room staff. Tang turned to his neighbor,

Johan Stotz, the Queen's Engineer.

"What's he going for?"

Stotz shrugged. Weeks was a self-effacing man--so much so that even in

the cramped quarters of the spacer very little about him as an individual

impressed his mates--a fact which was slowly dawning on them all now.

Then they heard the scramble of feet hurrying back and Weeks burst in

with energy which carried him across to the table behind which the

Captain and Van Rycke now sat.

In the wiper's hands was a plasta-steel box--the treasure chest of a

spaceman. Its tough exterior was guaranteed to protect the contents

against everything but outright disintegration. Weeks put it down on the

table and snapped up the lid.

A new aroma, or aromas, was added to the scents now at war in the cabin.

Weeks pulled out a handful of fluffy white stuff which frothed up about

his fingers like soap lather. Then with more care he lifted up a tray

divided into many small compartments, each with a separate sealing lid of

its own. The men of the Queen moved in, their curiosity aroused, until

they were jostling one another.

Being tall Dane had an advantage, though Van Rycke's bulk and the wide

shoulders of the Captain were between him and the object they were so

intent upon. In each division of the tray, easily seen through the

transparent lids, was a carved figure. The weird denizens of the Venusian

polar swamps were there, along with lifelike effigies of Terran animals,

a Martian sand-mouse in all its monstrous ferocity, and the native animal

and reptile life of half a hundred different worlds. Weeks put down a

second tray beside the first, again displaying a menagerie of strange

life forms. But when he clicked open one of the compartments and handed

the figurine it contained to the Captain, Dane understood the reason for

now bringing forward the carvings.

The majority of them were fashioned from a dull blue-gray wood and Dane

knew that if he picked one up he would discover that it weighed close to

nothing in his hand. That was lacquel bark--the aromatic product of a

Venusian vine. And each little animal or reptile lay encased in a soft

dab of frothy white--frosh weed--the perfumed seed casing of the Martian

canal plants. One or two figures on the second tray were of a red-brown

wood and these Van Rycke sniffed at appreciatively.

"Cedar--Terran cedar," he murmured.

Weeks nodded eagerly, his eyes alight. "I am waiting now for

sandalwood--it is also good for carving--"

Jellico stared at the array in puzzled wonder. "You have made these?"

Being an amateur xenobiologist of no small standing himself, the shapes

of the carvings more than the material from which they fashioned held his

attention.

All those on board the Queen had their own hobbies. The monotony of

voyaging through hyper-space had long ago impressed upon men the need for

occupying both hands and mind during the sterile days while they were

forced into close companionship with few duties to keep them alert.

Jellico's cabin was papered with tri-dee pictures of the rare animals and

alien creatures he had studied in their native haunts or of which he kept

careful and painstaking records. Tau had his magic, Mura not only his

plants but the delicate miniature landscapes he fashioned, to be

imprisoned forever in the hearts of protecting plasta balls. But Weeks

had never shown his work before and now he had an artist's supreme

pleasure of completely confounding his shipmates.

The Cargo-master returned to the business on hand first. "You're willing

to transfer these to 'cargo'?" he asked briskly. "How many do you have?"

Weeks, now lifting a third and then a fourth tray from the box, replied

without looking up.

"Two hundred. Yes, I'll transfer, sir."

The Captain was turning about in his fingers the beautifully shaped

figure of an Astran duocorn. "Pity to trade these here," he mused aloud.

"Will Paft or Halfer appreciate more than just their scent?"

Weeks smiled shyly. "I've filled this case, sir. I was going to offer

them to Mr. Van Rycke on a venture. I can always make another set. And

right now--well, maybe they'll be worth more to the Queen, seeing as how

they're made out of aromatic woods, then they'd be elsewhere. Leastwise

the Eysies aren't going to have anything like them to show!" he ended in

a burst of honest pride.

"Indeed they aren't!" Van Rycke gave honor where it was due.

So they made plans and then separated to sleep out the rest of the night.

Dane knew that his lapse was not forgotten nor forgiven, but now he was

honestly too tired to care and slept as well as if his conscience were

clear.

But morning brought only a trickle of lower class clansmen for trading

and none of them had much but news to offer. The storm priests, as

neutral arbitrators, had divided up the Koros grounds. And the clansmen,

under the personal supervision of their chieftains were busy hunting the

stones. The Terrans gathered from scraps of information that gem seeking

on such a large scale had never been attempted before.

Before night there came other news, and much more chilling. Paft, one of

the two major chieftains of this section of Sargol--while supervising the

efforts of his liege men on a newly discovered and richly strewn length

of shoal water--had been attacked and killed by gorp. The unusual

activity of the Salariki in the shallows had in turn drawn to the spot

battalions of the intelligent, malignant reptiles who had struck in

strength, slaying and escaping before the Salariki could form an adequate

defense, having killed the land dwellers' sentries silently and

effectively before advancing on the laboring main bodies of gem hunters.

A loss of a certain number of miners or fishers had been preseen as the

price one paid for Koros in quantity. But the death of a chieftain was

another thing altogether, having repercussions which carried far beyond

the fact of his death. When the news reached the Salariki about the Queen

they melted away into the grass forest and for the first time the Terrans

felt free of spying eyes.

"What happens now?" Ali inquired. "Do they declare all deals off?"

"That might just be the unfortunate answer," agreed Van Rycke.

"Could be," Rip commented to Dane, "that they'd think we were in some way

responsible--"

But Dane's conscience, sensitive over the whole matter of Salariki trade,

had already reached that conclusion.

The Terran party, unsure of what were the best tactics, wisely decided to

do nothing at all for the time being. But, when the Salariki seemed to

have completely vanished on the morning of the second day, the men were

restless. Had Paft's death resulted in some interclan quarrel over the

heirship and the other clans withdrawn to let the various contendents for

that honor fight it out? Or--what was more probable and dangerous--had

the aliens come to the point of view that the Queen was in the main

responsible for the catastrophe and were engaged in preparing too warm a

welcome for any Traders who dared to visit them?

With the latter idea in mind they did not stray far from the ship. And

the limit to their traveling was the edge of the forest from which they

could be covered and so they did not learn much.

It was well into the morning before they were dramatically appraised

that, far from being considered in any way an enemy, they were about to

be accepted in a tie as close as clan to clan during one of the temporary

but binding truces.

The messenger came in state, a young Salarik warrior, his splendid cloak

rent and hanging in tattered pieces from his shoulders as a sign of his

official grief. He carried in one hand a burned out torch, and in the

other an unsheathed claw knife, its blade reflecting the sunlight with a

wicked glitter. Behind him trotted three couples of retainers, their

cloaks also ragged fringes, their knives drawn.

Standing up on the ramp to receive what could only be a formal deputation

were Captain, Astrogator, Cargo-master and Engineer, the senior officers

of the spacer.

In the rolling periods of the Trade Lingo the torch bearer identified

himself as Groft, son and heir of the late lamented Paft. Until his

chieftain father was avenged in blood he could not assume the high seat

of his clan nor the leadership of the family. And now, following custom,

he was inviting the friends and sometimes allies of the dead Paft to a

gorp hunt. Such a gorp hunt, Dane gathered from amidst the flowers of

ceremonial Salariki speech, as had never been planned before on the face

of Sargol. Salariki without number in the past had died beneath the

ripping talons of the water reptiles, but it was seldom that a chieftain

had so fallen and his clan were firm in their determination to take a

full blood price from the killers.

"--and so, sky lords," Groft brought his oration to a close, "we come to

ask that you send your young men to this hunting so that they may know

the joy of plunging knives into the scaled death and see the horned ones

die bathed in their own vile blood!"

Dane needed no hint from the Queen's officers that this invitation was a

sharp departure from custom. By joining with the natives in such a foray

the Terrans were being admitted to kinship of a sort, cementing relations

by a tie which the I-S, or any other interloper from off-world, would

find hard to break. It was a piece of such excellent good fortune as they

would not have dreamed of three days earlier.

Van Rycke replied, his voice properly sonorous, sounding out the rounded

periods of the rolling tongue which they had all been taught during the

voyage, using Cam's recording. Yes, the Terrans would join with pleasure

in so good and great a cause. They would lend the force of their arms to

the defeat of all gorp they had the good fortune to meet. Groft need only

name the hour for them to join him--

It was not needful, the young Salariki chieftain-to-be hastened to tell

the Cargo-master, that the senior sky lords concern themselves in this

matter. In fact it would be against custom, for it was meet that such a

hunt be left to warriors of few years, that they might earn glory and be

able to stand before the fires at the Naming as men. Therefore--the thumb

claw of Groft was extended to its greatest length as he used it to single

out the Terrans he had been eyeing--let this one, and that, and that, and

the fourth be ready to join with the Salariki party an hour after nooning

on this very day and they would indeed teach the slimy, treacherous

lurkers in the depths a well needed lesson.

The Salarik's choice with one exception had unerringly fallen upon the

youngest members of the crew, Ali, Rip, and Dane in that order. But his

fourth addition had been Jasper Weeks. Perhaps because of his native

pallor of skin and slightness of body the oiler had seemed, to the alien,

to be younger than his years. At any rate Groft had made it very plain

that he chose these men and Dane knew that the Queen's officers would

raise no objection which might upset the delicate balance of favorable

relations.

Van Rycke did ask for one concession which was reluctantly granted. He

received permission for the spacer's men to carry their sleep rods.

Though the Salariki, apparently for some reason of binding and hoary

custom, were totally opposed to hunting their age-old enemy with anything

other than their duelists' weapons of net and claw knife.

"Go along with them," Captain Jellico gave his final orders to the four,

"as long as it doesn't mean your own necks--understand? On the other hand

dead heroes have never helped to lift a ship. And these gorp are tough

from all accounts. You'll just have to use your own judgment about

springing your rods on them--" He looked distinctly unhappy at that

thought.

Ali was grinning and little Weeks tightened his weapon belt with a touch

of swagger he had never shown before. Rip was his usual soft voiced self,

dependable as a rock and a good base for the rest of them--taking command

without question as they marched off to join Groft's company.