The Time Traders, Andre Norton [positive books to read .txt] 📗

but this was different. Here, he could have believed it if he had been told he was the first man to walk this way.

A squirrel ran out on a tree limb and surveyed the two men with curious beady eyes, then clung head down on the tree trunk to see them better. One of the donkeys tossed its head, and the squirrel was gone with a flirt of its tail. Although it was quiet, there was a hum underneath the surface which Ross tried to analyze, to identify the many small sounds which went into its making.

Perhaps because he was trying so hard, he noted the faint noise. His hand touched Ashe’s arm and a slight movement of his head indicated the direction of the sound. Then, as fluidly as he had melted into the woods, McNeil returned. “Company,” he said in a soft voice.

“What kind?”

“Tribesmen, but wilder than any I’ve seen, even on the tapes. We are certainly out on the fringes now. These people look about cave level. I don’t think they’ve ever heard of traders.”

“How many?”

“Three, maybe four families. Most of the males must be out hunting, but there’re about ten children and six or seven women. I don’t think they’ve had good luck lately by the look of them.”

“Maybe their luck and ours are going to turn together,” Ashe said, motioning Ross forward with the donkeys. “We will circle about them to the river and then try bartering later. But I do want to establish contact.”

IX

“Not to be too hopeful⁠—” McNeil rubbed his arm across his hot face⁠—“so far, so good.” After kicking from his path some of the branches Ross had lopped from the trees they had been felling, he went to help his companion roll another small log up to a shelter which was no longer temporary. If there had been any eyes other than the woodland hunters’ to spy upon them, they would have seen only the usual procedure of the Beaker traders, busily constructing one of their posts.

That they were being watched by the hunters, all three were certain. That there might be other spies in the forest, they had to assume for their own safety. They might prowl at night, but in the daytime all of the time agents kept within the bounds of the roles they were acting.

Barter with the head men of the hunting clan had brought those shy people into the camp of the strangers who had such wonders to exchange for tanned deer hides and better furs. The news of the traders’ arrival spread quickly during the short time they had been here, so that two other clans had sent men to watch the proceedings.

With the trade came news which the agents sifted and studied. Each of them had a list of questions to insert into their conversations with the tribesmen if and when that was possible. Although they did not share a common speech with the forest men, signs were informative and certain nouns could be quickly learned. In the meantime Ashe became friendly with the nearest and first of the clan groups they discovered, going hunting with the men as an excuse to penetrate the unknown section they must quarter in their search for the Red base.

Ross drank river water and mopped his own hot face. “If the Reds aren’t traders,” he mused aloud, “what is their cover?”

McNeil shrugged. “A hunting tribe⁠—fishermen⁠—”

“Where would they get the women and children?”

“The same way they get their men⁠—recruit them in our own time. Or in the way lots of tribes grew during periods of stress.”

Ross set down the water jug. “You mean, kill off the men, take over their families?” This was a cold-bloodedness he found sickening. Although he had always prided himself on his toughness, several times during his training at the project he had been confronted by things which shook his belief in his own strong stomach and nerve.

“It has been done,” McNeil remarked bleakly, “hundreds of times by invaders. In this setup⁠—small family clans, widely scattered⁠—that move would be very easy.”

“They would have to pose as farmers, not hunters,” Ross pointed out. “They couldn’t move a base around with them.”

“All right, so they set up a farming village. Oh, I see what you mean⁠—there isn’t any village around here. Yet they are here, maybe underground.”

How right their guesses were they learned that night when Ashe returned, a deer’s haunch on his shoulder. Ross knew him well enough by now to sense his preoccupation. “You found something?”

“A new set of ghosts,” Ashe replied with a strange little smile.

“Ghosts!” McNeil pounced upon that. “The Reds like to play the supernatural angle, don’t they? First the voice of Lurgha and now ghosts. What do these ghosts do?”

“They inhabit a bit of mountainous territory southeast of here, a stretch strictly taboo for all hunters. We were following a bison track until the beast headed for the ghost country. Then Ulffa called us off in a hurry. It seems that the hunter who goes in there after his quarry never reappears, or if he does, it’s in a damaged condition, blown upon by ghosts and burned to death! That’s one point.”

He sat down by the fire and stretched his arms wearily. “The second is a little more disturbing for us. A Beaker camp about twenty miles south of here, as far as I can judge, was exterminated just a week ago. The message was passed to me because I was thought to be a kinsman of the slain⁠—”

McNeil sat up. “Done because they were hunting us?”

“Might well be. On the other hand, the affair may have been just one of general precaution.”

“The ghosts did it?” Ross wanted to know.

“I asked that. No, it seems that strange tribesmen overran it at night.”

“At night?” McNeil whistled.

“Just so.” Ashe’s tone was dry. “The tribes do not fight that way. Either someone slipped up in his briefing, or the Reds are overconfident and don’t care about the rules.