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Updated: June 24, 2025
He had no reason to believe Jellico was willing to agree to this. "You have two weeks' planet-side leave coming, Thorson. If you want to spend it on Khatka...." Jellico actually grinned then. "I take it that you do. When do we up-ship, sir?" "You said that you must wait for the return of your other crew members shall we say mid-afternoon tomorrow?"
Jellico began and then throttled down the temper he could put under iron control when and if it were necessary. "Very well, tell them to stay where they are. Van, we'll go down " For a moment the Cargo-master hesitated, his heavy-lidded eyes looked sleepy, he seemed almost disinterested in the suggestion. And when he nodded it was with the air of someone about to perform some boring duty.
He was a slender, almost wand-slim young man, whose pleased smirk said that he, too, was about to put something over on the notorious Free Traders. Jellico studied him for a couple of long seconds during which the hum of Salariki voices was the threatening buzz of a disturbed wasps' nest. There was no way out of this to refuse conflict was to lose all they had won with the clansmen.
Captain Jellico was in his quarters two levels above, Medic Tau was presumably overhauling his supplies, and Sindbad, ship's cat, asleep in some empty cabin. Dane jerked his tunic into place, very much on his guard as he came to the head of the ramp. But it was not the supervisor-rigger. Dane, thoroughly used to unusual-appearing strangers, both human and alien, was impressed by this visitor.
But the three spacemen were restless. Dane would have liked to have taken off his boots, but feared he could not replace them; and he could tell from the way the captain shifted his position that Jellico was in pain too. Tau sat quietly, staring at nothing Dane could see, unless it was a tall rock thrust out of the slope like a finger pointing skyward. "What color is that rock?"
Sparing the feelings of the accompanying storm priests about the offensiveness of the spacer Captain Jellico and Steen Wilcox went out to receive them in the open. Dane watched from the hatch, aware that in his present pariah-hood it would not be wise to venture closer. The Terran Traders were protesting some course of action that the Salariki were firmly insistent upon.
But I would suggest we now hunt a cave before nightfall." "Lions?" asked Jellico. Dane, remembering the black and white beast Lumbrilo had presented, did not enjoy that thought. They had his gaze went from man to man checking weapons the needler Asaki carried, and another the pilot had slung by its carrying strap over his shoulder.
He drank again and regained strength enough to crawl to where his shipmates lay. It was some time before he was interested in much besides the fact that he could drink when he wished. Then he watched Jellico waver to his feet, his head turned eastward. Tau, too, sat up as if alerted by the Queen's alarm buzzer. The Khatkans were gone, perhaps back to the water tree.
"Do you know what they plan to do about us, sir?" Captain Jellico grunted and there was a sardonic twist to his mouth as he replied, "It's my opinion that they're now busy adding up the list of crimes you four have committed maybe they had to turn the big HG computer loose on the problem. The tally isn't in yet.
Though he could also guess that the plush safari arranged for a paying client might be run on quite different lines from their own present trek. How could a tracker find his way through this? With the compasses playing crazy tricks into the bargain! Jellico knew that the compasses were off, yet the captain had followed Asaki's lead without question, so he must trust the Ranger's forest craft.
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