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In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himself answering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recall minutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one who had waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in about the L-B clearing. "No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood. "The verifier reported no intelligence."
But as soon as the story of their find leaked, there would be others on the scene, men trained to assess the signs of a castaway's fight for survival. His own Guild training and the ability of Wass' renegade techs should bring them through that test. What had Starns seen? The glint of sun on the tail of the L-B, tilted now to the sky?
Up their foothills and lower slopes was a thick furring of trees with foliage of so deep a green as to register black from this distance. And on the level country was the lighter blue-green of the other variety of wood edging the open country about the river. In there rested the L-B. "I don't see anything!" he snapped, so sharply the little man stared at him in open surprise.
He eyed the spread of limbs on a neighbor tree. His journey through those heights was awkward and he sweated and cringed when he disturbed vocal treetop dwellers. He was also to discover that close to the site of the L-B crash others waited. He huddled against the bole of a tree when he made out the curve of a round bulk holding tight to the tree trunk aloft.
Rynch gave a hunter's attention to the ground. A half-hour later he found nothing but some odd, almost obliterated marks on grass too resilient to hold traces very long. And from them he could make nothing. He knew where he was, even if he did not know how he got here. The L-B if it did exist was to the west.
Sun, Hume thought, could have been reflected from some portion of the L-B. He had believed that small spacer so covered with vines and ringed in by trees that it could not have been so sighted. But a storm might have disposed of some of nature's cloaking. If so Starns' interest must be fed, he would make an ideal discoverer. "Odd." Hume produced his distance glasses. "Just where, Gentlehomo?"
I had my reasons for wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the credits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found that L-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day dreaming I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as it happens, I want to stay one.
That I did not get here on the L-B, did not build that camp." He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced, he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous. "You have no cup this time." "So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. That need not necessarily spoil our plans.
And also on the boy now sleeping in a shallow cave formed by the swept roots of a tree a tree which had crashed when the L-B landed. Again, fortune favored Hume. With the dawn the rain was over. There was a cloudy sky overhead, but he believed the day would clear. The roily, rushing water of the river would aid Chambriss' quest.
"They or what sent them. They know what they are doing." "You mean they must have done this before?" "I think so. That L-B back there it made a good landing, and there are supplies missing from its lockers." "Which you removed " Rynch countered. "No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we found any trace of them. Now I can guess why "
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