Missing Link | Page 4

agree, but--"
The call bell jangled.
* * * * *
Stetson's voice sounded tired: "Yeah, Hal?"
"That mob's only about five kilometers out, Stet. We've got Orne's gear outside in the disguised air sled."
"We'll be right down."
"Why a disguised sled?" asked Orne.
"If they think it's a ground buggy, they might get careless when you most need an advantage. We could always scoop you out of the air, you know."
"What're my chances on this one, Stet?"
Stetson shrugged. "I'm afraid they're slim. These goons probably have the Delphinus, and they want you just long enough to get your equipment and everything you know."
"Rough as that, eh?"
"According to our best guess. If you're not out in five days, we blast."
Orne cleared his throat.
"Want out?" asked Stetson.
"No."
"Use the back-door rule, son. Always leave yourself a way out. Now ... let's check that equipment the surgeons put in your neck." Stetson put a hand to his throat. His mouth remained closed, but there was a surf-hissing voice in Orne's ears: "You read me?"
"Sure. I can--"
"No!" hissed the voice. "Touch the mike contact. Keep your mouth closed. Just use your speaking muscles without speaking."
Orne obeyed.
"O.K.," said Stetson. "You come in loud and clear."
"I ought to. I'm right on top of you!"
"There'll be a relay ship over you all the time," said Stetson. "Now ... when you're not touching that mike contact this rig'll still feed us what you say ... and everything that goes on around you, too. We'll monitor everything. Got that?"
"Yes."
Stetson held out his right hand. "Good luck. I meant that about diving in for you. Just say the word."
"I know the word, too," said Orne. "HELP!"
* * * * *
Gray mud floor and gloomy aisles between monstrous bluish tree trunks--that was the jungle. Only the barest weak glimmering of sunlight penetrated to the mud. The disguised sled--its para-grav units turned off--lurched and skidded around buttress roots. Its headlights swung in wild arcs across the trunks and down to the mud. Aerial creepers--great looping vines of them--swung down from the towering forest ceiling. A steady drip of condensation spattered the windshield, forcing Orne to use the wipers.
In the bucket seat of the sled's cab, Orne fought the controls. He was plagued by the vague slow-motion-floating sensation that a heavy planet native always feels in lighter gravity. It gave him an unhappy stomach.
Things skipped through the air around the lurching vehicle: flitting and darting things. Insects came in twin cones, siphoned toward the headlights. There was an endless chittering whistling tok-tok-toking in the gloom beyond the lights.
Stetson's voice hissed suddenly through the surgically implanted speaker: "How's it look?"
"Alien."
"Any sign of that mob?"
"Negative."
"O.K. We're taking off."
Behind Orne, there came a deep rumbling roar that receded as the scout cruiser climbed its jets. All other sounds hung suspended in after-silence, then resumed: the strongest first and then the weakest.
A heavy object suddenly arced through the headlights, swinging on a vine. It disappeared behind a tree. Another. Another. Ghostly shadows with vine pendulums on both sides. Something banged down heavily onto the hood of the sled.
[Illustration]
Orne braked to a creaking stop that shifted the load behind him, found himself staring through the windshield at a native of Gienah III. The native crouched on the hood, a Mark XX exploding-pellet rifle in his right hand directed at Orne's head. In the abrupt shock of meeting, Orne recognized the weapon: standard issue to the marine guards on all R&R survey ships.
The native appeared the twin of the one Orne had seen on the translite screen. The four-fingered hand looked extremely capable around the stock of the Mark XX.
Slowly, Orne put a hand to his throat, pressed the contact button. He moved his speaking muscles: "Just made contact with the mob. One on the hood now has one of our Mark XX rifles aimed at my head."
The surf-hissing of Stetson's voice came through the hidden speaker: "Want us to come back?"
"Negative. Stand by. He looks cautious rather than hostile."
Orne held up his right hand, palm out. He had a second thought: held up his left hand, too. Universal symbol of peaceful intentions: empty hands. The gun muzzle lowered slightly. Orne called into his mind the language that had been hypnoforced into him. Ocheero? No. That means 'The People.' Ah ... And he had the heavy fricative greeting sound.
"Ffroiragrazzi," he said.
The native shifted to the left, answered in pure, unaccented High Galactese: "Who are you?"
Orne fought down a sudden panic. The lipless mouth had looked so odd forming the familiar words.
Stetson's voice hissed: "Is that the native speaking Galactese?"
Orne touched his throat. "You heard him."
He dropped his hand, said: "I am Lewis Orne of Rediscovery and Reeducation. I was sent here at the request of the First-Contact officer on the Delphinus Rediscovery."
"Where is your ship?" demanded the Gienahn.
"It put me down and left."
"Why?"
"It was behind