<h2>11</h2>
<p>Either the Red was lucky, or his reactions were quick. He had somehow
rolled clear of the struggling horse as Lupe leaped from behind a
boulder, knife out and ready. To the eyes of the Apaches the helmeted
man lay easy prey to Lupe's attack. Nor did he raise an arm to defend
himself, though one hand lay free across the plate on his chest.</p>
<p>But the young Apache stumbled, rebounding back as if he had run into an
unseen wall—when his knife was still six inches away from the other.
Lupe cried out, shook under a second impact as the Red fired an
automatic with his other hand.</p>
<p>Travis dropped his bow, returned to the most primitive weapon of all.
His hand closed around a stone and he hurled the fist-sized oval
straight at the helmet so clearly outlined against the rocks below.</p>
<p>But even as Lupe's knife had never touched flesh, so was the rock
deflected; the Red was covered by some protective field. This was
certainly nothing the Apaches had seen before. Nolan's whistle summoned
them to draw back.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The Red fired again, the sharp bark of the hand gun harsh and loud. He
did not have any real target, for with the exception of Lupe the Apaches
had gone to earth. Between the rocks the Red was struggling to his feet,
but he moved slowly, favoring his side and one leg; he had not come
totally unharmed from his tumble with the pony.</p>
<p>An armed enemy who could not be touched—one who knew there were more
than outlaws in this region. The Red leader was far more of a threat to
the Apaches now than he had ever been. He must not be allowed to escape.</p>
<p>He was holstering his gun, moving along with one hand against the rocks
to steady himself, trying to reach one of the ponies that stood with
trailing reins beside the inert Tatars.</p>
<p>But when the enemy reached the far side of that rock he would have to
sacrifice either his steadying hold, or his touch on the chest plate
where his other hand rested. Would he, then, for an instant be
vulnerable?</p>
<p>The pony!</p>
<p>Travis put an arrow on bow cord and shot. Not at the Red, who had
released his hold of the rock, preferring to totter instead of lose
control of the chest plate—but into the air straight before the nose of
the mount.</p>
<p>The pony neighed wildly, tried to turn, and its shoulder caught the
free, groping hand of the Red and spun the man around and back, so that
he flung up both hands in an effort to ward himself off the rocks. Then
the pony stampeded down the break, its companions catching the same
fever, trailing in a mad dash which kept the Red hard against the
boulders.</p>
<p>He continued to stand there until the horses, save<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></SPAN></span> for the wounded one
still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve.
They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two
strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the Apaches could
handle.</p>
<p>Apparently the other was also aware of that, for now he pushed out from
the rocks and stumbled along after the ponies. But he went only a step
or two. Then, settling back once more against a convenient boulder, he
began to work at the plate on his chest.</p>
<p>Nolan appeared noiselessly beside Travis. "What does he do?" His lips
were very close to the younger man's ear, his voice hardly more than a
breath.</p>
<p>Travis shook his head slightly. The Red's actions were a complete
mystery. Unless, now disabled and afoot, he was trying to summon aid.
Though there was no landing place for a helicopter here.</p>
<p>Now was the time to try and reach Lupe. Travis had seen a slight
movement in the fallen Apache's hand, the first indication that the
enemy's shot had not been as fatal as it had looked. He touched Nolan's
arm, pointed to Lupe; and then, discarding his bow and quiver beside the
war leader, he stripped for action. There was cover down to the wounded
Apache which would aid him. He must pass one of the Tatars on the way,
but none of the tribesmen had shown any signs of life since they had
fallen from their saddles at the first attack.</p>
<p>With infinite care, Travis lowered himself into a narrow passage, took a
lizard's way between brush and boulder, pausing only when he reached the
Tatar for a quick check on the potential enemy.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The lean brown face was half turned, one cheek in the sand, but the
slack mouth, the closed eyes were those, Travis believed, of a dead man.
By some action of his diabolic machine the Red must have snuffed out his
four captives—perhaps in the belief that they were part of the Apache
attack.</p>
<p>Travis reached the rock where Lupe lay. He knew that Nolan was watching
the Red and would give him warning if he suddenly showed an interest in
anything but his machine. The Apache reached out, his hands closing on
Lupe's ankles. Beneath his touch, flesh and muscle tensed. Lupe's eyes
were open, focused now on Travis. There was a bleeding furrow above his
right ear. The Red had tried a difficult head shot, failing in his aim
by a mere fraction of an inch.</p>
<p>Lupe made a swift move for which Travis was ready. His grip on the
other's body helped to tumble them both around a rock which lay between
them and the Red. There was the crack of another shot and dust spurted
from the side of the boulder. But they lay together, safe for the
present, as Travis was sure the enemy would not risk an open attack on
their small fortress.</p>
<p>With Travis' aid Lupe struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited.
Jil-Lee was there to make competent examination of the boy's wound.</p>
<p>"Creased," he reported. "A sore head, but no great damage. Perhaps a
scar later, warrior!" He gave Lupe an encouraging thump on the shoulder,
before plastering an aid pack over the cut.</p>
<p>"Now we go!" Nolan spoke with emphatic decision.</p>
<p>"He saw enough of us to know we are not Tatars."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Nolan's eyes were cold, his mouth grim as he faced Travis.</p>
<p>"And how can we fight him—?"</p>
<p>"There is a wall—a wall you cannot see—about him," Lupe broke in.
"When I would strike at him, I could not!"</p>
<p>"A man with invisible protection and a gun," Jil-Lee took up the
argument. "How would you deal with him, younger brother?"</p>
<p>"I don't know," Travis admitted. Yet he also believed that if they
withdrew, left the Red here to be found by his own people, the enemy
would immediately begin an investigation of the southern country.
Perhaps, pushed by their need for learning more about the Apaches, they
would bring the helicopter in over the mountains. The answer to all
Apache dangers, for now, lay in the immediate future of this one man.</p>
<p>"He is hurt, he cannot go far on foot. And even if he calls the 'copter,
there is no landing place. He will have to move elsewhere to be picked
up." Travis thought aloud, citing the thin handful of points in their
favor.</p>
<p>Tsoay nodded toward the rim of the ravine. "Rocks up there and rocks can
roll. Start an earthslide...."</p>
<p>Something within Travis balked at that. From the first he had been
willing enough to slug it out with the Red, weapon to weapon, man to
man. Also, he had wanted to take a captive, not stand over a body. But
to use the nature of the country against the enemy, that was the oldest
Apache trick of all and one they would have to be forced to employ.</p>
<p>Nolan had already nodded in assent, and Tsoay and Jil-Lee started off.
Even if the Red did possess a protec<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></SPAN></span>tive wall device, could it operate
in full against a landslide? They all doubted that.</p>
<p>The Apaches reached the cliff rim without exposing themselves to the
enemy's fire. The Red still sat there calmly, his back against the rock,
his hands busy with his equipment as if he had all the time in the
world.</p>
<p>Then suddenly came a scream from more than one throat.</p>
<p>"<i>Dar-u-gar</i>!" The ancient war cry of the Mongol Hordes.</p>
<p>Then over the lip of the other slope rose a wave of men—their curved
swords out, a glazed set to their eyes—heading for the Amerindians with
utter disregard for any personal safety. Menlik in the lead, his
shaman's robe flapping wide below his belt like the wings of some
oversized predatory bird. Hulagur ... Jagatai ... men from the outlaws'
camp. And they were not striving to destroy their disabled overlord in
the vale below, but to wipe out the Apaches!</p>
<p>Only the fact that the Apaches were already sheltered behind the rocks
they were laboring to dislodge gave them a precious few moments of
grace. There was no time to use their bows. They could only use knives
to meet the swords of the Tatars, knives and the fact that they could
fight with unclouded minds.</p>
<p>"He has them under control!" Travis pawed at Jil-Lee's shoulder. "Get
him—they'll stop!"</p>
<p>He did not wait to see if the other Apache understood. Instead, he threw
the full force of his own body against the rock they had made the center
stone of their slide. It gave, rolled, carrying with it and before it
the rest of the piled rubble. Travis stumbled, fell flat, and then a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></SPAN></span>
body thudded down upon him, and he was fighting for his life to keep a
blade from his throat. Around him were the shouts and cries of embroiled
warriors; then all was silenced by a roar from below.</p>
<p>Glazed eyes in a face only a foot from his own, the twisted, panting
mouth sending gusts of breath into his nostrils. Suddenly there was
reason back in those eyes, a bewilderment, which became fear ...
panic.... The Tatar's body twisted in Travis' hold, striving now not to
attack, but to win free. As the Apache loosened his grip the other
jerked away, so that for a moment or two they lay gasping, side by side.</p>
<p>Men sat up to look at men. There was a spreading stain down Jil-Lee's
side and one of the Tatars sprawled near him, both his hands on his
chest, coughing violently.</p>
<p>Menlik clawed at the trunk of a wind-twisted mountain tree, pulled
himself to his feet, and stood swaying as might a man long ill and
recovering from severe exertion.</p>
<p>Insensibly both sides drew apart, leaving a space between Tatar and
Apache. The faces of the Amerindians were grim, those of the Mongols
bewildered and then harsh as they eyed their late opponents with dawning
reason. What had begun in compulsion for the Tatars might well flare now
into rational combat—and from that to a campaign of extermination.</p>
<p>Travis was on his feet. He looked over the lip of the drop. The Red was
still in his place down there, a pile of rubble about him. His
protection must have failed, for his head was back at an unnatural angle
and the dent in his helmet could be easily seen.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"That one is dead—or helpless!" Travis cried out. "Do you still wish to
fight for him, Shaman?"</p>
<p>Menlik came away from the tree and walked to the edge of the drop. The
others, too, were moving forward. After the shaman looked down he
stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it at the motionless Red.
There was a crack of sound. They all saw the tiny spurt of flame, a curl
of smoke from the plate on the Red's chest. Not only the man, but his
control was finished now.</p>
<p>A wolfish growl and two of the Tatars swung over, started down to the
Red. Menlik shouted and they slackened pace.</p>
<p>"We want that," he cried in English. "Perhaps so we can learn—"</p>
<p>"The learning is yours," Jil-Lee replied. "Just as this land is yours,
Shaman. But I warn you, from this day do not ride south!"</p>
<p>Menlik turned, the charms on his belt clicking. "So that is the way it
is to be, Apache?"</p>
<p>"That is the way it shall be, Tatar! We do not ride to war with allies
who may turn their knives against our backs because they are slaves to a
machine the enemy controls."</p>
<p>The Tatar's long, slender-fingered hands opened and closed. "You are a
wise man, Apache, but sometimes more than wisdom alone is needed——"</p>
<p>"We are wise men, Shaman, let it rest there," Jil-Lee replied somberly.</p>
<p>Already the Apaches were on their way, putting two cliff ridges behind
them before they halted to examine and cover their wounds.</p>
<p>"We go." Nolan's chin lifted, indicating the southern<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></SPAN></span> route. "Here we
do not come again; there is too much witchcraft in this place."</p>
<p>Travis stirred, saw that Jil-Lee was frowning at him.</p>
<p>"Go—?" he repeated.</p>
<p>"Yes, younger brother? You would continue to run with these who are
governed by a machine?"</p>
<p>"No. Only, eyes are needed on this side of the mountains."</p>
<p>"Why?" This time Jil-Lee was plainly on the side of the conservatives.
"We have now seen this machine at work. It is fortunate that the Red is
dead. He will carry no tales of us back to his people as you feared.
Thus, if we remain south from now on, we are safe. And this fight
between Tatar and Red is none of ours. What do you seek here?"</p>
<p>"I must go again to the place of the towers," Travis answered with the
truth. But his friends were facing him with heavy disapproval—now a
full row of Deklays.</p>
<p>"Did you not tell us that you felt this strange thing during the night
we waited about the camp? What if you become one with these Tatars and
are also controlled by the machine? Then you, too, can be made into a
weapon against us—your clansmen!" Jil-Lee was almost openly hostile.</p>
<p>Sense was on his side. But in Travis was this other desire of which he
was becoming more conscious by the minute. There was a reason for those
towers, perhaps a reason important enough for him to discover and run
the risk of angering his own people.</p>
<p>"There may be this—" Nolan's voice was remote and cold, "you may
already be a piece of this thing, bound<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></SPAN></span> to the machines. If so, we do
not want you among us."</p>
<p>There it was—an open hostility with more power behind it than Deklay's
motiveless disapproval had carried. Travis was troubled. The family, the
clan—they were important. If he took the wrong step now and was
outlawed from that tight fortress, then as an Apache he would indeed be
a lost man. In the past of his people there had been renegades from the
tribe—men such as the infamous Apache Kid who had killed and killed
again, not only white men but his own people. Wolf men living wolves'
lives in the hills. Travis was threatened with that. Yet—up the ladder
of civilization, down the ladder—why did this feverish curiosity ride
him so cruelly now?</p>
<p>"Listen," Jil-Lee, his side padded with bandages, stepped closer—"and
tell me, younger brother, what is it that you seek in these towers?"</p>
<p>"On another world there were secrets of the old ones to be found in such
ancient buildings. Here that might also be true."</p>
<p>"And among the secrets of those old ones," Nolan's voice was still
harsh—"were those which brought us to this world, is that not so?"</p>
<p>"Did any man drive you, Nolan, or you, Tsoay, or you, Jil-Lee, or any of
us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done,
and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers!"</p>
<p>"Save for this voyage when we were told nothing," Jil-Lee answered,
cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Yet, Nolan, I do not
believe that it is for more voyage tapes that our younger brother now
searches,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></SPAN></span> nor would those do us any good—as our ship will not rise
again from here. What is it that you do seek?"</p>
<p>"Knowledge—weapons, maybe. Can we stand against these machines of the
Reds? Yet many of the devices they now use are taken from the star ships
they have looted through time. To every weapon there is a defense."</p>
<p>Nolan blinked and for the first time a hint of interest touched the mask
of his face. "To the bow, the rifle," he said softly, "to the rifle, the
machine gun, to the cannon, the big bomb. The defense can be far worse
than the first weapon. So you think that in these towers there may be
things which shall be to the Reds' machines as the bomb is to the cannon
of the Horse Soldiers?"</p>
<p>Travis had an inspiration. "Did not our people lay aside the bow for the
rifle when we went up against the Bluecoats?"</p>
<p>"We do not so go up against these Reds!" protested Lupe.</p>
<p>"Not now. But what if they come across the mountains, perhaps driving
the Tatars before them to do their fighting—?"</p>
<p>"And you believe that if you find weapons in these towers, you will know
how to use them?" Jil-Lee asked. "What will give you that knowledge,
younger brother?"</p>
<p>"I do not claim such knowledge," Travis countered. "But this much I do
have: Once I studied to be an archaeologist and I have seen other
storehouses of these star people. Who else among us can say as much as
that?"</p>
<p>"That is the truth," Jil-Lee acknowledged. "Also there is good sense in
this seeking out of the tower<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></SPAN></span> things. Let the Reds find such first—if
they exist at all—and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with
only death at our heels."</p>
<p>"And you would go to these towers now?" Nolan demanded.</p>
<p>"I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the
pass!" The feeling of urgency which had been mounting in Travis was now
so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was
surprised when Jil-Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger
man.</p>
<p>"Take care, younger brother! This is not a lucky business. And remember,
if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no
returning—"</p>
<p>"We shall wait on the other side of the pass for one day," Nolan added.
"Then—" he shrugged—"where you go will be your own affair."</p>
<p>Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two
steps down his chosen path.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></SPAN></span></p>
<hr />
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