Free Star Born by Andre Norton Page B

staring down at a dead, very dead body. By the stained rags still clinging to it, it was one of the aliens, a noble, not one of the black-clad warriors. The gaping wounds which had almost torn the unfortunate apart were like nothing Raf had ever seen.
    With a guttural sound which expressed his feelings as well as any words, the officer picked up from the floor a broken spear, the barbed head of which was dyed the same reddish yellow as the blood still seeping from the torn body. Swinging the weapon so close to Raf that the Terran was forced to retreat a step or two to escape contact with the grisly relic, the officer burst into an impassioned speech. Then he went back to the gestures which were easier for the spaceman to understand.
    This was the work of a deadly enemy, Raf gathered. And such a fate awaited any one of them who ventured beyond certain bounds of safety. Unless this enemy were destroyed, the city-life itself-was no longer theirs.
    Seeing those savage wounds which suggested that an insane fury had driven the attacker, Raf could believe that. But surely a primitive spear was no equal to the weapons his guide could command.
    When he tried to suggest that, the other shook his head as if despairing of making plain his real message, and again beckoned Raf to come with him. They were out on the littered street, heading away from the central building where the rest of the Terran party must still be. And Raf, seeing the lengthening shadows, the pools of dusk gathering, and remembering that spear, could not resist glancing back over his shoulder now and then. He wondered if the metallic click of his boot soles on the pavement might not draw attention to them, attention they would not care to meet. His hand was on his stun gun. But the officer gave no sign of being worried; he walked along with the assurance of one who has nothing to fear.
    Then Raf caught sight of a patch of color he had seen before and relaxed. They were on their way back to the flitter! He had come down this very street earlier. And he did not mind the long climb back, ramp by steep ramp, which brought him out at last beside the flyer. His relief was so great that he put out his hand to draw it along the sleek side of the craft as he might have caressed a well-loved pet.
    “Kurbi?”
    At Hobart’s bark he stiffened. “Yes, sir!”
    “We camp here tonight. Have to make some plans.”
    “Yes, sir.” He agreed with that. To attempt passage of the mountains in the dark was a suicide mission which he would have refused. On the other hand, to his mind, they would sleep more soundly if they were out of the city. He speculated whether he dared suggest that they use the few remaining moments of twilight to head into the open and establish a camp somewhere in the countryside.
    The alien officer made some comment in his slurred speech and faded away into the shadows. Raf saw that the others had already dragged out their blanket rolls and were spreading them in the shelter of the flitter while Soriki busied himself at the com, sending back a message to the RS 10.
    “. . . should not be too difficult to establish a common speech form,” Lablet was saying as Raf climbed into the flitter to tug loose his own roll. “Color and pitch both seem ‘! to carry meaning. But the basic pattern is there to study. And with the scanner to sort out those record strips-did you adjust them, Soriki?”
    “They’re all ready for you to push the button. If the ‘ scanner can read them, it- will. I got all that speech the chief, or king, or whatever he was, made just before we left.” ‘
    “Good, very good!” In the light of the portable lamp by Soriki’s com, Lablet settled down, plugged the scanner tubes :’ in his ears, absently accepting a ration bar the captain handed him to chew on while he listened to the playback “ of the record the com-tech had made that afternoon.
    Hobart turned to Raf. “You went off with that officer.
    What did he have to show