Free Catseye by Andre Norton

machine. But the real answer had been a bloody massacre, the details of which were never made public. Men who had worked together for years as a well-running team had seemingly, by the evidence, gone stark mad and created a horror.
    â€œIf the recaller worked,” Rerne answered, “it did so too well. The mop-up crew did not locate it—so the thing must have been planted well down. And no one hunted it there. It was shorted anyway as soon as we guessed what had happened. Ah—there is our beacon.”
    Through the gathering twilight the quick flash of a ground light shone clearly. Rerne circled, set the flitter down neatly on a pocket of landing field within a fringe of towering tree giants that effectively shut off the paling gold of the sky except just over the heads of the disembarking men. The fussel on Troy’s wrist fanned wings and uttered a new cry, not guttural in the throat, but pealing up a range of notes.
    Rerne laughed. “To work, eh, feathered brother? Wait until the dawning and we shall give you strong winds to ride. That is a true promise.”
    Two men stepped from between the trunks of the tree wall. Like Rerne, they were leather-clad, and in addition one had a long hunting bow projecting beyond his shoulder. They glanced briefly at Troy but had more attention for the bird on his wrist.
    â€œFrom Kyger’s.” Without other greeting Rerne indicated the fussel. “And this is Troy Horan who has the manning of him.”
    Again each of the foresters favored him with a raking glance that seemed, in an instant’s space, to classify him.
    â€œTo the fire, to the fireside, be welcome.” The elder of the two gave a strictly impersonal twist to what was evidently a set formula of welcome. Troy was aware that in this world he was an interloper, to be tolerated because of the man who brought him.
    And while he had long known and accepted Tikil’s evaluation of the Dipple dwellers, yet here this had a power to hurt, perhaps the more so because of the different attitude Rerne had shown. Now the Hunter came to his aid again.
    â€œA rider from Norden,” he said quietly with no traceable inflection of rebuke in his voice, “will always be welcome to the fireside of the ‘Donerabon.’”
    But inside Troy there was still a smart. “Norden’s plains have no riders now.” He pointed out the truth. “I am a Dippleman, Gentle Homo.”
    â€œThere are plains in a man’s mind,” Rerne replied obscurely. “Leave the fussel uncaged if he will ride easy. We shelter in the Five League Post tonight.”
    There was a trail between the trees ringing in the landing clearing, firm enough to be followed in the half-light. Yet Troy was certain that the three men of the Wild ranger patrol could have found it in the pitch-darkness. It led steadily up slope until outcrops of rock broke through the clumps of brush and the thinning stands of trees, and they came out on a broad ledge hanging above the end of a small lake.
    The lodge was not set on that ledge, but in the cliff wall backing it. For some reason the men who patrolled this wilderness had sought to conceal their living quarters with as much cunning as if they were spies stationed behind enemy lines. Once past the well-hidden doorway, Troy found himself in a large room that served as general living quarters, though screened alcoves along the back wall served for bunk rooms.
    There was no heating unit. But a broad platform of stone with an upper opening in the rock roof supported smoldering wood, wood that gave off a spicy, aromatic fragrance as it was eaten into ashes. A flooring of wooden planks had been fitted over the rock beneath their boots, and here and there lay shaggy pelts to serve as small runs, while on the walls were shelves holding not only the familiar boxes of reading tapes, but bits of gleaming rock, some small carvings. Brilliant birdskins had been pieced together in an