LITMIR.BIZ

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boy. But what I wouldn’t give to lift ship for there!”

      “Why? You’re no hunter. How come you want to heat jets for that port?”

      “Oh, I don’t care about the game preserves, though they’re worth seeing, too. It’s the people themselves—”

      “But they’re Terran settlers, or at least from Terran stock, aren’t they?”

      “Sure,” Tau sipped his coffee slowly. “But there are settlers and settlers, son. And a lot depends upon when they left Terra and why, and who they were—also what happened to them after they landed out here.”

      “And Khatkans are really special?”

      “Well, they have an amazing history. The colony was founded by escaped prisoners—and just one racial stock. They took off from Earth close to the end of the Second Atomic War. That was a race war, remember? Which made it doubly ugly.” Tau’s mouth twisted in disgust. “As if the color of a man’s skin makes any difference in what lies under it! One side in that line-up tried to take over Africa—herded most of the natives into a giant concentration camp and practiced genocide on a grand scale. Then they were cracked themselves, hard and heavy. During the confusion some survivors in the camp staged a revolt, helped by the enemy. They captured an experimental station hidden in the center of the camp and made a break into space in two ships which had been built there. That voyage must have been a nightmare, but they were desperate. Somehow they made it out here to the rim and set down on Khatka without power enough to take off again—and by then most of them were dead.

      “But we humans, no matter what our race, are a tough breed. The refugees discovered that climatically their new world was not too different from Africa, a lucky chance which might happen only once in a thousand times. So they thrived, the handful who survived. But the white technicians they had kidnaped to run the ships didn’t. For they set up a color bar in reverse. The lighter your skin, the lower you were in the social scale. By that kind of selective breeding the present Khatkans are very dark indeed.

      “They reverted to the primitive for survival. Then, about two hundred years ago, long before the first Survey Scout discovered them, something happened. Either the parent race mutated, or, as sometimes occurs, a line of people of superior gifts emerged—not in a few isolated births, but with surprising regularity in five family clans. There was a short period of power struggle until they realized the foolishness of civil war and formed an oligarchy, heading a loose tribal organization. With the Five Families to push and lead, a new civilization developed, and when Survey came to call they were no longer savages. Combine bought the trade rights about seventy-five years ago. Then the Company and the Five Families got together and marketed a luxury item to the galaxy. You know how every super-jet big shot on twenty-five planets wants to say he’s hunted on Khatka. And if he can point out a graz head on his wall, or wear a tail bracelet, he’s able to strut with the best. To holiday on Khatka is both fabulous and fashionable—and very, very profitable for the natives and for Combine who sells transportation to the travelers.”

      “I hear they have poachers, too,” Dane remarked.

      “Yes, that naturally follows. You know what a glam skin brings on the market. Wherever you have a rigidly controlled export you’re going to have poachers and smugglers. But the Patrol doesn’t go to Khatka. The natives handle their own criminals. Personally, I’d cheerfully take a ninety-nine-year sentence in the Lunar mines in place of what the Khatkans dish out to a poacher they net!”

      “So that rumor has spread satisfactorily!”

      Coffee slopped over the brim of Tau’s mug and Dane dropped the packet of steak concentrate he was about to feed into the cooker. Chief Ranger Asaki loomed in the doorway of the mess as suddenly as if he had been teleported to that point.

      The medic arose to his feet and smiled politely at the visitor.

      “Do I detect in that observation, sir, the suggestion that the tales I have heard were deliberately set to blast where they would do the most good as deterrents?”

      A fleeting grin broke the impassive somberness of the black face.

      “I was informed you are a man skilled in ‘magic,’ Medic. You certainly display the traditional sorcerer’s quickness of wit. But this rumor is also truth.” The quirk of good humor had gone again, and there was an edge in the Chief Ranger’s voice which cut. “Poachers on Khatka would welcome the Patrol in place of the attention they now receive.”

      He came into the mess cabin, Jellico behind him, and Dane pulled down two of the snap seats. He was holding a mug under the spout of the coffee dispenser as the captain made introductions.

      “Thorson—our acting-cargo-master.”

      “Thorson,” the Khatkan acknowledged with a grave nod of his head, and then glanced down to floor level with a look of surprise. Weaving a pattern about his legs, purring loudly, Sindbad was offering an unusually fervent welcome of his own. The Ranger went down on one knee, his hand out for Sindbad’s inquiring sniff. Then the cat butted that dark palm, batted at it playfully with claw-sheathed paw.

      “A Terran cat! It is of the lion family?”

      “Far removed,” Jellico supplied. “You’d have to add a lot of bulk to Sindbad to promote him to the lion class.”

      “We have only the old tales.” Asaki sounded almost wistful as the cat jumped to his knee and clawed for a hold on his chest belts. “But I do not believe that lions were ever so friendly toward my ancestors.”

      Dane would have removed the cat, but the Khatkan arose with Sindbad, still purring loudly, resting in the crook of his arm. The Ranger was smiling with a gentleness which changed the whole arrogant cast of his countenance.

      “Do not bring this one to Khatka with you, Captain, or you will never take him away again. Those who dwell in the inner courts would not let him vanish from their sight. Ah, so this pleases you, small lion?” He rubbed Sindbad gently under the throat and the cat stretched his neck, his yellow eyes half closed in bliss.

      “Thorson,” the Captain turned to Dane, “that arrival report on my desk was the final one from Combine?”

      “Yes, sir. There’s no hope of the Rover setting down here before that date.”

      Asaki sat down, still holding the cat. “So you see, Captain, fortune has arranged it all. You have two tens of days. Four days to go in my cruiser, four days for your return here, and the rest to explore the preserve. We could not ask for better luck, for I do not know when our paths may cross again. In the normal course of events I will not have another mission to Xecho for a year, perhaps longer. Also—” He hesitated and then spoke to Tau. “Medic, Captain Jellico has informed me that you have made a study of magic on many worlds.”

      “That is so, sir.”

      “Do you then believe that it is real force, or that it is only a superstition for child-people who set up demons to howl petitions to when some darkness falls upon them?”

      “Some of the magic I have seen is trickery, some of it founded upon an inner knowledge of men and their ways which a shrewd witch doctor can use to his advantage. There always remains”—Tau put down his mug, “—there always remains a small residue of happenings and results for which we have not yet found any logical explanations—”

      “And I believe,” Asaki interrupted, “it is also true that a race can be conditioned from birth to be sensitive to forms of magic so that men of that blood are particularly susceptible.” That was more of a statement than a question, but Tau answered it.

      “That is very true. A Lamorian, for example, can be ‘sung’ to death. I have witnessed such a case. But upon a Terran or another off-world man the same suggestion would have no effect.”

      “Those who settled Khatka brought such magic with them.” The Chief Ranger’s fingers still moved about Sindbad’s jaw and throat soothingly, but his tone was chill, the coldest thing in the cramped space of the mess cabin.

      “Yes,

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