The Defiant Agents

flames and that somber circle, were the women. There was a uniformity in this gathering. The members were plainly all of the same racial stock, of medium height, stocky yet

n their faces, a tenseness of the eyes

z. Do any of you remem

"This is more trickery of the Pinda-lick-o-yi, the White Eyes. Between us there has never been fair dealing. They have broken th

circle, a murmu

e with you in this strange

d Apache world.... I, Jil-Lee, was riding with Cuchillo Negro as we went down to the taking of Ramos. And then I was here, in a broken s

ks!" The first speake

uld make a man remember not his own past, but the past of his ancestors. While we were on that ship

of such a thing

oject. To venture into these new worlds requires a different type of man than lives on

stars before, and you found th

he old days took us off, unwilling, to the stars. Did you not all voluntee

ed to the past in medicine dreams

crashed. We have found Dr. Ruthven's body in the cabin with that new installation. Only we have di

. Against the cliff wall lay the packs of supplies they had salvaged from the wreck. By mutual consent they had

mpty of men?" Jil-

mal signs, and the ga-n have n

e fire. "I say we should have no dealings wit

gs which almost sickened him when they struck simultaneously. And he was beginning to suspect that with some of the others the return to the past had been far more deep and lasting. Now Jil-Lee was actually to reason out what had happene

a, and he was very clever. With the badger he went hunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the mba'a wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those who would escape that way. Between him and the badge

re are men here whose hunting territory we have invaded, though we have not yet seen them. We ar

ed as haldzil, or clan leader, they would all be safer. He himself had no aspirations in that direction and dared not push too hard. It had been his initial urging which

owed each other into the team after the immemorial desire of Apaches to cling to family ties, th

n of his now oblique way of thinking. He, too, had been marked by the Redax. They had all been educated in the modern fashion and all possessed a spirit of adventure which marked

garries, time agents he knew and trusted, into dispatching them without warning to Topaz? Something had happen

es on the ship. They had discovered weapons there-knives, bows, quivers of arrows, all of which they had been trained to use in the intensive schooling of the project and

those quiet eyes sliding past him to seek the fire once more

. "There are those who

if we climbed a stairway, each at his own speed-a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon. Some here, some t

also true that I knew nothing of this,

est not to be a woman stirring a pot of boiling st

?" Travis

fore new things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout.

coyotes with him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak s

ip away tonight, but just now he could not force

Tsoay with you,"

stion. Tsoay was one of the youngest of their

always been our custom that the younger walk in the footprints of

a following of sorts. Among the Apaches, leadership was wholly a matter of personality. Until the reservation days, chieftains had g

cut him off from his people. To every Apache severance from the clan was a little death. He must have th

to learn," Travis ag

ntain range?"

ncheria, yes. The mountains have always

k there is ne

no enemies. The planet was on the tapes we brought back from that other world, and so it was known to the others who once rode between star an

tar people rode so...." Buck muse

had come out of sand burrows at night to attack a spaceship. And the second world where the ruins of a giant city had stood choked with jungle vegetation, where

soberly. "If we find them, we must be caref

n to home for us,"

t? There could be a

to Travis. "When you slept und

r-raiding ..

with go'ndi," Buc

ut

ny things. He is busy, busy with his tools, his machines, always busy. And those who think in another fashion cannot be measured

he time will come when something new shall grow from the seed of the past. Also it is necessary that you be one of the tenders of that growth. So I urge you

e felt. And he knew that no man of his race would claim go'ndi, the power of spirit known only to a great chief, unless he had actually felt it swell within him. It might have been fostered by

wisdom,

f. But of some things I am sure. You also be

good spring of water cut round by well-marked game trails. A series of ledges brought him up to a small plateau where scrub wood could be used to build the wickiup

pire. Therefore, the planet was important, but why? As yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence level of the split horns was native

Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely. For Travis was content to scout with only the coyotes for company

urth day after they had settled on the plateau

?" Buck broke th

for m

enemy people-have marked this as

this world was at one time, the reason why

-Lee asked slowly. "Will it bring food to our m

le. It is the unkno

is fitted to one hand and strength of arm, may not be suited to

and Nalik'ideyu

indeed ga-n for the service of those they like, bu

d, Tsoay would not be a hindrance. On other scouts the boy had proved to have a keen eye for the count

gh the mountains; it may be a lo

t you seek may l

know. How can I? But it wil

roper for the untried, but his thoughts fly free as do yours,"

brother, that you may not easily find a way to return. This is

ht he could read more than one ki

d hoped might exist. Before them lay an abrupt descent to what appeared to be open plains country cloaked in

for horses, catt

nding them. Travis wondered if there was any native

down?" T

amber plain, no sign of any building or any disturbance of

second day that they left the foothill breaks, and the grass of the open country was waist high about them. Travis could see it rippling where the co

he heart of the plain. At one side was a buzzing, seething mass of glitter-winged insects which

he could not believe the evidence of his eyes. Tsoay gave a sharp exclamation, went down on one knee for a closer

dung-an