Andre Norton - Solar Queen 03 - Voodoo Planet

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VOODOO PLANET

by Andre Norton

Another fine Iczelion (scan)/Nadie (proof) co-production.

Contents

* I

* II

* III

* IV

* V

* VI

* VII

* VIII

TALK OF HEAT—or better not—on Xecho. This water-logged world combined all the most unattractive

features of a steam bath and one could only dream of coolness, greenness—more land than a stingy string

of islands.

The young man on the promontory above the crash of the waves wore the winged cap of a spaceman with

the insignia of a cargo-master and not much else, save a pair of very short shorts. He wiped one hand

absently across his bare chest and brought it away damp as he studied, through protective sun goggles, the

treacherous promise of the bright sea. One could swim—if he wanted to lose most of his skin. There were

minute organisms in that liquid that smacked their lips—if they had lips—every time they thought of a

Terran.

Dane Thorson licked his own lips, tasting salt, and plodded back through the sand of the spaceport to the

berth of the Solar Queen. This had been a long day, and one with more snarl-ups than he cared to count,

keeping him on a constant, dogged trot between the ship and the fitting yard where riggers labored with the

slowest motions possible to the human body—or so it seemed to the exasperated acting-Cargo-Master of

the Free Trader. Captain Jellico had long ago taken refuge in his cabin to preserve the remnants of his

temper. Dane had been allowed no such escape.

The Queen had a schedule for refitting to serve as a mail ship, and that time allowance did not allow for

humidity playing the devil with the innards of robot fitters. She had to be ready to lift when the Combine

ship now plying that run set down and formally signed off in her favor. Luckily, most of the work was

done and Dane had given a last searching inspection before signing the rigger’s book and reporting to his

captain.

The air-conditioned interior of the Queen comforted him as he climbed to his quarters. Ship air was flat,

chemically pure but unappetizing stuff. Today it was a relief to breath. Dane went on to the bather. At least

there was no lack of water—with the local skinners filtered out. It was chill but relaxing on his gaunt

young body.

He was sealing on his lightest tunic when the ramp buzzer sounded. A visitor—oh, not the supervisor-

rigger again! Dane went to answer with dragging feet. For the crew of the Queen at the moment numbered

exactly four, with himself for general errand boy. Captain Jellico was in his quarters two levels above,

Medic Tau was presumably overhauling his supplies, and Sinbad, ship’s cat, asleep in some empty cabin.

Dane jerked his tunic into place, very much on his guard as he came to the head of the ramp. But it was not

the supervisor-rigger. Dane, thoroughly used to unusual-appearing strangers, both human and alien, was

impressed by this visitor.

He was tall, this quiet man, his great height accented by a fit leanness, a narrowness of waist and hip, a

length of leg and arm. His main article of clothing was the universal shorts of the Xecho settler. But, being

fashioned of saffron yellow, they were the more brilliant because of his darkness of skin. For he was not

the warm brown of the Terran Negroes Dane had served beside, though he shared their general features.

His flesh was really black, black with an almost bluish sheen. Instead of shirt or tunic, his deep chest was

crossed by two wide straps, the big medallion marking their intersection giving forth flashes of gem fire

when he breathed. He wore at his belt not the standard stun gun of a spaceman, but a weapon which

resembled the more deadly Patrol blaster, as well as a long knife housed in a jeweled and fringed sheath.

To the eye he was an example of barbaric force tamed and trimmed to civilized efficiency.

He saluted, palm out, and spoke Galactic Basic with only a suggestion of accent.

“I am Kort Asaki. I believe Captain Jellico expects me.”

“Yes. sir!” Dane snapped to attention. So this was the Chief Ranger from fabulous Khatka, Xecho’s sister

planet.

The other ascended the cat ladder easily, missing no detail of the ship’s interior as he passed. His

expression was still one of polite interest as his guide rapped on the panel door of Jellico’s cabin. And a

horrible screech from Queex, the captain’s pet hoobat, drowned out any immediate answer. Then followed

that automatic thump on the floor of the blue-feathered, crab-parrot-toad’s cage, announcing that its master

was in residence.

Since the captain’s cordial welcome extended only to his guest, Dane regretfully descended to the mess

cabin to make unskilled preparations for supper—though there was not much you could do to foul up

concentrates in an automatic cooker.

“Company?” Tau sat beyond the cooking unit nursing a mug of Terran coffee. “And do you have to serve

music with the meals, especially that particular selection?”

Dane flushed, stopped whistling in mid-note. “Terran Bound” was old and pretty well worn out; he didn’t

know why he always unconsciously sounded off with that.

“A Chief Ranger from Khatka just came on board,” he reported, carefully offhand, as he busied himself

reading labels. He knew better than to serve fish or any of its derivatives in disguise again.

“Khatka!” Tau sat up straighter. “Now there’s a planet worth visiting!”

“Not on a Free Trader’s pay,” commented Dane.

“You can always hope to make a big strike, 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 Terran 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 qraz 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, Sinbad was offering an unusually

fervent welcome of his own. The Ranger went down on one knee, his hand out for Sinbad’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 Sinbad 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 Sinbad, 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 Sinbad 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

Sinbad’s jaw and throat soothingly, but his tone was chill, the coldest thing in the cramped space of the

mess cabin.

“Yes, a highly developed form of it,” Tau agreed.

“More highly developed perhaps than even you can believe, Medic!” That came in a hiss of cold rage. “I

think that its present manifestation—death by a beast that is not a beast—could be worth your detailed

study.”

“Why?” Tau came bluntly to the point.

“Because it is a killing magic and it is being carefully used to rid my world of key men, men we need

badly. If there is a weak point in this cloudy attack shaping against us, we must learn it, and soon!”

It was Jellico who added the rest. “We are invited to visit Khatka and survey a new hunting range as Chief

Ranger Asaki’s personal term guests.”

Dane drew a deep breath of wonder. Guest rights on Khatka were jealously guarded—they were too

valuable to their owners to waste. Whole families lived on the income from the yearly rental of even half a

one. But the Rangers, by right of office, had several which they could grant to visiting scientists or men

from other worlds holding positions similar to their own. To have such an opportunity offered to an

ordinary Trader was almost incredible.

His wonder was matched by Tau’s and must have been plain to read for the Chief Ranger smiled.

“For a long time Captain Jellico and I have exchanged biological data on alien life-forms—his skill in

photographing such, his knowledge as an xenobiologist are widely recognized. And so I have permission

for him to visit the new Zoboru preserve, not yet officially opened. And you, Medic Tau, your help, or at

least your diagnosis, we need in another direction. So, one expert comes openly, another not so openly.

Though, Medic, your task is approved by my superiors. And” —he glanced at Dane— “perhaps to muddle

the trail for the suspicious, shall we not ask this young man also?”

Dane’s eyes went to the captain. Jellico was always fair and his crew would have snapped into action on

his word alone—even if they were fronting a rain of Thorkian death darts and that order was to advance.

But, on the other hand, Dane would never have asked a favor, and the best he hoped for was to be able to

perform his duties without unfavorable comment upon their commission. He had no reason to believe

Jellico was willing to agree to this.

“You have two weeks’ planet-side leave coming, Thorson. If you want to spend it on Khatka . . . ” Jellico

actually grinned then. “I take it that you do. When do we up-ship, sir?”

“You said that you must wait for the return of your other crew members—shall we say mid-afternoon

tomorrow?” The Chief Ranger stood up and put Sinbad down though the cat protested with several sharp

meows.

“Small lion,” the tall Khatkan spoke to the cat as to an equal, “this is your jungle, and mine lies elsewhere.

But should you ever grow tired of traveling the stars, there is always a home for you in my courts.”

When the Chief Ranger went out the door, Sinbad did not try to follow, but he uttered one mournful little

cry of protest and loss.

“So he wants a troubleshooter, does he?” Tau asked. “All right, I’ll try to hunt out his goblins for him; it’ll

be worth that to visit Khatka!”

Dane, remembering the hot glare of the Xecho spaceport, the sea one could not swim in, contrasted that

with the tri-dees he had seen of the green hunters’ paradise on the next planet of the system. “Yes, sir!” he

echoed and made a haphazard choice for the cooker.

“Don’t be too lighthearted,” Tau warned. “I’ll say that any stew which was too hot for that Ranger to

handle might give us burned fingers—and quick. When we land on Khatka, walk softly and look over your

shoulder, and be prepared for the worst.”

LIGHTNING PLAYED along the black ridges above them, and below was a sheer drop to a river which

was only a silver thread. Under their boots, man-made and yet dominating the wildness of jungle and

mountain, was a platform of rock slabs, fused to support a palace of towering yellow-white walls and

curved cups of domes, a palace which was also half fortress, half frontier post.

Dane set his hands on the parapet of the river drop, blinked as a lightning bolt crackled in a sky-splitting

glare of violet fire. This was about as far from the steaming islands of Xecho as a man could imagine.

“The demon graz prepare for battle.” Asaki nodded toward the distant crackling.

Captain Jellico laughed. “Supposed to be whetting their tusks, eh? I wouldn’t care to meet a graz that could

produce such a display by mere tusk whetting.”

“No? But think of the reward for the tracker who discovers where such go to die. To find the graveyard of

the graz herds would make any man wealthy beyond dreams.”

“How much truth is there in that legend?” Tau asked.

The Chief Ranger shrugged. “Who can say? This much is true: I have served my life in the forests since I

could walk. I have listened to the talk of Trackers, Hunters, Rangers in my father’s courtyards and field

camps since I could understand their words. Yet never has any man reported the finding of a body of a graz

that died a natural death. The scavengers might well account for the bulk of flesh, but the tusks and the

bones should be visible for years. And this, too, I have seen with my own eyes: a graz close to death,

supported by two of its kind and being urged along to the big swamps. Perhaps it is only that the suffering

animal longs for water at its end, or perhaps in the heart of that morass there does lie the graz graveyard.

But no man has found a naturally dead graz, nor has any returned from exploring the big swamps . . . .”

Lightning on peaks which were like polished jet—bare rock above, the lush overgrowth of jungle below.

And between, this fortress held by men who dared both the heights and the depths. The wildly burgeoning

life of Khatka had surrounded the off-worlders since they had come here. There was something untameable

about Khatka; the lush planet lured and yet repelled at the same time.

“Zoboru far from here?”

The Chief Ranger pointed north in answer to the captain’s question.

“About a hundred leagues. It is the first new preserve we have prepared in ten years. And it is our desire to

make it the best for tri-dee hunters. That is why we are now operating taming teams—”

“Taming teams?” Dane had to ask.

The Chief Ranger was ready enough to discuss his project.

“Zoboru is a no-kill preserve. The animals, they come to learn that after a while. But we cannot wait

several years until they do. So we make them gifts.” He laughed, evidently recalling some incident.

“Sometimes, perhaps, we are too eager. Most of our visitors who wish to make tri-dees want to picture big

game—graz, amplet, rock apes, lions—”

“Lions?” echoed Dane.

“Not Terran lions, no. But my people, when they landed on Khatka, found a few animals that reminded

them of those they had always known. So they gave those the same names. A Khatkan lion is furred, it is a

hunter and a great fighter, but it is not the cat of Terra. However, it is in great demand as a tri-dee actor. So

we summon it out of lurking by providing free meals. One shoots a poli, a water rat, or a lan-deer and

drags the carcass behind a low-flying flitter. The lion springs upon the moving meat, which it can also

scent, and the rope is cut, leaving a free dinner.

“The lions are not stupid. In a very short time they connect the sound of a flitter cutting the air with food.

So they come to the banquet and those on the flitter can take their tri-dee shots at ease. Only there must

also be care taken in such training. One forest guard on the Komog preserve became too enterprising. He

dragged his kill at first. Then, to see if he could get the lions to forget man’s presence entirely, he hung the

training carcasses on the flitter, encouraging them to jump for their food.

“For the guard that was safe enough, but it worked too too well. A month or so later a Hunter was escorting

a client through Komog and they swung low to get a good picture of a water rat emerging from the river.

Suddenly there was a snarl behind them and they found themselves sharing the flitter with a lioness

annoyed at finding no meat waiting on board.

“Luckily, they both wore stass belts, but they had to land the flitter and leave until the lioness wandered

off, and she seriously damaged the machine in her irritation. So now our guards play no more fancy tricks

while on taming runs. Tomorrow—no,” he corrected himself, “the day after tomorrow I will be able to

show you how the process works.”

“And tomorrow?” inquired the captain.

“Tomorrow my men make hunting magic.” Asaki’s voice was expressionless.

“Your chief witch doctor being?” questioned Tau.

“Lumbrilo.” The Chief Ranger did not appear disposed to add to that but Tau pursued the subject.

“His office is hereditary?”

“Yes. Does that make any difference?” For the first time there was a current of repressed eagerness in the

other’s tone.

“Perhaps a vast amount of difference,” Tau replied. “A hereditary office may carry with it two forms of

conditioning, one to influence its holder, one to affect the public-at-large. Your Lumbrilo may have come

to believe deeply in his own powers; he would be a very remarkable man if he did not. It is almost certain

that your people unquestionably accept him as a worker of wonders?”

“They do so accept,” Once more Asaki’s voice was drained of life.

“And Lumbrilo does not accept something you believe necessary?”

“Again the truth, Medic. Lumbrilo does not accept his proper place in the scheme of things!”

“He is a member of one of your Five Families?”

“No, his clan is small, always set apart. From the beginning here those who spoke for gods and demons did

not also order men.”

“Separation of church and state,” commented Tau thoughtfully. “Yet in our Terran past there have been

times when church and state were one. Does Lumbrilo desire that?”

Asaki raised his eyes to the mountain peaks, to the northward where lay his beloved work.

“I do not know what Lumbrilo wants, save that it makes mischief—or worse! This I tell you: hunting

magic is part of our lives and it has at its core some of those unexplainable happenings which you have

acknowledged do exist. I have used powers I can neither explain nor understand as part of my work. In the

jungle and on the grasslands an off-worlder must guard his life with a stass belt if he goes unarmed. But

I—any of my men—can walk unharmed if we obey the rules of our magic. Only Lumbrilo does other

things which his forefathers did not. And he boasts that he can do more. So he has a growing following of

those who believe—and those who fear.”

“You want me to face him?”

The Chief Ranger’s big hands closed upon the rim of the parapet as if they could exert enough pressure to

crumble the hard stone. “I want you to see whether there is trickery in this. Trickery I can fight, for that

there are weapons. But if Lumbrilo truly controls forces for which there is no name, then perhaps we must

patch up an uneasy peace—or go down in defeat. And, off-worlder, I come from a line of warriors—we do

not drink defeat easily!”

“That I also believe,” Tau returned quietly. “Be sure, sir, if there is trickery in this man’s magic and I can

detect it, the secret shall be yours.”

“Let us hope that so it shall be.”

Subconsciously, Dane had always associated the practice of magic with darkness and the night. But the

next morning the sun was high and hot when he made one of the party coming down to a second and larger

walled terrace where the Hunters, Trackers, Guards and other followers of the Chief Ranger was assembled

in irregular rows.

There was a low sound which was more a throb in the clear air about them, getting into a man’s blood and

pumping in rhythm there. Dane tracked the sound to its source: four large drums standing waist high before

the men who tapped them delicately with the tips of all ten fingers.

The necklaces of claws and teeth about those dusky throats, the kilts of fringed hide, the crossed belts of

brilliantly spotted or striped fur were in contrast to the very efficient and modern side arms each man wore,

to the rest of the equipment sheathed and strapped at their belts.

There was a carved stool for the Chief Ranger, another for Captain Jellico. Dane and Tau settled

themselves on the less comfortable seats of the terrace steps. Those tapping fingers increased their rate of

beat, and the notes of the drums rose from the low murmur of hived bees to the mutter of mountain thunder

still half a range away. A bird called from those inner courts of the palace from which the women never

ventured.

Da—da—da—da . . . Voices took up the thud-thud of the drums, the heads of the squatting men moved in

a slow swing from side to side. Tau’s hand closed about Dane’s wrist and the younger man looked around,

startled, to see that the medic’s eyes were alight, that he was watching the assembly with the alertness of

Sinbad approaching prey.

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VOODOOPLANETbyAndreNortonAnotherfineIczelion(scan)/Nadie(proof)co-production.Contents*I*II*III*IV*V*VI*VII*VIIIITALKOFHEAT—orbetternot—onXecho.Thiswater-loggedworldcombinedallthemostunattractivefeaturesofasteambathandonecouldonlydreamofcoolness,greenness—morelandthanastingystringofislands.Theyoungma...

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Andre Norton - Solar Queen 03 - Voodoo Planet

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