Star Hunter by Andre Norton

the
dark."
    Which made sense. Except that to sit here, quietly, in their cramped
quarters, not knowing what might be waiting outside, was an ordeal Vye
found increasingly harder to bear. Maybe Hume guessed his discomfort,
maybe he was following routine procedure. But he turned, thumbed open
one of the side panels in Vye's compartment, and dug out the emergency
supplies.

9
*
    They sorted the crash rations into small packs. A blanket of the
water-resistant, feather-heavy Ozakian spider silk was cut into a
protective covering for Vye. That piece of tailoring occupied them
until the graying sky permitted them a full picture of the pocket in
which the flitter had landed. The dark foliage of the mountain growth
was broken here by a ledge of dark-blue stone on which the flyer
rested.
    To the right was a sheer drop, and a land slip had cut away the ledge
itself a few feet behind the flitter. There was only a steadily
narrowing path ahead, slanting upward.
    "Can we take off again?" Vye hoped to be reassured that such a feat
was possible.
    "Look up!"
    Vye backed against the cliff wall, stared up at the sky. Well above
them those globes still swam in unwearied circles, commanding the air
lanes.
    Hume had cautiously approached the outer rim of the ledge, was using
his distance glasses to scan what might lie below.
    "No sign yet."
    Vye knew what he meant. The globes were overhead, but the blue beasts,
or any other fauna those balls might summon, had not yet appeared.
    Shouldering their packs they started along the ledge. Hume had his ray
tube, but Vye was weaponless, unless somewhere along their route he
could pick up some defensive and offensive arm. Stones had burst the
lights of the islet, they might prove as effective against the blue
beasts. He kept watch for any of the proper size and weight.
    The ledge narrowed, one shoulder scraped the cliff now as they
rounded a pinnacle to lose sight of the flitter. But the globes
continued to hover over them.
    "We are still traveling in the direction they want," Vye speculated.
    Hume had gone to hands and knees to negotiate an ascent so steep he
had to search for head and toe holds. When they were safely past that
point they took a breather, and Vye glanced aloft again. Now the sky
was empty.
    "We may have arrived, or are about to do so," said Hume.
    "Where?"
    Hume shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. And both of us can be
wrong."
    The steep ascent did not quite reach the top of the cliff around the
face of which the ledge curled. Instead their path now leveled off and
began to widen out so that they could walk with more confidence. Then
it threaded into a crevice between two towering rock walls and sloped
downward.
    A path unnaturally smooth, Vye thought, as if shaped to funnel
wayfarers on. And they came out on the rim of a valley, a valley
centered with a wood-encircled lake. They stepped from the rock of the
passage onto a springy turf which gave elastically to their tread.
    Vye's sandal struck a round stone. It started from its bed in the
black-green vegetation, turned over so that round pits stared
eyelessly up at him. He was faced by the fleshless grin of a human
skull.
    Hume went down on one knee, examined the ground growth, gingerly
lifted the lace of vertebrae forming a spine. That ended in a crushed
break which he studied briefly before he laid the bones gently back
into the concealing cover of the mossy stuff.
    "That was done by teeth!"
    The cup of green valley had not changed, it was the same as it had
been when they had emerged from the crevice. But now every clump of
trees, every wind-rippled mound of brush promised cover.
    Vye moistened his lips, diverted his eyes from the skull.
    "Weathered," Hume said slowly, "must have been here for seasons, maybe
planet years."
    "A survivor from the L-B?" Yet this spot lay days of travel from that
clearing back in the plains.
    "How did he get here?"
    "Probably the same way we would have, had we not holed up on that
river