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The storm raged all night. Watching it, Tris could only hope that Shaun had found shelter somewhere. He stayed up several hours, expecting a call from the Village communications center, until they told him that something had happened to the power and that the codebox would be dead until morning. Then resignedly he turned into his hut and went to bed.
In the morning the wind was still lashing the sea to fury. Storm flags were flying all up and down the coast. The rain had (fortunately) stopped, but the dark clouds, moving in awesome towers, warned that it might start back up again.
Skem rolled out of bed with a sense of urgent loss, and immediately remembered the cause. Had Shaun returned during the night? He trotted down the hall to the room that the Sobillonian shared with George Dodover, but that young man admitted that he had heard nothing from Shaun.
"Maybe the boss will know. He stayed up later than any of us."
The two went in search of their coach, who lived with other coaches in an adjacent cabin. They met him coming to find them when they were barely out the door.
"I'm glad to see somebody's up,' Tris said. "No sign of our gypsy discobolus, I assume."
"No, there isn't," said George.
Skem chimed in with a worried voice. "I don't like it, Mr. Tris. I'm going to go look for him."
"Now don't you dare go off on your own. You could barely expect him to come back in last night's storm. That is, if he'd gone very far. And communications are all disrupted, so they tell me. Run along to the commissary while I get the rest of the team up. If we've heard nothing by the time we've had breakfast, we'll organize a search."
The two made their way towards the canteen building, but as soon as the trader was out of sight, Skem left he other and went to wake up the girls. He burst into his sister's room, calling for Worf.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Vesh. "Don't you ever knock?"
"Shaun's not back. I'm taking Worf. He'll find him."
"No, you're not!" cried Vesh, hastily lacing up her shoes. "You're coming to breakfast first. What does Tris say?"
"He says the same thing. Keep calm! Eat breakfast! Who can eat when anything might have happened to Shaun?"
"He's right. Even Worf wants to eat before he sets out on a job like this."
Reluctantly, Skem followed the girls to the commissary, where he lost no time in getting at the serious business of breakfast. To his dismay, he found that it was slow in coming and mostly cold.
"The power's still off," said the trader. "At least for this part of the planet. That was a full-blast storm, and they tell me it's not finished yet."
"Celestial disturbances," explained a Pevorian coach from the next table. "Offworlders don't realize we're in a cloud system here. It often affects our weather. They'll have things back to normal before the day's out. But I wouldn't go far afield. Stick to the Village. Storm's not over yet."
"Year hear that, team?" said Tris. "Take a look at those clouds when you go out. And the wind. And don't worry about Shaun. He'll have holed up somewhere safe enough. And I don't want to have another one to look for when I get ready to blast off."
At his end of the table, Skem made a face, which did not escape his sister's notice. He ate with his usual speed, and snapped his fingers at Worf as he pushed back his chair and made for the door. Vesh got up to follow, although she was not really finished eating. She caught up with her brother at the gate.
"Just where do you think you're going? You heard what Tris said!"
"I'm going to find Shaun before the storm breaks. Nobody cares but me."
"Don't be a little fool! I care. We all do. But you heard Tris!"
"They don't care enough. Anything could have happened to him. He barely knew where he was going when he ran off. I saw him."
The girl felt that her brother was right. And yet the trader seemed so sure. Still, nobody had thought about Worf. The dog had been nervous and restless all night. And animals often knew----they could sense things.
"Maybe Worf can trail him," she admitted. "It's a good idea. C'mon, I'll go with you. Where do we start? At the stadium?"
"The last place we saw him. We get Worf to smell for his footsteps. I've read about what dogs can do."
They let themselves out the gate quietly. Their coach and team were still at breakfast and there were no guards at the Village gates now that the Games were over.
The wind slowed their progress. Long before they reached the stadium, now closed and deserted, Vesh was starting to wonder at the wisdom of their plan. The sea had an ominous roar and the early-morning sun was being eclipsed by those threatening black clouds. Skem went first to the athletes' entrance and then walked around to the side.
"He didn't come out the regular entrance," he said. "He'd have to go past all those people. He went back towards the showers. There must be another door."
They found the door and a little path leading away toward the road and the town gardens. Everything in sight was wet from the night's storm, and Skem remembered reading that water could wash away scent on the land. It was different with ocean animals. He led Worf to the doorway and was pleased to see that the step itself was dry. The curve of the building and a jutting roof had protected it.
"Here, Worf! Look----smell----Shaun, get Shaun!"
The dog obediently sniffed, and then he started whining. He ran up and down, always coming back to the entrance step, where the scent was potent.
"Look at that!" cried Skem. "He knows Shaun was here."
"Good dog. Good Worf," Vesh urged. "Find Shaun. Go get him!"
Skem bent and snapped off the chain. "There's nobody around here," he said.
The dog's excitement increased. He ran about, crying softly, investigating all the surrounding ground. And then suddenly he raised his nose to sniff the air, and set off down the path, across the road, in the general direction of the town. Skem and Vesh ran after him.
One hour later, when the first drops of the new storm hit them, Vesh was wondering if Worf really knew where he was going. Maybe it was just frantic searching for his lost master. Here they were, miles from the Village, from anything they knew, splashing through flooded drains, along muddied paths, with no one around to direct them. The Pevorians seemed to know when to stay indoors, though how they could all disappear into the few buildings she'd seen was more than Vesh could imagine.
"Really, Skem!" she called. "We've got to stop a minute---find shelter. I'm tired and we're going to get soaked any minute now.
"But then we'll lose Worf. And he seems to know where he's going!"
"He's been going that way for hours without getting anywhere. We should have kept him on the leash. This whole idea of yours is nutty!"
Then, just when she'd given up all hope and Worf seemed to be disappearing into the mists, they heard him barking excitedly. He had stopped at a little hill. At what looked like a door going into the hill!
"What in space---do you think Shaun's in there?"
"We'd better find out." Skem began to pound and kick at the door.
Almost immediately it opened, revealing an anteroom with a bigger hall beyond, whence came the sounds of eating, laughter, and songs. The man holding the door had on an apron and seemed impatient to get the door closed.
"Come in, come in! What're you doing out there on a day like today? Oh, you're Olympians, I see. Offworlders, not used to our weather. Well, come on in, it's on the house for athletes."
Vesh was only too eager to comply, but Skem stopped, reaching down to snap the chain on Worf's collar.
"We only wanted to know," the boy said, "is there another athlete here? A tall man. Sort of depressed, maybe?"
"No other athletes here now," said their host. "Hey! Come to think of it, there was one yesterday. Just before the storm broke. Came in with one of the natives. I noticed because you don't often get the natives down here. Even with the Games on, they stay up in their mountains."
"A native?" said Vesh. "But aren't you all natives?"
"Naw---you know---a non-human native. An alien. Though I guess they think we're the aliens. They was here first, see?"
"Oh, but I didn't know there were any....." Vesh began but Skem butted in.
"Don't you remember? Shaun was telling us. One of them came to watch him train. Funny-looking, he said. His name was something funny, too. V---Va---V'gon Tacbian!"
"That's the one!" said the man. "V'gon Tacbian. Comes around now and then. He had this athlete with him, but they both went away before the storm broke."
"Where'd they go?" asked Vesh. "Haven't you any idea?"
"Did they go out this way?" demanded Skem. "That's important."
"Didn't tell me where they was goin'. But now that you mention it, I think they went out the back. Place was filling up then and they was sittin' back in the corner...."
"Can we go out the back then?" asked the boy. "Please! It's important!"
"Well, sure. But at least wait till the storm's over. Another big one's a'comin'."
The man led them through the dining hall, now half full of guests. Some of them, apparently fans, began applauding and calling, "Hail athletes!" In the brigher light, their host looked at them curiously.
"Say, I know you! You're the girl won all the swimming prizes! I won a pile of money on you! Why don't you sit down and have something. On the house! Anything you wish!"
"We'd like to," she said, "but we've gotta find this man. He's one of our team and he's lost."
"Let's get to the back door," said Skem, pulling Worf up close.
The man viewed the animal with some trepidation. "It's just here to the left," he said. "But you shouldn't go out again in this weather. Still, you're from that water planet, I guess. Little water means nothing to you! But you're used to living in storms there."
"Well, not exactly," Vesh told him, as Skem led Worf out the door. "A storm on land's much worse. Batters you against rocks and stuff. At home, we just go down deep where it's quiet."
"But what do you do for air?" cried the amazed proprietor.
"We take it down with us, naturally," she replied, as she set off into the murk after Skem. He had once again unleashed Worf and the dog seemed to know where he was going.
Their journey this time was much shorter. In a quarter of an hour Worf led them across highways and byways to what appeared to be another building, well closed against the storm. More pounding brought an officer of some kind to the door.
"Lift's not running," he said. "Not till after the weather clears and then only if the power comes on."
"We just want to ask you," Vesh said, "if you've seen someone. An athlete, probably with one of your natives?"
"Well, come in out of the rain. Don't make me keep the door open. A few stormbound folks here. Maybe he's one of them."
There were six people who'd been caught at the lift station by the storm. They looked bitterly at the two youngsters and denied having seen either Shaun or the alien. But after a moment's thought, the lift guard admitted that he'd seen them.
"Last car to go up the mountain," he said. "That was them all right. Must have spent the night up there."
"Up the mountain?" cried Vesh.
"How do we get there?" echoed Skem.
The man led them to a window, where they could see the single track leading off across the plain towards the mountains, now shrouded in mist.
"Goes up on a cable," he told them. "That's where the natives live and the astronomers and such, and some folks go for sports, if you like that kind of thing. But nothing goes up now till the power comes on."
"But can't we walk," asked Skem.
"Sure. Some walk, especially the natives. But not in this weather.
"Now, look," Vesh was getting ready to put her foot down with her brother. "We know he's not dead. We know he's with a friend and that they went up the mountain. I'm exhausted, and so is Worf, I can see. Even you are, if you had the sense to admit it. We're going to wait here till the storm's over."
Skem had met the immovable obstacle. And with her arguments and the probability that Shaun was safe, he felt that unbeatable force drain out of him.
"Oh, all right. But you'd think they'd have some way of talking to people up the mountain."
"When the power comes on," said the officer monotonously.
Vesh sat down on a bench. Just being out of the wind and not having to run was a luxury. She supposed Tris had discovered their absence by now. He was likely building up to one of his rages, but it was something that did not worry her at the moment. Righ tnow she knew more about his star athlete than he did.
Skem was pumping the waiting travelers about the mountain and how to reach it. It seemed that there was a good road all the way across the plain. You could even hire a car to take you, if you had the newdollars. Of course; they had come without that provision! If only they could swim the distance! Then one of the travelers remembered to mention the great canyon that cuts across the plain halfway to the mountains.
"The lift goes up over it, but there's a bridge if you're afoot or in a car."
"And there's an elevator down into it," added another. "Of course, that'll be off now, with the power. But there are trails, too. It's very beautiful, with a river down there. You should be sure to see it before you leave the planet."
"We'll see it all right,' said Skem. "I guess we'll have to go over the bridge."
By afternoon the storm had passed over, but the power still had not come on. Skem and Vesh left the lift station, urging Worf along the road across the plains. The dog no longer had a scent to follow and he seemed disappointed that he had not found his master.
"Come on, Worf," Skem urged. "We're going to find Shaun. This is the way."
"I really think it's crazy," Vesh said, as they plodded along the road that paralleled the rail. "We'll never get there before dark, and we know where he is, after all."
But Skem simply would not be put off by the facts. Late in the day they came to the canyon's edge. They could see the cable now, where it rose into the air and extended across the great rift and on up into the mountains. The road turned to the left, and they followed it towards the bridge, exclaiming as they went over the shapes and colors of the chasm below them.
As they approached the bridge, they found a group of people clustered around the entrance, standing silently and staring, Skem pushed and squeezed until he got through and stood beside the tower. And then he saw that there was no bridge there. The road ended in a sheer drop into the abyss, and the dangling cables of the once great suspension roadway were all that the storm had left.
A rope had been tied across the road, and an officer warned everybody away.
"Nobody goes any closer," he said. "You can see what happened from here."
"But how'll we get there?" asked Vesh. It was a question she had been asking all day.
"Soon as the power goes on you can go up in the lift. Station back there where you came from." He looked at them curiously. "You're offworlders, aren't you? Well, I don't mind telling you this was a storm to beat all storms. It never blew the bridge down before, and it's been here the past 100 years."
Skem sat down on a stone and started beating the ground. "Darn! Darn! Something always happens!"
"It's a good thing nobody was on it," said an onlooker.
"How do you know nobody was on it?" asked another. "Wouldn't be here now to tell."
A nervous laugh went around. "Who'd be out on the bridge in a storm like that?"
As if in answer, Worf started barking. At first a questioning yip. But then it settled into a series of happy, excited barks, and the dog started running along the edge of the canyon.
"What's the matter with Worf?" asked Vesh.
Skem looked up, and then he, too, began to run.
"It's Shaun!" he shouted. "Shaun's over there!" He's trying to say something. Hello, hello! It's us!"
Across the great cleft they did indeed see Shaun. And another was standing was with him. The native, V'gon Tacbian. They gestured. They shouted. But the words were ripped away by the wind.
"What are they trying to say?" The crowd was all attention now.
"If you'd just be patient," urged the officer. "Nothing that important. When the power comes on you can all communicate. And you can get across on the lift."
"Look!" cried Skem, dragging Vesh after Worf. "He's going to throw something. He's got a message, I bet!"
"Nobody can throw that far," said the officer. " If you can't wait, take the trail down into the cleft and up the other side. But that'll take you hours, and the power will be on again before you reach the top."
Nevertheless, they all had their eyes glued to the young man on the other side. If he was going to throw, he must think he could do it. And it must be important, for him to go to all that trouble.
"Come on, Vesh!' yelled Skem. "We've got to help him! We've got to be able to catch it. It must be something horribly important to try to throw it this far!"
Even Worf seemed to sense the urgency of the moment. Poised on the brink of the canyon, he watched Shaun's every move.
And then the athlete stepped back to swing, as he had done in the stadium. Only this time it had to go farther. This time so much was hanging in the balance. This time it was a matter of life and death!
ns 15.158.61.46da2
