Catseye by Andre Norton Page B

target, reasonably near.
    â€œMight be. That makes a spot more sense. You can bunk in. I will cover the rest of the night watch.”
    That was straight dismissal. Troy went back to his bunk, this time easing out of his clothes. The dressing had taken most of the smart out of his burn. But his mind was active and he did not feel in the least inclined to sleep. He closed his eyes, trying to will relaxation.
    Instead, as if some tenuous circle of thought had coiled out into the air—as Lang Horan’s tupan rope had done so accurately years before to catch and hold a twisting, bucking quarry—Troy’s heightened sensitivity touched and held something never intended to join more than one pair of minds under that roof this night.
    â€œHe died quick. No time to see the report before put away—”
    â€œMust return!” That was an order, final and harsh.
    â€œNot so. No good. Man saw Shang look for report. Was suspicious!”
    â€œThere must be no suspicion!” Again the harshness.
    And now there was no more protest in words, rather a thread of fear, a thread that grew into a choking rope. Troy’s eyes opened. He sat up on the bunk, alive and vibrating to that fear as if its force raged in him also.
    But if there was fear in that band of communication, there was also something else he recognized—a determination to fight. And to that his sympathy responded.
    â€œIf there is suspicion, there will be questions.”
    Silence from the harsh one. Was that marking thoughtful consideration of the argument? Or rejection of its validity? Troy’s hands were sweat-wet and now his fingers clenched into fists. If what he suspected was true—The kinkajou and Kyger? But why? How? Terran animals able to communicate being used for a set purpose? Yet Kyger was no Terran—or was he? Troy himself was too ignorant of other worlds, except for the people of the Dipple, to make a positive identification. He remembered Kyger’s own questions about his past on the day he had been hired.
    Terra was the center of the Confederation—or had been before the war. But she had not come out well at the end of that conflict; too many of her allies had gone down to defeat. From the dominant voice she had sunk to a second-rate, even third-rate, power at the conference tables. The Council and the Octed of the Rim maneuvered for first power, while the old Confederation had fractured into at least three collections of smaller rulerships. His thoughts were broken once more by that unidentifiable thought stream—again the master voice: “Who came tonight?”
    â€œOne who knew nothing. He was an enemy outside the scheme. There was no touch.”
    â€œYet he could have been hired by another. Traps need bait.”
    Troy read the thought behind that last. So—if he were right and it was the kinkajou and Kyger who were talking so—then such an animal might well be stolen to serve as bait for its master.
    But why had not the animal reported Troy’s ability to receive the mind touch, if not with the ease and clarity of this exchange, then after a fashion? Or did the kinkajou, fearing its master, hold Troy in reserve as a possible escape, as he had been for it at the Di villa?
    â€œAn enemy outside the scheme!” The master voice picked that up now. “Against me?”
    â€œAgainst you,” the kinkajou (if it was that) agreed. “He was paid to cause trouble, bring you into the shop that he might kill—”
    â€œKill.” That word throbbed in Troy’s head. He strained to catch an answer. But there was no more that night. At last he slept fitfully, awaking now and then to lie silent, listening not only with his ears but with the portion of his brain that had tapped the exchange. But save for the sound of the birds and animals coming out of the daze of the sleeper to their normal nocturnal restlessness, he heard nothing on either plane of the senses.
    In