The platform shuddered under them, and Dane
wondered how long it would be before it gave way under the
determined assault of the thing below. Meanwhile, that
phosphorescent greenish blob flowed farther into the open.
Flowed was the best description of its progress. It was unstable
in outline, as if it were a mass of some semi-liquid substance, and
the closer it approached, the less it resembled any living creature
Dane knew.
Now another odor warred with the stench of the first
comer—as foul. There was a sudden halt in the thumping of the
support. Once more came the screech. From their perch they could
not see the monster below, but Dane guessed that what approached
was no companion it welcomed.
The flowing mass was huge, and its glow gave it visibility in
the night. It was, Dane speculated, about the size of the wrecked
flitter. As it neared the platform, it now and then put out
projections of quivering material, white and brighter than the main
bulk of its body. All of these inclined one way, pointing at the
monster under them. But none held position long, instead sinking
back into the general mass, as if such effort was more than it
could summon for any length of time.
Again the monster screeched, but it did not charge to do battle
with the newcomer, nor did it flee. It was as if it hesitated, not
quite sure of the safest course.
The blob made excellent time across the open. More and more of
the projections appeared, to point tips forward. The projections
grew thinner, developing distinct tips, taking on the style of tentacles, though still they did not stay aloft for
long.
A third screech and the monster seemed to have made up its mind.
It shot forward to the right with a speed that made it just a dark
blur, a dark arm and limb streaking down across the blob as it
passed, cutting cleanly, and throwing off the stuff of at least
three tentacles, which hit the ground and began a movement of its
own, forming a small mass like the parent body. But the monster
paid no attention to that. It faced about, its forelimbs up and
whirling out, as the blob altered course, heading with less speed
but with inexorable purpose for it.
Once more the first comer made a lightning-swift attack,
shearing and tossing aside what it cut away from the blob. Again
those fragments combined to become a smaller blob, moving as the
first cutting had done toward the monster. The monster was facing
now not one opponent but three, though the two small ones would
seem to be far less dangerous than the main body. Twice more the
thing struck, ripping at its opponent in a frenzy, and each time it
only created a new, if much smaller, enemy.
“They have it ringed!” Meshler cried out. “It
may think it’s cutting that other thing to pieces, but
it’s really ringing itself in.”
He was right. The first three blobs had become eighteen. The
monster no longer attacked with the same speed. Either it was
tiring, its energy perhaps already somewhat worn by its battle with
the platform support, or else it was growing more wary, perhaps
beginning to understand, if it had a mind to comprehend, that its
efforts put it in more and more danger.
The blob now, the parent one, was less than half the size it had
been when it oozed into the open. But as it shrank, its offspring
increased. Now the larger of those were beginning to sprout short,
wavering tentacles in turn. And always those pointed to the
creature around which they had built a ring.
There came a pause in that weird struggle. The monster squatted
motionless now, still facing the first blob. The others did not
move. Instead the first tentacles they put forth, to point small
fingers at their enemy, now waved to each side, spinning thinner
and thinner, weaving back and forth aimlessly through the air. But that there was method in this was
quickly demonstrated. Two weaving tentacles from separate smaller
blobs touched. Instantly they united, so that the two became one,
thin and closer to the ground. And as they had managed this
unification, so did the rest. Thus the ring about their enemy was
complete, save for directly before the monster, where the parent
blob lay. Perhaps its inertia was meant to lull the victim. It
would seem that way, for the first comer apparently did not see or
care that three-quarters of the way around, it was now encircled by
a ribbon band lying on the ground, momentarily quiescent.
What signal passed to produce the next move in that struggle
Dane did not know, but the two loose ends of that band flew to join
themselves to the parent. As an overstretched piece of elastic
material might do, the band itself snapped against the back of the
squatting monster, pushing it forward, screeching and flailing
wildly, until the front portion of the blob raised up, not
tentacles but half its bulk, to come down with smashing finality on
its captive. It heaved and rolled from side to side, the band now
completely reunited.
Though engulfed, the monster had not surrendered. The rolling
blob spun around, changing shape constantly as the struggle within
it beat and tore at its heart. But that struggle gradually
subsided. The blob tightened, drew in and in until it was a
solid-looking sphere, and there was no more movement.
“Digesting,” Tau said. “Well, we’ve seen
how you don’t fight that anyway.”
“What is it?” Dane turned to Meshler for
enlightenment He should know something of the native wildlife.
“I don’t know.” The ranger was still staring,
bemused, at the ball. “It is not native here.”
“That makes two—three, if you count what it
ate,” Dane said. “That antline and these two. The
antline was certainly from off-world, maybe these, too.”
“But”—Meshler turned his head as if it was a
distinct effort to do so—“it is against the law to
import without a certificate. The Trosti people would
not—”
“Who said these were imported, or—if so—in
these forms?” Tau asked. “If they have a box, these
could be retrogressions of things entirely different. The Trosti
people have a high reputation, of course, but are you entirely sure, Meshler, that
this is a Trosti undertaking?”
“This is top-security country under Trosti
management,” the ranger said slowly.
“Orders can be used as a screen at times,” commented
the medic, and in that he was reflecting what the Free Traders had
learned long ago.
“Why would anyone want monsters?” Dane looked to the
blob and then away. He didn’t like to remember the details of
that recent struggle, though he had no sympathy for the monster who
had lost.
“Maybe not monsters for the sake of monsters,” Tau
acknowledged. “These are probably experiments of some sort.
But there are other uses for such radiation. Suppose such a box
were planted on a holding, how long could a settler stick it out if
his livestock began to mutate to this extent? It would be an
excellent way to clear off a world. Or, if they could make it work
on human beings—”
Dane sat up. Tau was giving voice to fears he shared. But
Meshler was more interested in the first part of the medic’s
speculation.
“Why would they want to get rid of settlers?”
“You know more about your own planet than I do. Ask yourself
that. I am wondering whether that thing can climb,” Tau
watched the blob. “Also how long before it is hungry
again—”
Dane stood up. There were huge reptiles on his native world,
which, engorging a large meal, were then sluggish for days
thereafter. One could never judge unknown fauna by what one knew of
other species, but they could hope this was the case now. He turned
to look for the haze marking the barrier. They should be able to
see it from here and mark out a path if the brach was successful
and the force field went out.
“There is no
reason—” Meshler was still wrestling with the problem
of the settlers being the target. “There is no reason here.
And this, this kind of experiment, it can’t be known by the
Council.”
“Good. Let us get out, and you can tell them all about
it,” replied Tau. “Is the field still up,” he
asked Dane.
“Yes.” The thin haze was unbroken. How long before
they must conclude that the brach had failed? And how long before
that blob would uncoil and be hungry again? Could it climb? He would rather not guess, though his treacherous
imagination kept suggesting that there was no reason in the world
to believe it could not.
Resolutely he concentrated on the matter at hand, to calculate
the nearest point of the haze. He thought that lay to the north,
and he said as much.
“The question is, do we stay here, or do we try to reach
the field before our visitor comes out of his after dinner
trance,” Tau said. “I’m wondering how many more
surprises may be lurking in the undergrowth.”
He had gotten so far when Dane saw the flicker of the haze. Had
the brach been successful? But the barrier steadied, and he choked
back his cry, only to see a second flicker before the force field
disappeared.
“It’s off!”
“We move!” Tau stooped to pick up something Meshler
had laid beside his pack. It was the torch made from the branch.
The medic weighed it in one hand, as if he meditated its use as a
club, then thrust the butt in his belt.
Dane took a careful bearing on the nearest point of freedom.
Beyond that the land was clear, and they could make better time. He
gave a last glance at the blob, but that remained so quiet that one
could believe it a rock outcrop.
He kicked the ladder out, feeling its weighted end thump on the
ground, and swung over. But as he descended, he continued to peer
between the supports to watch the blob. He wished that they did not
have to turn their backs on the thing to flee.
There was thick brush between them and the open, matted stuff
through which Meshler had earlier guided them. As they ran for
that, Tau pulled the torch from his belt.
“How inflammable is this woods?” He came level with
the ranger to ask.
“This is winter, and the leaves are dried. They will fall
in the spring when pushed off by new growth. What would you
do?”
“Set a wall behind us—make sure we won’t be
ambushed by other nasty surprises.”
Again they locked hands, and Meshler led them through the bush.
When they could see the open land, Tau brought from one of the
loops of his belt a sparker and touched it to the soaked torch. The
thing blazed fiercely, and the medic turned, whirled it about his head, and hurled it into the
thicket through which they had forced their way.
That’s a perfect beacon,” Dane protested.
“Maybe so, but it’s the best answer, short of
setting on the field again—which we can’t do—to
deter a tracker. I don’t fancy anything from that horror pen
sniffing on my trail!”
They ran, speeding out into the open. When they stumbled into
the road left by the crawlers, there was a growing line of fire
behind.
“Where now?” Dane fully expected Meshler to turn
back to the lamp-guarded way. But instead he faced in the other
direction.
“We still need transportation—more than ever if they
hunt us down after that—” He gestured to the fire, not
only spreading a red and yellow ring at ground level, but also now
setting tall candles by igniting trees.
“We just walk in and ask—” Dane stood where he
was. “That’s about as stupid as kicking that
blob—”
“No.” At least Meshler had some sense left.
“We wait.” He looked about, hitching the pack off his
shoulder. “That place up there might do.”
The place up there was a cut made by crawler treads running
between slightly higher banks. There was cover, though of a meager
sort, in some crumbling ridges of soil. Had they blasters, it would
have been a place for an ambush. Was Meshler thinking that the fire
would draw attention—bring a vehicle here they could take? But
without weapons?
“What will you do?” he demanded. “Wave them
down?”
For the first time he heard a rusty noise. Could it be that
Meshler was laughing?
“Something like that. If we are lucky and someone comes to
see what is happening.”
He took something from his pack, but what it was Dane could not
see. It appeared the ranger was not going to explain his plan. The
sensible thing was to jet off—he and Tau—and leave
Meshler to his folly, but they were not left time for decision. The
clank of a crawler in operation came to their ears.
With Tau, Dane speedily took cover behind the all-too-slight
ridge. The ranger was on the other side of the road and had so well melted into the landscape that Dane had no idea
where he lay.
Whoever drove the crawler was pushing that machine to its top
speed. The engine and frame were protesting the resulting shaking
with a medley of small noises. They could see it nosing into the
cut, and it clanked on past them, while Dane waited tensely for
Meshler’s attack. When that did not come, he gave a sigh of
relief. The ranger must have thought better of his wild idea.
As the crawler continued, a dark shape separated from the
opposite ridge and came down into the road. What followed Dane
could not see clearly, but he thought that Meshler had tossed
something on the rear of the machine. The crawler ground on for a
couple of rounds of its treads, and then vapor began to wreathe it
in.
From the cabin sounded coughing and shouts indistinguishable to
the Terrans. The door swung open on one side, and a man threw
himself out and rolled to the ground, followed by another. There
was a spat of blaster fire aimed straight up into the night. By
that Dane saw two more men drop from the cabin, clawing at their
faces and yelling. The blaster fell from the grip of whoever had
held it and lay in one of the ruts, beaming its deadly ray along
the ground, sending the full of its charge back within the narrow
walls of that deep track.
Reflection from that continued to give them a limited view of
what was going on. The crawler, cabin doors hanging open, kept on,
but the men who had fallen or jumped from it were lying still. Two
more had made valiant efforts to draw hand weapons. One got his
free of the holster before he went limp.
Now Meshler appeared, sprinting along beside the road, leaping
for the crawler, catching an open door, being dragged until he
pulled himself up to wriggle in. The heavy machine ground to a
stop.
The blaster still continued to discharge fire along the rut, and
the two Terrans made a careful detour by that ribbon of radiance as
they ran to join the ranger. Tau paused by the first of the
crumpled figures. He did not stoop to touch the man, only sniffed
and then hurriedly drew a succession of quick breaths to clear his
lungs.
“Sleep gas,” he said to Dane. “So he did have
a weapon.”
“And used it brilliantly!” Dane was willing
to give credit. But what if only one of those in the
crawler had had time to really aim? Meshler could easily have been
crisped. He went down on one knee, caught at the discharging
blaster, and thumbed it off. With the failure of that light, he had
to feel his way from one body to the next, collecting the rest of
their weapons.
But in spite of recklessness, Meshler had made his venture pay
off handsomely. They had the crawler, plus four blasters, though
one was close to power exhaustion, transportation, and arms.
Only Meshler was not yet satisfied, it seemed, when the Terrans
joined him. The crawler had come to life again and was slowly
edging around. The ranger only grunted, as if thinking of something
else when the Terrans congratulated him on his success.
“Clear them off the road, will you,” he said when
the machine was turned to face its source. “Stow them well up
on the ridge. They’ll sleep it off.”
“But where are you planning to go?” Dane demanded.
“You know how fast one of these moves?” There was a
shade of contempt in that question. “We can take it, sure.
And then they can retake us, long before we reach Cartl’s. We
need a flitter, or a shuttle flier—”
“You believe we can just ride into their camp and pick out
the kind of transportation we want?” snapped Dane.
“Won’t know until we try, will we?” Meshler
sounded reasonable, but reason and what he suggested had no common
base. “Crawler came out with their men in it—crawler
comes back. Who’s to know it isn’t their men coming
back? And you have blasters—”
Oh, it was all logical in an insane kind of way. The Terrans
could pull the blasters on Meshler, but the ranger probably knew
they would not. And the crawler was slow transport.
“Light two prayer sticks to Xampbrema,” Tau
commented. “Beat the drum, summon the seven spirits of Alba
Nuc—” He might have been reciting one of the spells he
had culled over the years. “He’s mad enough to try it.
We might as well aid and abet him.”
Together Dane and Tau carried the sleepers to one of the ridges,
stretching them out to await dawn or whatever waking hour the gas allowed them, while, under Meshler’s
guidance, the crawler waddled past the scene of the ambush.
Anyway, he did, as Meshler had pointed out, now have a blaster,
thought Dane, as he climbed into the cabin. And the—the
brach! In the push of late events, he had forgotten the brach.
Somewhere the alien must be—they could not pull out and leave
him.
What the crawler, following its own rutted trail, brought them
to was a basin, oval in shape. But when they stared down, Dane
shook his head and rubbed his eyes. There was something
there—
“Take it in quick!” Tau gave that order sharply, as
if they were confronted by danger.
The crawler’s nose dipped. There was a strange feeling of
disorientation, almost akin to that one felt on entering hyper. But
they were not on board ship now.
Dane had closed his eyes almost involuntarily to keep out that
queer feeling. Now he opened them, realizing the crawler was
descending a steep slope.
What lay before them was no longer affected, or else he was not
affected, by the dizzying blurring that had struck moments earlier.
There were diffuse lamps out, none of them on high, yet strong
enough to have provided a beacon reaching above the level of the
basin’s rim. Only they had not seen them. They had been in
the dark until they slipped through that thing which acted as a lid
over the valley basin.
“A sight-distort,” Tau murmured. “A wide-scale
distort. This place could not be seen by a flier.”
But Dane was more interested now in what lay ahead. The lamps
marked four bubble structures, the usual shelters carried by any
scouting camp. Beyond those were two buildings that looked, so low
were their walls and those roofed with earth, as if they were more
excavated in the ground than built above the surface.
What was more important now was a vehicle park to one side.
There was another crawler there, and beyond it a flitter, and
farther still—Dane gave a muffled exclamation, for the
surface of the ground had been hollowed out and in that large pit,
balanced on its fins, was a spacer. The diffuse lamps near the rim
showed the glassy, congealed earth, proving that the ship had
planeted here more than once. Many blast-offs and setdowns, with the pilot riding in on deter
rockets, had built up that burn.
“The flitter—” Meshler nodded as if he had
known all along their amazing luck was going to hold.
But the camp was in nowise deserted. Men were hurrying to the
other crawler. Dane distinctly saw in the light the long barrel of
a disrupter, though what such a weapon, forbidden for civilian use,
was doing here was just more of the puzzle. Also, from one of the
earth-roofed buildings rose a rod shining metallically in the
light. That was a power com send, by its length able not only to
reach the port in the north but also perhaps to beam messages into
space.
Meshler kept the crawler at its steady pace. They would have to
pass close to the other vehicle in order to reach the flitter, and
he made no attempt to swing wide. Perhaps he thought their bluff
would hold.
The other machine, which had started up, ground to a halt as
they approached, and a man leaned out of its cabin to shout at
them. Meshler waved his hand through the window. Perhaps he hoped
that ambiguous gesture would buy them a little more time. The bulk
of the crawler and its walls would protect them for a little. But
once they left it to run to the flitter—
Dane’s blaster was ready. He measured the distance yet
remaining, and then Meshler brought the nose of the crawler around,
aiming it so that its body would provide them with shelter. The
shouting from the other machine grew louder, more insistent. Then a
vicious spat of blaster fire cut the ground warningly before their
hose in a signal to stop.
Tau slammed the door open. “Now!” He was out and
running for the flitter.
The platform shuddered under them, and Dane
wondered how long it would be before it gave way under the
determined assault of the thing below. Meanwhile, that
phosphorescent greenish blob flowed farther into the open.
Flowed was the best description of its progress. It was unstable
in outline, as if it were a mass of some semi-liquid substance, and
the closer it approached, the less it resembled any living creature
Dane knew.
Now another odor warred with the stench of the first
comer—as foul. There was a sudden halt in the thumping of the
support. Once more came the screech. From their perch they could
not see the monster below, but Dane guessed that what approached
was no companion it welcomed.
The flowing mass was huge, and its glow gave it visibility in
the night. It was, Dane speculated, about the size of the wrecked
flitter. As it neared the platform, it now and then put out
projections of quivering material, white and brighter than the main
bulk of its body. All of these inclined one way, pointing at the
monster under them. But none held position long, instead sinking
back into the general mass, as if such effort was more than it
could summon for any length of time.
Again the monster screeched, but it did not charge to do battle
with the newcomer, nor did it flee. It was as if it hesitated, not
quite sure of the safest course.
The blob made excellent time across the open. More and more of
the projections appeared, to point tips forward. The projections
grew thinner, developing distinct tips, taking on the style of tentacles, though still they did not stay aloft for
long.
A third screech and the monster seemed to have made up its mind.
It shot forward to the right with a speed that made it just a dark
blur, a dark arm and limb streaking down across the blob as it
passed, cutting cleanly, and throwing off the stuff of at least
three tentacles, which hit the ground and began a movement of its
own, forming a small mass like the parent body. But the monster
paid no attention to that. It faced about, its forelimbs up and
whirling out, as the blob altered course, heading with less speed
but with inexorable purpose for it.
Once more the first comer made a lightning-swift attack,
shearing and tossing aside what it cut away from the blob. Again
those fragments combined to become a smaller blob, moving as the
first cutting had done toward the monster. The monster was facing
now not one opponent but three, though the two small ones would
seem to be far less dangerous than the main body. Twice more the
thing struck, ripping at its opponent in a frenzy, and each time it
only created a new, if much smaller, enemy.
“They have it ringed!” Meshler cried out. “It
may think it’s cutting that other thing to pieces, but
it’s really ringing itself in.”
He was right. The first three blobs had become eighteen. The
monster no longer attacked with the same speed. Either it was
tiring, its energy perhaps already somewhat worn by its battle with
the platform support, or else it was growing more wary, perhaps
beginning to understand, if it had a mind to comprehend, that its
efforts put it in more and more danger.
The blob now, the parent one, was less than half the size it had
been when it oozed into the open. But as it shrank, its offspring
increased. Now the larger of those were beginning to sprout short,
wavering tentacles in turn. And always those pointed to the
creature around which they had built a ring.
There came a pause in that weird struggle. The monster squatted
motionless now, still facing the first blob. The others did not
move. Instead the first tentacles they put forth, to point small
fingers at their enemy, now waved to each side, spinning thinner
and thinner, weaving back and forth aimlessly through the air. But that there was method in this was
quickly demonstrated. Two weaving tentacles from separate smaller
blobs touched. Instantly they united, so that the two became one,
thin and closer to the ground. And as they had managed this
unification, so did the rest. Thus the ring about their enemy was
complete, save for directly before the monster, where the parent
blob lay. Perhaps its inertia was meant to lull the victim. It
would seem that way, for the first comer apparently did not see or
care that three-quarters of the way around, it was now encircled by
a ribbon band lying on the ground, momentarily quiescent.
What signal passed to produce the next move in that struggle
Dane did not know, but the two loose ends of that band flew to join
themselves to the parent. As an overstretched piece of elastic
material might do, the band itself snapped against the back of the
squatting monster, pushing it forward, screeching and flailing
wildly, until the front portion of the blob raised up, not
tentacles but half its bulk, to come down with smashing finality on
its captive. It heaved and rolled from side to side, the band now
completely reunited.
Though engulfed, the monster had not surrendered. The rolling
blob spun around, changing shape constantly as the struggle within
it beat and tore at its heart. But that struggle gradually
subsided. The blob tightened, drew in and in until it was a
solid-looking sphere, and there was no more movement.
“Digesting,” Tau said. “Well, we’ve seen
how you don’t fight that anyway.”
“What is it?” Dane turned to Meshler for
enlightenment He should know something of the native wildlife.
“I don’t know.” The ranger was still staring,
bemused, at the ball. “It is not native here.”
“That makes two—three, if you count what it
ate,” Dane said. “That antline and these two. The
antline was certainly from off-world, maybe these, too.”
“But”—Meshler turned his head as if it was a
distinct effort to do so—“it is against the law to
import without a certificate. The Trosti people would
not—”
“Who said these were imported, or—if so—in
these forms?” Tau asked. “If they have a box, these
could be retrogressions of things entirely different. The Trosti
people have a high reputation, of course, but are you entirely sure, Meshler, that
this is a Trosti undertaking?”
“This is top-security country under Trosti
management,” the ranger said slowly.
“Orders can be used as a screen at times,” commented
the medic, and in that he was reflecting what the Free Traders had
learned long ago.
“Why would anyone want monsters?” Dane looked to the
blob and then away. He didn’t like to remember the details of
that recent struggle, though he had no sympathy for the monster who
had lost.
“Maybe not monsters for the sake of monsters,” Tau
acknowledged. “These are probably experiments of some sort.
But there are other uses for such radiation. Suppose such a box
were planted on a holding, how long could a settler stick it out if
his livestock began to mutate to this extent? It would be an
excellent way to clear off a world. Or, if they could make it work
on human beings—”
Dane sat up. Tau was giving voice to fears he shared. But
Meshler was more interested in the first part of the medic’s
speculation.
“Why would they want to get rid of settlers?”
“You know more about your own planet than I do. Ask yourself
that. I am wondering whether that thing can climb,” Tau
watched the blob. “Also how long before it is hungry
again—”
Dane stood up. There were huge reptiles on his native world,
which, engorging a large meal, were then sluggish for days
thereafter. One could never judge unknown fauna by what one knew of
other species, but they could hope this was the case now. He turned
to look for the haze marking the barrier. They should be able to
see it from here and mark out a path if the brach was successful
and the force field went out.
“There is no
reason—” Meshler was still wrestling with the problem
of the settlers being the target. “There is no reason here.
And this, this kind of experiment, it can’t be known by the
Council.”
“Good. Let us get out, and you can tell them all about
it,” replied Tau. “Is the field still up,” he
asked Dane.
“Yes.” The thin haze was unbroken. How long before
they must conclude that the brach had failed? And how long before
that blob would uncoil and be hungry again? Could it climb? He would rather not guess, though his treacherous
imagination kept suggesting that there was no reason in the world
to believe it could not.
Resolutely he concentrated on the matter at hand, to calculate
the nearest point of the haze. He thought that lay to the north,
and he said as much.
“The question is, do we stay here, or do we try to reach
the field before our visitor comes out of his after dinner
trance,” Tau said. “I’m wondering how many more
surprises may be lurking in the undergrowth.”
He had gotten so far when Dane saw the flicker of the haze. Had
the brach been successful? But the barrier steadied, and he choked
back his cry, only to see a second flicker before the force field
disappeared.
“It’s off!”
“We move!” Tau stooped to pick up something Meshler
had laid beside his pack. It was the torch made from the branch.
The medic weighed it in one hand, as if he meditated its use as a
club, then thrust the butt in his belt.
Dane took a careful bearing on the nearest point of freedom.
Beyond that the land was clear, and they could make better time. He
gave a last glance at the blob, but that remained so quiet that one
could believe it a rock outcrop.
He kicked the ladder out, feeling its weighted end thump on the
ground, and swung over. But as he descended, he continued to peer
between the supports to watch the blob. He wished that they did not
have to turn their backs on the thing to flee.
There was thick brush between them and the open, matted stuff
through which Meshler had earlier guided them. As they ran for
that, Tau pulled the torch from his belt.
“How inflammable is this woods?” He came level with
the ranger to ask.
“This is winter, and the leaves are dried. They will fall
in the spring when pushed off by new growth. What would you
do?”
“Set a wall behind us—make sure we won’t be
ambushed by other nasty surprises.”
Again they locked hands, and Meshler led them through the bush.
When they could see the open land, Tau brought from one of the
loops of his belt a sparker and touched it to the soaked torch. The
thing blazed fiercely, and the medic turned, whirled it about his head, and hurled it into the
thicket through which they had forced their way.
That’s a perfect beacon,” Dane protested.
“Maybe so, but it’s the best answer, short of
setting on the field again—which we can’t do—to
deter a tracker. I don’t fancy anything from that horror pen
sniffing on my trail!”
They ran, speeding out into the open. When they stumbled into
the road left by the crawlers, there was a growing line of fire
behind.
“Where now?” Dane fully expected Meshler to turn
back to the lamp-guarded way. But instead he faced in the other
direction.
“We still need transportation—more than ever if they
hunt us down after that—” He gestured to the fire, not
only spreading a red and yellow ring at ground level, but also now
setting tall candles by igniting trees.
“We just walk in and ask—” Dane stood where he
was. “That’s about as stupid as kicking that
blob—”
“No.” At least Meshler had some sense left.
“We wait.” He looked about, hitching the pack off his
shoulder. “That place up there might do.”
The place up there was a cut made by crawler treads running
between slightly higher banks. There was cover, though of a meager
sort, in some crumbling ridges of soil. Had they blasters, it would
have been a place for an ambush. Was Meshler thinking that the fire
would draw attention—bring a vehicle here they could take? But
without weapons?
“What will you do?” he demanded. “Wave them
down?”
For the first time he heard a rusty noise. Could it be that
Meshler was laughing?
“Something like that. If we are lucky and someone comes to
see what is happening.”
He took something from his pack, but what it was Dane could not
see. It appeared the ranger was not going to explain his plan. The
sensible thing was to jet off—he and Tau—and leave
Meshler to his folly, but they were not left time for decision. The
clank of a crawler in operation came to their ears.
With Tau, Dane speedily took cover behind the all-too-slight
ridge. The ranger was on the other side of the road and had so well melted into the landscape that Dane had no idea
where he lay.
Whoever drove the crawler was pushing that machine to its top
speed. The engine and frame were protesting the resulting shaking
with a medley of small noises. They could see it nosing into the
cut, and it clanked on past them, while Dane waited tensely for
Meshler’s attack. When that did not come, he gave a sigh of
relief. The ranger must have thought better of his wild idea.
As the crawler continued, a dark shape separated from the
opposite ridge and came down into the road. What followed Dane
could not see clearly, but he thought that Meshler had tossed
something on the rear of the machine. The crawler ground on for a
couple of rounds of its treads, and then vapor began to wreathe it
in.
From the cabin sounded coughing and shouts indistinguishable to
the Terrans. The door swung open on one side, and a man threw
himself out and rolled to the ground, followed by another. There
was a spat of blaster fire aimed straight up into the night. By
that Dane saw two more men drop from the cabin, clawing at their
faces and yelling. The blaster fell from the grip of whoever had
held it and lay in one of the ruts, beaming its deadly ray along
the ground, sending the full of its charge back within the narrow
walls of that deep track.
Reflection from that continued to give them a limited view of
what was going on. The crawler, cabin doors hanging open, kept on,
but the men who had fallen or jumped from it were lying still. Two
more had made valiant efforts to draw hand weapons. One got his
free of the holster before he went limp.
Now Meshler appeared, sprinting along beside the road, leaping
for the crawler, catching an open door, being dragged until he
pulled himself up to wriggle in. The heavy machine ground to a
stop.
The blaster still continued to discharge fire along the rut, and
the two Terrans made a careful detour by that ribbon of radiance as
they ran to join the ranger. Tau paused by the first of the
crumpled figures. He did not stoop to touch the man, only sniffed
and then hurriedly drew a succession of quick breaths to clear his
lungs.
“Sleep gas,” he said to Dane. “So he did have
a weapon.”
“And used it brilliantly!” Dane was willing
to give credit. But what if only one of those in the
crawler had had time to really aim? Meshler could easily have been
crisped. He went down on one knee, caught at the discharging
blaster, and thumbed it off. With the failure of that light, he had
to feel his way from one body to the next, collecting the rest of
their weapons.
But in spite of recklessness, Meshler had made his venture pay
off handsomely. They had the crawler, plus four blasters, though
one was close to power exhaustion, transportation, and arms.
Only Meshler was not yet satisfied, it seemed, when the Terrans
joined him. The crawler had come to life again and was slowly
edging around. The ranger only grunted, as if thinking of something
else when the Terrans congratulated him on his success.
“Clear them off the road, will you,” he said when
the machine was turned to face its source. “Stow them well up
on the ridge. They’ll sleep it off.”
“But where are you planning to go?” Dane demanded.
“You know how fast one of these moves?” There was a
shade of contempt in that question. “We can take it, sure.
And then they can retake us, long before we reach Cartl’s. We
need a flitter, or a shuttle flier—”
“You believe we can just ride into their camp and pick out
the kind of transportation we want?” snapped Dane.
“Won’t know until we try, will we?” Meshler
sounded reasonable, but reason and what he suggested had no common
base. “Crawler came out with their men in it—crawler
comes back. Who’s to know it isn’t their men coming
back? And you have blasters—”
Oh, it was all logical in an insane kind of way. The Terrans
could pull the blasters on Meshler, but the ranger probably knew
they would not. And the crawler was slow transport.
“Light two prayer sticks to Xampbrema,” Tau
commented. “Beat the drum, summon the seven spirits of Alba
Nuc—” He might have been reciting one of the spells he
had culled over the years. “He’s mad enough to try it.
We might as well aid and abet him.”
Together Dane and Tau carried the sleepers to one of the ridges,
stretching them out to await dawn or whatever waking hour the gas allowed them, while, under Meshler’s
guidance, the crawler waddled past the scene of the ambush.
Anyway, he did, as Meshler had pointed out, now have a blaster,
thought Dane, as he climbed into the cabin. And the—the
brach! In the push of late events, he had forgotten the brach.
Somewhere the alien must be—they could not pull out and leave
him.
What the crawler, following its own rutted trail, brought them
to was a basin, oval in shape. But when they stared down, Dane
shook his head and rubbed his eyes. There was something
there—
“Take it in quick!” Tau gave that order sharply, as
if they were confronted by danger.
The crawler’s nose dipped. There was a strange feeling of
disorientation, almost akin to that one felt on entering hyper. But
they were not on board ship now.
Dane had closed his eyes almost involuntarily to keep out that
queer feeling. Now he opened them, realizing the crawler was
descending a steep slope.
What lay before them was no longer affected, or else he was not
affected, by the dizzying blurring that had struck moments earlier.
There were diffuse lamps out, none of them on high, yet strong
enough to have provided a beacon reaching above the level of the
basin’s rim. Only they had not seen them. They had been in
the dark until they slipped through that thing which acted as a lid
over the valley basin.
“A sight-distort,” Tau murmured. “A wide-scale
distort. This place could not be seen by a flier.”
But Dane was more interested now in what lay ahead. The lamps
marked four bubble structures, the usual shelters carried by any
scouting camp. Beyond those were two buildings that looked, so low
were their walls and those roofed with earth, as if they were more
excavated in the ground than built above the surface.
What was more important now was a vehicle park to one side.
There was another crawler there, and beyond it a flitter, and
farther still—Dane gave a muffled exclamation, for the
surface of the ground had been hollowed out and in that large pit,
balanced on its fins, was a spacer. The diffuse lamps near the rim
showed the glassy, congealed earth, proving that the ship had
planeted here more than once. Many blast-offs and setdowns, with the pilot riding in on deter
rockets, had built up that burn.
“The flitter—” Meshler nodded as if he had
known all along their amazing luck was going to hold.
But the camp was in nowise deserted. Men were hurrying to the
other crawler. Dane distinctly saw in the light the long barrel of
a disrupter, though what such a weapon, forbidden for civilian use,
was doing here was just more of the puzzle. Also, from one of the
earth-roofed buildings rose a rod shining metallically in the
light. That was a power com send, by its length able not only to
reach the port in the north but also perhaps to beam messages into
space.
Meshler kept the crawler at its steady pace. They would have to
pass close to the other vehicle in order to reach the flitter, and
he made no attempt to swing wide. Perhaps he thought their bluff
would hold.
The other machine, which had started up, ground to a halt as
they approached, and a man leaned out of its cabin to shout at
them. Meshler waved his hand through the window. Perhaps he hoped
that ambiguous gesture would buy them a little more time. The bulk
of the crawler and its walls would protect them for a little. But
once they left it to run to the flitter—
Dane’s blaster was ready. He measured the distance yet
remaining, and then Meshler brought the nose of the crawler around,
aiming it so that its body would provide them with shelter. The
shouting from the other machine grew louder, more insistent. Then a
vicious spat of blaster fire cut the ground warningly before their
hose in a signal to stop.
Tau slammed the door open. “Now!” He was out and
running for the flitter.