I was not to escape so easily. There arose
behind me a shrilling that topped the sound of the storm. Something
thudded against the wall only inches from me, rebounding to the
ground. I had kept the beamer switched on and the light jerked back
and forth as I struggled to put distance between myself and the
natives below. Perhaps that moving light misled them, or perhaps
they were less adept with their clubs than we credited them with
being. However, one hurled weapon grazed my leg and almost broke my
hold on the fabric rope.
Fear alone gave me the strength to pull up on the rough crest of
the wall. My leg was numb and I was afraid to trust my weight to
it, so I dragged along like a broken-legged creature. The claws of
the natives stuck in my mind. Those should aid them in gaining our
perch.
Up here the wind and the rain buffeted us. I had not realized
how much protection the walls had afforded below. I clung to the
knobs and broken projections and pulled myself along, though I took
time to switch off the beamer that I might not so brightly
advertise our going.
“On, to your right now, and ahead—” Eet ordered.
I followed the line of the fabric to its end, found where the
knife pinned it firmly into a crack between an eroded knob and the
wall, paused long enough to worry it loose, and thrust that weapon
into my harness.
To the right and ahead? The blasting of the storm was such that
for some long moments I was not sure of the difference between
right and left, having to think of my hands as guides. Eet’s
direction would apparently take me over the wall. Yet I was certain
he did not mean us to descend again.
I discovered as I crawled on, dragging my aching leg, that here
the wall was joined by another, leading off at a sharp angle in the
direction Eet had indicated. It was slow and rough going, for the
crest was as encumbered with humps, hollows, and stubs as the other
had been. But at least they now served as anchorages against the
wind and drive of rain.
The visibility was nil as far as I was concerned. I had to
depend upon my sense of touch and Eet’s guidance. Every
moment I feared to hear the shrilling which would announce that the
club holders were hard behind us.
The numbness in my leg was wearing off, leaving behind an ache
which, when I barked that limb against one of the projections, made
me yowl with pain. But I did not try to get to my feet. Crawling
this uneven way seemed the safest.
We were heading out from the place where we had sheltered,
directly into a dark unknown. Now I could hear, above the storm,
not the shrilling of pursuers, but a roaring. And it was toward
that that we headed.
At last I became so uneasy I paused in the lee of a large lump
to use the beamer, sweeping the way before me. For a space the ray
showed wall—then—nothing!
I swept the beam down, along the right-hand side of the wall.
Water—raging water, beating its way around a vast tumble of
rocks. As I sent the ray left, it caught the edge of something
else, and I swiftly centered on that.
A rounded swell of mound? No, though it was patched with plants
and moss which caught the light and held it, continuing to glow
after the beam had passed. A curved object, taller than the wall at
the highest point, stretching back and out into darkness where my
beam could not reach.
The water which battered at the outer end of the wall washed it
on one side, but apparently it was too securely rooted to be moved
by that flood. I kept the ray playing on the portion nearest the
wall, trying to calculate if I could cross to it. But that other
surface, in spite of the growth of plants, suggested too smooth a
landing, especially since my take-off room would be limited on this
side.
“Well,” I shot at Eet, “where do we go? On
into the water? Or do we grow wings and head straight
up?”
When he did not reply, I was suddenly afraid I had been left
alone. Perhaps Eet, aware of his own ability to travel where I was
a handicapped drag, had struck out for himself. Then his answer
came, though I could not tell from what direction.
“To the ground, on the left. The water does not come this
far. And the ship will give us shelter—”
“Ship?” Once more I swept the beamer ray, studied
the mound. It could be a ship—yet it was not shaped like—
“Do you think there is only one pattern of ship? Even
among your own people there are several.”
He was right, of course. There is little resemblance between a
slender Free Trader, meant to cut into planetary atmospheres, and a
colonizer—so large it does not enter atmospheres at all, but uses
ferry ships to load and unload passengers and supplies.
I edged to the left side of the wall. The nose of the vast
object on the ground projected not far below. On that stood Eet,
his wiry fur not in the least plastered down by the rain, his eyes
pinpoints of light as the beam touched them. I swung over and
allowed myself to drop, hoping I would be able to find secure
footing.
Had I worn the magnetic boots, my feet might have clung. As it
was, my fears were realized. I landed squarely enough, but skidded
on, my hands and feet unable to find anchorage in the frail plants,
tearing those out by their roots in thick wet pads as I went. I met
the ground with a bump which drove most of the breath out of me.
From my bruised leg there was such a stab of pain that I blacked
out for a space. But the drip of water falling on and running down
my face restored me.
Half of my body lay under the curve of the ship, if ship it was.
But the rest of me was exposed to the storm. I scrabbled feebly
with my fingers in the mud and somehow pulled back under the
shelter.
There I huddled stupidly, not more than three-quarters
conscious, without the energy or will to move again. The beamer had
gone out and the dark closed in as completely as any of those
monolithic walls I had been climbing.
“There is an opening—” Eet’s words in my mind
were only an irritation. I put my hands over my eyes and shook my
head from side to side slowly, as if by that effort I could refuse
communication. It was a call to action and I had no intention of
obeying.
“Around here—there is an opening!” Eet was
peremptory.
Stubbornly I looked to see where I was. My leg ached abominably
and my exertions since we had landed on this inhospitable world had
caught up with me. I was content to have it so. In fact, I thought
dully, since that long period of boredom on the Vestris, I had not
had a moment of rest.
Hunger gnawed at me with an ever-growing pain. There might be a
few of the seeds rattling around in the container swinging from my
pack, but I had no desire to mouth them. They were not food—Food
was a platter of sizzling vorst steak, a mound of well-cooked
lattress, beaten, creamed with otan oil and herbs; it was an omelet
of trurax eggs sweetened just enough with a syrup of bargee buds;
it was—
“An empty belly about to be gutted by the sniffers!”
Eet rapped out. “They no longer sniff along the wall—they
have found a way around it!”
A moment earlier I could not have moved, but Eet’s words,
whether by his will or not, projected a mental picture which acted
on me as a whiplash might on a reluctant burden bearer. I moved, on
my hands and knees still, but at what speed I could muster, under
the overhang of the ship, around to where Eet waited.
When I tried to use the beamer there was no response. I supposed
my fall had finished it. But somewhere above, Eet waited and gave
directions. He had not found an open hatch, but rather a break in
the fabric of the ship, and I climbed, using the edge of the rent
to pull myself in. At last I lay on a slanting surface in a wan
light.
That gleam came from a crowding of the plants which I had first
seen in the forest. The shell of the ship might have been of an
alloy which resisted the tearing claws of time. But here there must
have been inner fittings which afforded rooting to the parasites as
they rotted. The plants had grown and flourished, first on that,
and then on the debris of their own ancestors, until the
accumulated products of that cycle of life, death, decay, and life
again had filled most of the open space. These broke off in huge,
ill-smelling chunks which sifted to powder and arose in dust around
me as I moved slowly and clumsily about.
The surface on which I half lay might be a floor, or the wall of
the corridor. It was choked by plants, but those thinned out as one
penetrated farther. I braced myself against the wall and looked
back. I was certainly not as heavy of body as the sniffers and it
had taken determined wriggling to enter. The opening my exertions
had left would admit no more than one at a time, and that one only
after a struggle. With the knife I could defend my new lair. We
were out of the storm, and the wind was now but a muffled
sighing.
Was this, I wondered suddenly, the goal to which the stone had
been guiding us? If I explored farther into this disintegrating
hulk would I come upon another long-deserted engine room with a box
of dead stones?
I looked down at the pouch which held my strange guide. But that
slight glow I had seen in the bog land was gone. When I brought out
the ring it was as dull and lifeless as it had been before our
venture in space.
“They sniff around—”
One of the glimmering plants guarding the rent shook and I made
out the shadow of Eet crouched there, his neck outthrust at what
seemed to me an impossible angle as he nosed into the night.
“They sniff but also they fear. This is a place filled with
fears for them.”
“Maybe they will go then,” I answered. The lassitude
of moments earlier had again closed upon me. I was not sure that
even if one of the natives tried to force his way in I could raise
knife in defense.
“Two do—” Eet replied. “One remains. He waits
underneath, but where he can watch this door. I think he is
settling in for a seige.”
“Let him—” I could not keep my eyes open. Such
crushing fatigue was new to me. It was like being drugged. If I lay
ready for the slayer’s club, I could not help it. I was
done.
If Eet tried to rouse me, it was in vain. Nor did I dream.
Perhaps the dust of the plants, the crushing of their leaves,
produced a narcotic which overcame me. When I finally did awake,
light lay across my eyes and I blinked, dazzled. At least, I
thought sluggishly, I was not killed in my sleep.
The refuse caused by my entrance into this lair was all about
me. Plants torn from their roots were already decaying with strong
smells. It was not their phosphorescence which gave the light, but
day beyond. I began to crawl toward that more wholesome gleam as an
escape from the evil-smelling mass holding me. But there was
agitation at the jagged opening and Eet’s body humped up, as
if, small as he was, he would interpose that insignificant bulk
between me and some danger.
“There are many now—waiting—” he warned.
“The sniffers?”
“Just so. Many—and they are always on watch.”
I retreated crabwise from the light. The plants thinned and
finally I reached a place relatively clean from their rooting.
“Another door—hole?”
“There are two,” Eet replied promptly. “One is
on the underside and too small for you. There can be no digging to
enlarge it, for it is pressed against stone paving. I think it was
once a hatch. The other is on the other side of the ship and they
watch there also. They are showing more intelligence than I thought
they possessed.”
“Never underestimate your opponent.” Those were not
my words but ones I had heard often from Hywel Jern in the old
days. I had not, I thought now, done much credit to his
teaching.
“I do not understand what moves them.” Eet sounded
fretful, lacking in that assurance which could irritate one.
“They have a fear of this place. That emotion is strong in
them. Yet they stay here with great patience—waiting for us to
come forth.”
“Perhaps they did this once before—ran a quarry to
earth, had it come out. You said they look upon me as meat. Yet the
land abounds in other game—”
“Among some primitive races there is another
belief.” Eet had returned to his instructor role. “To
eat of the body of a creature looked upon with superstitious awe or
fear, is to imbibe the unusual quality of that prey. This may be
such a case.”
“Which could mean that they have seen men, or humanoids,
before.” I seized upon that as a small hope. “But they
surely could not hold memories of the people who built those walls,
this ship—the remains are too old. And those are primitives, who
normally do not remember events, save as vague legends, from one
season to the next.”
“Take your own advice,” Eet made answer. “Do
not judge all primitives alike. These may possess a form of memory
more acute than any you have encountered before. Knowledge of
events may even be handed down through a special body of trained
‘rememberers.’”
He could be very right. Did those sniffers with their clubs,
their near-to-animal look, treasure some tribal legend of a race
which had once built here, had perhaps enslaved or mistreated their
far-off ancestors—who had come to death in some fashion (perhaps
at the hands of those same ancestors)? And now did they believe
they had cornered one of the old masters and intend to have him out
for the purpose of refreshing some inner strength?
“On the other hand,” Eet continued, “there may
have been landings of off-world ships, and you could be right in
your first guess that men of your type have been hunted, killed,
and their ‘spirits’ so absorbed by their
slayers.”
“All very interesting, but it does not get us out of here.
Nor provide us with food, water, and the means of keeping alive
while they cork us in here.”
While I talked I brought out the two containers. The one with
the seeds rattled faintly. But to my surprise the other was heavy
and gurgled encouragingly.
Eet was amused. “Rain is water,” he observed.
“We had enough of that last night to fill a well-placed
bottle.”
Again he had put me to shame. I tested the contents for taste.
The sharpness of the ship’s liquid was still present, but
much diluted. I sipped when I wanted to gulp, and then held it for
him to do likewise, but he refused.
“There was much to drink last night. And this body does
not need much moisture. That is one advantage in being small. But
for food we do not fare so well—unless—” His neck went up
to its full length. He was intently watching something which moved
at the door rent. I could not make out the nature of the thing
crawling in, nor did I have time to see it plainly before Eet
sprang.
His feline ancestry went into that sharp attack. He bent his
head and used his teeth, then came back to me dragging a body which
dangled from his mouth, weighing down his head.
It was long and thin, with three legs on either side. The body
was covered with plates of a horny substance, the head a round bead
with four feathery antennae. Eet flipped it over to expose a
segmented underside of a paler hue.
“Meat,” he commented.
My stomach turned. I could not share his taste and I shook my
head.
“Meat is meat.” Eet was scornful of my
squeamishness. “This is a feeder on plants. Its shape may not
be that of a creature you know, but its flesh is of a type you and
I can assimilate and live upon.”
“You live upon it,” I said hurriedly. The longer I
studied that segmented insectile body, the less I wanted to discuss
the matter. “I will stick to the seeds.”
“Which are few and will not last long,” Eet pointed
out in deadly logic.
“Which may not last long, but while they do, I stick to
them.”
I averted my eyes and crawled a little away. Eet was a dainty
eater. That, too, he took from his dam. But even though he was
fastidious about the business, I had no desire to watch him.
My crawl brought me into a portion of the ancient corridor where
I felt inequalities under me. I ran my hands over the surface and
decided I had found a door and that the ship must lie on its side.
I worked at the latch, if latch it was, trying to open it. There
was always a chance that a small discovery might lead to a larger—even a way out past the sentries.
At last I could feel a slight give—then, with a suddenness
which almost carried me with it, a plate gave way and fell with a
clang, leaving my hands braced on the edge of a square space. I
felt around carefully. It must be a door. But I could not explore
below without light. Once more I clicked the beamer, but to no
purpose. I glanced at the daylight coming from the rent There was
no way to introduce that to this point. But my eyes fastened on
some of the plants which still grew unbroken above the level where
I had crawled the night before. They were certainly very feeble
torches, but they were better than nothing at all.
I crept past the busy Eet. The passageway was so full of debris
at this point that I could not stand upright. And my badly bruised
leg was a further hindrance. But I was able to jerk from their
rooting two good-sized plants. With one in each hand I came back to
the hole.
The phosphorescence was indeed very pale, but the longer I
crouched with my back to the daylight, and held them over that dark
drop, the more my eyes adjusted. And I was able to make out a few
details.
At last I twined the dangling roots of the two together, and
using those for a cord, I lowered the ball of plants into the dark.
What I had uncovered was a cabin right enough. And as I examined
it, allowing for the greater ruin and decay, I thought it twin to
those I had seen in the derelict. There was nothing below to aid
us, either as weapon or tool. But when I drew up my luminous plant
ball, I had learned this much—with such a lamp I dared go deeper
into the ship. For the darker the space into which it was thrust,
the brighter by contrast became its glow.
With it again in hand I set about surveying the passageway. Eet
had said he had found only two other exits. But had he fully
explored the ship? Suppose there was another hatch not jammed
against the ground which we could force open to escape?
Leaving my improvised torch ball at the open cabin door, I
climbed back to the rent to examine the rest of the plants. They
were, judging by their stalks and leaf structure, of several
different varieties. One, with long slender leaves parting into
hair-fine sections, possessed a bulbous center which was
particularly effective as a light-giver. I snapped off four of
these. They were brittle and yielded easily to pressure. I knotted
them together, using their fine leaves, and carried the mass in my
hand as one might carry a bouquet of more fragrant and entrancing
growths.
Eet had finished his meal and I found him sitting by my first
torch, using a hand-paw to clean his face and whiskers, licking his
fur in another entirely feline gesture.
“There is a division of corridor beyond. Which
direction?” he asked, apparently willing to join in an
expedition.
“There might be another hatch—”
“There is surely more than one for any ship,” was
his withering reply. “Right, or straight ahead?”
“Straight ahead,” I said, choosing instantly. I did
not have any idea how long my torch would last, and I had no desire
to be caught by the dark in some inner maze.
But when we reached the crossway Eet had mentioned, he suddenly
hissed and spat, his whip tail shooting up, his back arching, until
he was a weird caricature of a cat.
What he had sighted was a shining trace along the wall. It was a
little higher than my ankle at first; but ascended until it striped
that surface at about shoulder height. I did not touch it. There
was that about it which was so disgusting that I wanted no close
contact. It was as if the slime which had ringed the dying lakes
and ponds had here been used to draw a marker, fresh, as a
warning.
“What is it?” So much had I come to depend upon Eet
that I now asked that almost automatically.
“I do not know—except that it is nothing to be meddled
with. And darkness is its choice of abode.” I thought he
seemed shaken as I had never seen him before.
“You must have been along here before, for you knew about
this side passage. Was it here then?”
“No!” His denial was sharp. “I do not like
it.”
Nor did I. And the more I surveyed that sticky trail with its
suggestion of utter foulness, the way it climbed the wall so that
whatever made it might hang overhead—waiting—My imagination
began to work. And in that moment I knew that only desperation
worse than any I had faced so far would ever drive me to take that
road deeper into a dark where such horrors might lurk.
I turned back, nor did it matter to me that Eet could read my
mind and knew just what fears rode me. But I wondered if he cared,
for he was streaking back along the passage as if some terror
lashed also at his flanks.
I was not to escape so easily. There arose
behind me a shrilling that topped the sound of the storm. Something
thudded against the wall only inches from me, rebounding to the
ground. I had kept the beamer switched on and the light jerked back
and forth as I struggled to put distance between myself and the
natives below. Perhaps that moving light misled them, or perhaps
they were less adept with their clubs than we credited them with
being. However, one hurled weapon grazed my leg and almost broke my
hold on the fabric rope.
Fear alone gave me the strength to pull up on the rough crest of
the wall. My leg was numb and I was afraid to trust my weight to
it, so I dragged along like a broken-legged creature. The claws of
the natives stuck in my mind. Those should aid them in gaining our
perch.
Up here the wind and the rain buffeted us. I had not realized
how much protection the walls had afforded below. I clung to the
knobs and broken projections and pulled myself along, though I took
time to switch off the beamer that I might not so brightly
advertise our going.
“On, to your right now, and ahead—” Eet ordered.
I followed the line of the fabric to its end, found where the
knife pinned it firmly into a crack between an eroded knob and the
wall, paused long enough to worry it loose, and thrust that weapon
into my harness.
To the right and ahead? The blasting of the storm was such that
for some long moments I was not sure of the difference between
right and left, having to think of my hands as guides. Eet’s
direction would apparently take me over the wall. Yet I was certain
he did not mean us to descend again.
I discovered as I crawled on, dragging my aching leg, that here
the wall was joined by another, leading off at a sharp angle in the
direction Eet had indicated. It was slow and rough going, for the
crest was as encumbered with humps, hollows, and stubs as the other
had been. But at least they now served as anchorages against the
wind and drive of rain.
The visibility was nil as far as I was concerned. I had to
depend upon my sense of touch and Eet’s guidance. Every
moment I feared to hear the shrilling which would announce that the
club holders were hard behind us.
The numbness in my leg was wearing off, leaving behind an ache
which, when I barked that limb against one of the projections, made
me yowl with pain. But I did not try to get to my feet. Crawling
this uneven way seemed the safest.
We were heading out from the place where we had sheltered,
directly into a dark unknown. Now I could hear, above the storm,
not the shrilling of pursuers, but a roaring. And it was toward
that that we headed.
At last I became so uneasy I paused in the lee of a large lump
to use the beamer, sweeping the way before me. For a space the ray
showed wall—then—nothing!
I swept the beam down, along the right-hand side of the wall.
Water—raging water, beating its way around a vast tumble of
rocks. As I sent the ray left, it caught the edge of something
else, and I swiftly centered on that.
A rounded swell of mound? No, though it was patched with plants
and moss which caught the light and held it, continuing to glow
after the beam had passed. A curved object, taller than the wall at
the highest point, stretching back and out into darkness where my
beam could not reach.
The water which battered at the outer end of the wall washed it
on one side, but apparently it was too securely rooted to be moved
by that flood. I kept the ray playing on the portion nearest the
wall, trying to calculate if I could cross to it. But that other
surface, in spite of the growth of plants, suggested too smooth a
landing, especially since my take-off room would be limited on this
side.
“Well,” I shot at Eet, “where do we go? On
into the water? Or do we grow wings and head straight
up?”
When he did not reply, I was suddenly afraid I had been left
alone. Perhaps Eet, aware of his own ability to travel where I was
a handicapped drag, had struck out for himself. Then his answer
came, though I could not tell from what direction.
“To the ground, on the left. The water does not come this
far. And the ship will give us shelter—”
“Ship?” Once more I swept the beamer ray, studied
the mound. It could be a ship—yet it was not shaped like—
“Do you think there is only one pattern of ship? Even
among your own people there are several.”
He was right, of course. There is little resemblance between a
slender Free Trader, meant to cut into planetary atmospheres, and a
colonizer—so large it does not enter atmospheres at all, but uses
ferry ships to load and unload passengers and supplies.
I edged to the left side of the wall. The nose of the vast
object on the ground projected not far below. On that stood Eet,
his wiry fur not in the least plastered down by the rain, his eyes
pinpoints of light as the beam touched them. I swung over and
allowed myself to drop, hoping I would be able to find secure
footing.
Had I worn the magnetic boots, my feet might have clung. As it
was, my fears were realized. I landed squarely enough, but skidded
on, my hands and feet unable to find anchorage in the frail plants,
tearing those out by their roots in thick wet pads as I went. I met
the ground with a bump which drove most of the breath out of me.
From my bruised leg there was such a stab of pain that I blacked
out for a space. But the drip of water falling on and running down
my face restored me.
Half of my body lay under the curve of the ship, if ship it was.
But the rest of me was exposed to the storm. I scrabbled feebly
with my fingers in the mud and somehow pulled back under the
shelter.
There I huddled stupidly, not more than three-quarters
conscious, without the energy or will to move again. The beamer had
gone out and the dark closed in as completely as any of those
monolithic walls I had been climbing.
“There is an opening—” Eet’s words in my mind
were only an irritation. I put my hands over my eyes and shook my
head from side to side slowly, as if by that effort I could refuse
communication. It was a call to action and I had no intention of
obeying.
“Around here—there is an opening!” Eet was
peremptory.
Stubbornly I looked to see where I was. My leg ached abominably
and my exertions since we had landed on this inhospitable world had
caught up with me. I was content to have it so. In fact, I thought
dully, since that long period of boredom on the Vestris, I had not
had a moment of rest.
Hunger gnawed at me with an ever-growing pain. There might be a
few of the seeds rattling around in the container swinging from my
pack, but I had no desire to mouth them. They were not food—Food
was a platter of sizzling vorst steak, a mound of well-cooked
lattress, beaten, creamed with otan oil and herbs; it was an omelet
of trurax eggs sweetened just enough with a syrup of bargee buds;
it was—
“An empty belly about to be gutted by the sniffers!”
Eet rapped out. “They no longer sniff along the wall—they
have found a way around it!”
A moment earlier I could not have moved, but Eet’s words,
whether by his will or not, projected a mental picture which acted
on me as a whiplash might on a reluctant burden bearer. I moved, on
my hands and knees still, but at what speed I could muster, under
the overhang of the ship, around to where Eet waited.
When I tried to use the beamer there was no response. I supposed
my fall had finished it. But somewhere above, Eet waited and gave
directions. He had not found an open hatch, but rather a break in
the fabric of the ship, and I climbed, using the edge of the rent
to pull myself in. At last I lay on a slanting surface in a wan
light.
That gleam came from a crowding of the plants which I had first
seen in the forest. The shell of the ship might have been of an
alloy which resisted the tearing claws of time. But here there must
have been inner fittings which afforded rooting to the parasites as
they rotted. The plants had grown and flourished, first on that,
and then on the debris of their own ancestors, until the
accumulated products of that cycle of life, death, decay, and life
again had filled most of the open space. These broke off in huge,
ill-smelling chunks which sifted to powder and arose in dust around
me as I moved slowly and clumsily about.
The surface on which I half lay might be a floor, or the wall of
the corridor. It was choked by plants, but those thinned out as one
penetrated farther. I braced myself against the wall and looked
back. I was certainly not as heavy of body as the sniffers and it
had taken determined wriggling to enter. The opening my exertions
had left would admit no more than one at a time, and that one only
after a struggle. With the knife I could defend my new lair. We
were out of the storm, and the wind was now but a muffled
sighing.
Was this, I wondered suddenly, the goal to which the stone had
been guiding us? If I explored farther into this disintegrating
hulk would I come upon another long-deserted engine room with a box
of dead stones?
I looked down at the pouch which held my strange guide. But that
slight glow I had seen in the bog land was gone. When I brought out
the ring it was as dull and lifeless as it had been before our
venture in space.
“They sniff around—”
One of the glimmering plants guarding the rent shook and I made
out the shadow of Eet crouched there, his neck outthrust at what
seemed to me an impossible angle as he nosed into the night.
“They sniff but also they fear. This is a place filled with
fears for them.”
“Maybe they will go then,” I answered. The lassitude
of moments earlier had again closed upon me. I was not sure that
even if one of the natives tried to force his way in I could raise
knife in defense.
“Two do—” Eet replied. “One remains. He waits
underneath, but where he can watch this door. I think he is
settling in for a seige.”
“Let him—” I could not keep my eyes open. Such
crushing fatigue was new to me. It was like being drugged. If I lay
ready for the slayer’s club, I could not help it. I was
done.
If Eet tried to rouse me, it was in vain. Nor did I dream.
Perhaps the dust of the plants, the crushing of their leaves,
produced a narcotic which overcame me. When I finally did awake,
light lay across my eyes and I blinked, dazzled. At least, I
thought sluggishly, I was not killed in my sleep.
The refuse caused by my entrance into this lair was all about
me. Plants torn from their roots were already decaying with strong
smells. It was not their phosphorescence which gave the light, but
day beyond. I began to crawl toward that more wholesome gleam as an
escape from the evil-smelling mass holding me. But there was
agitation at the jagged opening and Eet’s body humped up, as
if, small as he was, he would interpose that insignificant bulk
between me and some danger.
“There are many now—waiting—” he warned.
“The sniffers?”
“Just so. Many—and they are always on watch.”
I retreated crabwise from the light. The plants thinned and
finally I reached a place relatively clean from their rooting.
“Another door—hole?”
“There are two,” Eet replied promptly. “One is
on the underside and too small for you. There can be no digging to
enlarge it, for it is pressed against stone paving. I think it was
once a hatch. The other is on the other side of the ship and they
watch there also. They are showing more intelligence than I thought
they possessed.”
“Never underestimate your opponent.” Those were not
my words but ones I had heard often from Hywel Jern in the old
days. I had not, I thought now, done much credit to his
teaching.
“I do not understand what moves them.” Eet sounded
fretful, lacking in that assurance which could irritate one.
“They have a fear of this place. That emotion is strong in
them. Yet they stay here with great patience—waiting for us to
come forth.”
“Perhaps they did this once before—ran a quarry to
earth, had it come out. You said they look upon me as meat. Yet the
land abounds in other game—”
“Among some primitive races there is another
belief.” Eet had returned to his instructor role. “To
eat of the body of a creature looked upon with superstitious awe or
fear, is to imbibe the unusual quality of that prey. This may be
such a case.”
“Which could mean that they have seen men, or humanoids,
before.” I seized upon that as a small hope. “But they
surely could not hold memories of the people who built those walls,
this ship—the remains are too old. And those are primitives, who
normally do not remember events, save as vague legends, from one
season to the next.”
“Take your own advice,” Eet made answer. “Do
not judge all primitives alike. These may possess a form of memory
more acute than any you have encountered before. Knowledge of
events may even be handed down through a special body of trained
‘rememberers.’”
He could be very right. Did those sniffers with their clubs,
their near-to-animal look, treasure some tribal legend of a race
which had once built here, had perhaps enslaved or mistreated their
far-off ancestors—who had come to death in some fashion (perhaps
at the hands of those same ancestors)? And now did they believe
they had cornered one of the old masters and intend to have him out
for the purpose of refreshing some inner strength?
“On the other hand,” Eet continued, “there may
have been landings of off-world ships, and you could be right in
your first guess that men of your type have been hunted, killed,
and their ‘spirits’ so absorbed by their
slayers.”
“All very interesting, but it does not get us out of here.
Nor provide us with food, water, and the means of keeping alive
while they cork us in here.”
While I talked I brought out the two containers. The one with
the seeds rattled faintly. But to my surprise the other was heavy
and gurgled encouragingly.
Eet was amused. “Rain is water,” he observed.
“We had enough of that last night to fill a well-placed
bottle.”
Again he had put me to shame. I tested the contents for taste.
The sharpness of the ship’s liquid was still present, but
much diluted. I sipped when I wanted to gulp, and then held it for
him to do likewise, but he refused.
“There was much to drink last night. And this body does
not need much moisture. That is one advantage in being small. But
for food we do not fare so well—unless—” His neck went up
to its full length. He was intently watching something which moved
at the door rent. I could not make out the nature of the thing
crawling in, nor did I have time to see it plainly before Eet
sprang.
His feline ancestry went into that sharp attack. He bent his
head and used his teeth, then came back to me dragging a body which
dangled from his mouth, weighing down his head.
It was long and thin, with three legs on either side. The body
was covered with plates of a horny substance, the head a round bead
with four feathery antennae. Eet flipped it over to expose a
segmented underside of a paler hue.
“Meat,” he commented.
My stomach turned. I could not share his taste and I shook my
head.
“Meat is meat.” Eet was scornful of my
squeamishness. “This is a feeder on plants. Its shape may not
be that of a creature you know, but its flesh is of a type you and
I can assimilate and live upon.”
“You live upon it,” I said hurriedly. The longer I
studied that segmented insectile body, the less I wanted to discuss
the matter. “I will stick to the seeds.”
“Which are few and will not last long,” Eet pointed
out in deadly logic.
“Which may not last long, but while they do, I stick to
them.”
I averted my eyes and crawled a little away. Eet was a dainty
eater. That, too, he took from his dam. But even though he was
fastidious about the business, I had no desire to watch him.
My crawl brought me into a portion of the ancient corridor where
I felt inequalities under me. I ran my hands over the surface and
decided I had found a door and that the ship must lie on its side.
I worked at the latch, if latch it was, trying to open it. There
was always a chance that a small discovery might lead to a larger—even a way out past the sentries.
At last I could feel a slight give—then, with a suddenness
which almost carried me with it, a plate gave way and fell with a
clang, leaving my hands braced on the edge of a square space. I
felt around carefully. It must be a door. But I could not explore
below without light. Once more I clicked the beamer, but to no
purpose. I glanced at the daylight coming from the rent There was
no way to introduce that to this point. But my eyes fastened on
some of the plants which still grew unbroken above the level where
I had crawled the night before. They were certainly very feeble
torches, but they were better than nothing at all.
I crept past the busy Eet. The passageway was so full of debris
at this point that I could not stand upright. And my badly bruised
leg was a further hindrance. But I was able to jerk from their
rooting two good-sized plants. With one in each hand I came back to
the hole.
The phosphorescence was indeed very pale, but the longer I
crouched with my back to the daylight, and held them over that dark
drop, the more my eyes adjusted. And I was able to make out a few
details.
At last I twined the dangling roots of the two together, and
using those for a cord, I lowered the ball of plants into the dark.
What I had uncovered was a cabin right enough. And as I examined
it, allowing for the greater ruin and decay, I thought it twin to
those I had seen in the derelict. There was nothing below to aid
us, either as weapon or tool. But when I drew up my luminous plant
ball, I had learned this much—with such a lamp I dared go deeper
into the ship. For the darker the space into which it was thrust,
the brighter by contrast became its glow.
With it again in hand I set about surveying the passageway. Eet
had said he had found only two other exits. But had he fully
explored the ship? Suppose there was another hatch not jammed
against the ground which we could force open to escape?
Leaving my improvised torch ball at the open cabin door, I
climbed back to the rent to examine the rest of the plants. They
were, judging by their stalks and leaf structure, of several
different varieties. One, with long slender leaves parting into
hair-fine sections, possessed a bulbous center which was
particularly effective as a light-giver. I snapped off four of
these. They were brittle and yielded easily to pressure. I knotted
them together, using their fine leaves, and carried the mass in my
hand as one might carry a bouquet of more fragrant and entrancing
growths.
Eet had finished his meal and I found him sitting by my first
torch, using a hand-paw to clean his face and whiskers, licking his
fur in another entirely feline gesture.
“There is a division of corridor beyond. Which
direction?” he asked, apparently willing to join in an
expedition.
“There might be another hatch—”
“There is surely more than one for any ship,” was
his withering reply. “Right, or straight ahead?”
“Straight ahead,” I said, choosing instantly. I did
not have any idea how long my torch would last, and I had no desire
to be caught by the dark in some inner maze.
But when we reached the crossway Eet had mentioned, he suddenly
hissed and spat, his whip tail shooting up, his back arching, until
he was a weird caricature of a cat.
What he had sighted was a shining trace along the wall. It was a
little higher than my ankle at first; but ascended until it striped
that surface at about shoulder height. I did not touch it. There
was that about it which was so disgusting that I wanted no close
contact. It was as if the slime which had ringed the dying lakes
and ponds had here been used to draw a marker, fresh, as a
warning.
“What is it?” So much had I come to depend upon Eet
that I now asked that almost automatically.
“I do not know—except that it is nothing to be meddled
with. And darkness is its choice of abode.” I thought he
seemed shaken as I had never seen him before.
“You must have been along here before, for you knew about
this side passage. Was it here then?”
“No!” His denial was sharp. “I do not like
it.”
Nor did I. And the more I surveyed that sticky trail with its
suggestion of utter foulness, the way it climbed the wall so that
whatever made it might hang overhead—waiting—My imagination
began to work. And in that moment I knew that only desperation
worse than any I had faced so far would ever drive me to take that
road deeper into a dark where such horrors might lurk.
I turned back, nor did it matter to me that Eet could read my
mind and knew just what fears rode me. But I wondered if he cared,
for he was streaking back along the passage as if some terror
lashed also at his flanks.