“Any suggestions as to how we do find the
ship?” I asked Eet.
Without inquiring if I cared to be his mode of transportation,
he had climbed to my shoulders. In this dank heat and with the
weight of the suit pressing me down, his presence was a drag.
Eet’s head waved back and forth, almost as if he could
sniff out our path. There was a constant patter of drops from
above. It might have been raining forever in the dusk of the forest—or rather, dripping from the condensation of moisture above.
No underbrush existed here, save for the parasitic plants, which
apparently did not need sunlight and were rooted on tree or vine
trunks. Most of these gleamed ghostlily.
But there was no clear vista in any direction. The trunks of the
tree giants stood well separated one from the other because of
their size, the large and strong forcing their way to the light and
sun, the weaker dying. However, every one bore a lacy coating of
vines, those twined and twirled from their own rootings to make a
chocked maze.
Under the tree where we had seen the clubber make his kill we
came upon a kind of path, maybe a game trail. It was tempting to
turn into that easier way—tempting, but dangerous.
“Right!” Eet’s head swung in that
direction.
“How—?”
“Smell!” he rapped out. “Burning—hot metal—At
least this body has some good points. Try right and walk
softly.”
“As I can,” I snapped in return. Slogging through
the soft muck of long-dead vegetation was not easy. The plated
boots I wore sunk in at each step and I had to pull my way wearily
through either sifting sand or glutinous mud. Yet I clung to the
suit, unwieldy as it was for such travel, because it gave me a
sense of security.
As usual Eet proved to be right. Light pierced the gloom ahead
after we rounded two more of the giant tree boles and their
attendant festoons of vine stems. In this dusk the brilliant,
eye-dazzling shafts of sunlight made me stop short, blinking.
There was a mass of splintered limbs, torn and mangled vines.
Smoke still arose in languid trails, the stench of burned
vegetation as thick as gas. But so full of sap or moisture was that
growth that the fire set by the crash of the LB had not spread, but
been quickly smothered. The ship had rammed down on nose and side
and was buried deep in the muck, the metal shell crumpled and rent
in some places.
Across the forest hole its fall had torn, brilliantly hued
insects darted or drifted, lighting to crawl over the still-oozing
sap. I saw a scurry as some four-footed explorer crossed the burst
hull. And, surveying that wreck, I was shaken by the closeness of
our escape. What if we had not been able to scramble out before the
LB had plunged from its first landing in the treetops?
Fighting my way over the mass of splintered, entangled, and
half-burned debris about the ship was a slow and painful business.
Eet had jumped from my shoulder and reached our goal with a couple
of bounds, then raced along the sloping side.
“The hatch is buried,” he reported. “But there
is a break here—not large enough for you—”
“But all right for you.” I snapped apart a nasty
trap of spiky, splintered limbs, pulled it away, then stepped out
on a charred crust, my tread raising smoke and a bad smell.
I was just in time to see Eet vanish into the rent. From here
the wreck looked even worse, and I believed that the inside of the
cabin must be folded and pleated until there could be room there
for no explorer larger than the mutant.
“A line—” came my companion’s thought command.
“Drop me a line—”
I clumped through the smoldering debris and wriggled close to
the break, dropping one of the hooked lines I had used in my tree
descent. A weight swung upon it and I hauled in slowly, the line
jerking as if Eet steadied whatever it raised.
One of those things I had thought might be a weapon appeared,
butt first. I grasped it eagerly. To have some arm available gave
one a feeling of security. It did not fit comfortably in my palm
and I guessed it had not been wrought for use by a human hand.
There was no firing button such as one saw on laser or stunner,
only a small lever difficult to finger. I pointed it at a ragged
stub of limb projecting not too far away and drew back on that
lever.
There was a weak flash, hardly more than a blink of light, but
nothing else. Whatever charge this weapon had once operated upon
had been exhausted. It was of no more use to us now than an
awkwardly shaped club. And I said so to Eet.
He expressed no disappointment, but dived once more into the
ship, while I dropped the line. In the end we assembled a motley
collection of survival equipment. There was another canister of
liquid, a sharp-bladed, foot-long tool which at least was still
effective, for my practice swings at spikes cut those neatly
through. Lastly there was a roll of fabric which could be folded
into a small packet, or shaken out into a wide square, and which
appeared to be moisture-resistant.
I had found among the shredded debris some more of those pods,
and had shelled their seeds into the canister we had already
drained. We ate and drank before we decided in which direction to
go.
There was no use in lingering by the wrecked ship. Had it been
an LB of my own people, we could have set up a call signal and
stayed hopefully nearby—though even then eventual rescue would
have depended upon so many chance factors that we might never have
been found. But we now had not even that slender tie with any
predictable future.
“Where?” I asked as I made the fabric into a pack to
lash to my harness. “Where—” And I added to myself,
“Why?”
Eet scrambled up on the elevated end of the wreckage once again.
His head turned and his nostrils expanded, as if he cast about for
some scent as a guide. But as for me I could see no goal in this
wilderness. We could continue to wander through the dusk under the
trees until we died, and find no way out.
“Water—” His thought reached me. “A river—
lake. If we can find such—”
A river meant an open highway of sorts—but leading where? And
how were we going to find a river?
I had a sudden inspiration. “The game trail!”
Surely any animals large enough to beat that slot in the forest
muck would need water. And a well-marked trail could lead to
it.
Eet ran back along the battered tail of the wreck.
“An apt suggestion.” He jumped to land heavily on my
shoulder, nearly rocking me off balance. “To the left, no,
more that way—” He used his forepaw to point. The path he
indicated was not that which had been made by my blundering feet,
but led off at a sharper angle to the left.
As we left the torn clearing, I glanced back. Eet’s body
somewhat masked it from view, but I saw that my dragging progress
left very visible tracks. Anything with eyes could tail us. And
what of the hunter with the club? Drawn to this break in the forest
ceiling through curiosity, a native might well hunt us down.
“A contingency we cannot help. Therefore we can only be
alert,” Eet returned.
Alert he certainly was, and not to my comfort, he constantly
changed his position. Too, since his weight was not inconsiderable,
I was afraid of stumbling. The long knife from the LB allowed me to
cut a path through the rim of debris beyond the burned space; then
we were back in the dusky forest.
I would have been entirely lost as soon as the clearing was left
behind, for we had to weave in and out to avoid the latticework of
the vine roots. But Eet appeared to know just where we were going,
sniffing at intervals and then directing me, until I almost fell
into a sharp slot which marked the game trail. It had been so well
used that it was cut more than a hand’s breath below the
surrounding surface soil. On it were prints of what might have been
hoofs and paws, and even odder marks, overlaid one upon
another.
We came in time to another opening, where one of the giant trees
had crashed to its death, perhaps seasons earlier, taking with it
the lesser growth, giving living room to bushes and shrubs. So
riotously had these grown that they made a vast matted plug in the
opening. There were things which might be flowers, wide of petal,
with deep throats. But I saw a green tentacle whip from one of
those gaping throats, seize upon a small, winged thing which had
lit on a petal, and carry the victim, still struggling, back into
the cavity. The petals were brilliant yellow, striped with a
strident green, and the whole thing gave off a sickly odor which
made me turn away my head.
The trail did not cut across this space, but skirted around the
perimeter, almost three quarters of the circle, so that we
reentered the forest not far from where we had come out. And it was
just before we went back into that gloom that I paused in slashing
at a looping vine to examine a sign beside the trail which proved
to me that we were not alone in walking it.
There was a clump of tall stalks, lacking leaves to their very
tips. On each of these tips was a cluster of tiny, feathery dark-red
fronds. Two of the stalks had been so recently severed that a
watery substance still oozed from the clean cuts across their
hollow stems. I leaned to see them the closer and there was no
doubt. They had not been broken, but cut. I sliced another to prove
it. In my hand the smooth stalk was supple, whipping, but from the
cut lower portion the liquid welled.
“Fishing—”
“What—?” I began.
“Silence!” Eet was at his most arrogant.
“Fishing—yes. Now take care. I cannot read much of this
creature’s mind. It is on a very low band—very low. It
thinks mainly of food, and its thought processes are very slow and
primitive. But it is traveling toward a body of water where it
hopes to fish.”
“The one with the club?”
“Unless there are two native species of primitive
forms,” conceded Eet, “this one is like that. As to its
being the same, who knows? I think this is a route often used by
its kind. It walks the trail with the confidence of a thing going a
familiar road on which it has nothing to fear.”
I did not share his confidence. For there was a thunderous crash
not too far away. I threw myself, and incidentally Eet, toward the
nearest tree, planted my back to it, and stood with that
sap-stained knife ready. My field of vision was too limited. I
could see nothing beyond the vines and boles. But I tried to put my
ears to service.
Nothing stirred. It had sounded as if one of those trees, which
must have roots reaching to the very core of this world, had
crashed. Crashed—? But the trees must eventually die. And having
died and begun to rot, with the weight of the vines and parasites
with which they were covered, would they not fall? As had the one
which had made the second clearing? But what if the very one I had
chosen as my backing would be the next? I moved away almost as fast
as I had sought it.
I do not know how a thought can suggest laughter, but such a
thought flowed from Eet. He was fast becoming, I decided, a less
than perfect companion.
As if I were being punished for that, I caught one of my boots
in a loop of root or vines and crashed as helplessly as the dead
tree must have done. A thrust of irritation, sharp as any physical
blow, struck me. Eet had leaped free in one of his flash reactions,
and now sat a short distance away, his fangs bared, his whole
stance expressing disgust.
“If you must clump about,” he spat, “then at
least lift your feet when you move them. But why do you continue to
wear that burden of a useless overskin?”
Why indeed? I struggled to sit up. Inside the confines of the
suit, my coverall was plastered to my body with sweat. I itched
where I could not scratch, and I felt as if soaking in a bath for
several days would not be enough to free me from the smelly burden
of myself. Yet I clung to the suit as a shell animal might cling to
its shell as a protection against the unknown.
I could never wear it into space again. When I examined if I
could see tears which must have been inflicted during my descent of
the tree. And the boots weighed my feet into a shuffle which could
be dangerous in the muck. The harness which carried our very
limited supplies could be adapted, but the suit itself—Eet was
right. It had no further use. Yet when my fingers went to the
various seals and buckles, they moved reluctantly, and I had to
fight down the strong need to hold to my shell.
However, as I discarded that husk and felt the cool wreath about
my damp body, I had a sense of relief. When we moved on, I had a
small pack on my back, my hands were free to swing the cutting
knife, and I found I was no longer slipping and sliding. For the
tough web packs worn inside space boots not only protected my feet
from close contact with the muck, but gave me purchase. Now I
longed for a pool or stream in which I could dunk my steaming body
and get really clean—though any such exercise on a strange world
would be utter folly, unless I could be very sure that the water in
question had no inhabitants who might resent intrusion.
“Water—” Eet announced. His head swung from right to
left and back again. “Water—much of it—also alien
life—”
Scents crowded my nose. I could put name to no one of them. But
I accepted Eet’s reading. I slowed my pace. Underfoot the
game trail was no longer so hard of surface, and the slots of the
tracks in it were deeper sunk, more sharply marked. I made out one,
superimposed on earlier prints, which was a little larger than
those I myself left. It was wedge-shaped, with indentations sharply
printed in a fringe of points extending beyond the actual
track.
I am certainly no tracker, nor have I hunted as a reader of
trails. Though I had gone to frontier and primitive planets, it had
been to visit villages, port trading posts. My acquaintance with
any wilderness arts was close to zero.
But my guess was that whatever creature had so left his mark was
large and heavy, as those indentations were deep and cleanly
marked. And perhaps it was advancing at a deliberate pace.
“Water—” Eet repeated.
He need not have given that caution. The trail was mud now,
holding no recognizable prints. There were here and there humps
formed by harder portions of earth, and I jumped from one to the
next where I could. In no time at all the mud was covered with a
glaze of liquid out of which the trees and growth projected. And
there were bits of refuse caught in tangles of vine roots, held
there as high as my shoulder. It had the appearance of a land which
had been flooded in the not too distant past, and which was now
slowly drying off.
Puddles smelling of decay and bordered by patches of yellow
slime showed between the trees, in hollows in the ground. And there
were noisome odors in plenty. We passed a huddle of bones caught
between exposed vine roots, and a narrow skull bared its teeth at
us.
The puddles became pools and the pools linked into stagnant
expanses of water. Here trees had been undermined, so that they
leaned threateningly. And smaller ones that had been overthrown
showed masses of upturned roots.
“Caution!”
Again I did not need Eet’s warning. Perhaps his sense of
smell was so assaulted by the stenches about that he had not
sniffed that worker ahead until I had sighted him, her, or it.
On a tree trunk which was not yet horizontal, but leaned at an
angle out over the largest pond we had yet seen, lurked a creature.
In this light it was easy to see. It was humanoid, save that a
bristly hair grew in a stiff upright thatch on its head, in two
heavy brows, down the outer sides of its arms and legs to wrists
and ankles, and in round, shaggy patches, three of them, down its
chest and middle.
Around its loins was a skirt or kilt of fringe, and encircling
its thick neck was a thong on which were strung lumps of dull green
alternating with red cylinders. A heavy-headed club had been wedged
for safekeeping beside a stub of branch, as its owner was busy with
an occupation demanding full attention.
A withe, which I recognized as one of the slender canes cut from
the patch we had passed, had been bent into a hoop, one end
extending for a handle. This was held firmly between the back feet
of the worker, gripped tightly in huge claws. In its hands the
native held a forked stick in which was imprisoned a wriggling
black thing that fought so furiously and was in such constant
motion I could not be certain of its nature.
Its struggles did it no good as the worker passed it back and
forth across the hoop, from one side to the other, then from top to
bottom and back again. A thread trailed from the end of that
whipping body, to be caught on the frame of the hoop and joined to
its fellows, forming a mesh. With a last pass of the captive, the
workman appeared satisfied with the result. Then, with a sharp flip
of his wrist, he sent the forked stick and its prisoner out into
the pond. As soon as the stick hit water there was a turmoil into
which stick and captive vanished, not to appear again.
The hoop holder now got to his feet, the net in one hand. He was
taller than I by a head. While his arms and legs were thin, his
barrel body suggested strength. His face was far from human,
resembling more one of the demon masks of Tanth.
The eyes were deep-set under extravagantly bushy brows, so that
while one believed them there, one did not see them. The nose was a
fleshy tube, unattached save at its root, moving up and down and
from side to side in perpetual quest. Below that appendage was a
mouth, showing two protruding fangs and no real chin, the flesh,
wattled in loose flaps, sweeping straight back from the lower set
of teeth to join the throat.
Any traveler of the space lanes becomes inured to strange native
races. There are the lizard-like Zacathans, the Trystians, who have
avian ancestors, and others—batrachian, canine, and the like. But
this weird face was repellent—at least to me—and I felt
aversion.
When he reached the far end of the tree, which swayed under his
weight, he moved with caution, trying each step before he put his
full weight on it. Then he settled down, to lie full length,
staring intently into the scummed water, the webbed hoop clasped in
his left hand.
I did not dare yet to move. To skirt the edge of this lake meant
coming into the sight of the fisherman, and I shrank from that. As
I hesitated, Eet saying nothing though he watched the creature
intently, the arm of the fisherman swept down and up again,
scooping in his hoop a scaled thing about as long as my
forearm.
He grabbed it out of the net, knocked it sharply against the
tree trunk, and then knotted its limp length to a tie of his
kilt.
“Go right—” Eet’s thought came.
The fisherman was left-handed, his attention on that side. Right
it was. I moved slowly, trying to put a screen of brush between us.
But even when I was able to do so I felt no safer. It would be easy
to become mired in a bog patch, and thus helpless prey for the
club. My cutting knife was sharp but the native had the longer
reach and knew this swamp. Also, to work any deeper into this
flooded land and perhaps become lost in it was folly. And I said as
much to Eet.
“I do not think this is a true swamp,” he observed.
“There are many signs of a great past flood. And a flood can
be born of a river—”
“What is the advantage of a river—here?”
“Rivers are easier to follow than game trails. And there
is this—civilizations are born on rivers. Do you presume to call
yourself a trader and not know that? If this planet can boast any
civilization, or if it is visited by traders from off-world, you
would find evidence of that along a major river. Especially where
it meets a sea.”
“Your knowledge is considerable,” I observed.
“And you certainly did not learn it all from
Valcyr—”
Again I felt his irritation. “When it is necessary to
learn, one learns. Knowledge is a never-emptied storehouse. And
where else can one learn better of trade, traders, and their ways,
then on such a ship as the Vestris? Her crew were born to that way
of life and have a vast background of lore—”
“You must have spent some time reading their minds,”
I interrupted. “By the way, if you know so much—why did
they take me off Tanth?” I did not really expect him to
answer that, but he replied promptly.
“They were paid to do so. There was some plan there—I do
not know its details, for they did not. But that went wrong and
then they were approached and well paid to get you off planet and
deliver you at Waystar—”
“Waystar! But—that’s only a legend!”
If Eet could have snorted perhaps he would have produced such a
sound.
“It must be a legend of substance. They were taking you
there. Only they insisted upon following their regular schedule
first. And when you took ril fever they decided prudence was in
order. They would get rid of you lest you contaminate the rest.
They would just not turn up at Waystar, but send a message to those
who had arranged it all.”
“You are a mine of information, Eet. And what was behind
it—who wanted me so badly?”
“They knew only an agent. His name was Urdik and he was
not of Tanth. Why you were wanted they did not know.”
“I wonder why—”
“The stone in the ring—”
“That!” My hand went to the pouch where I carried
it. “They knew about that?”
“I do not think so. They wanted something you or Vondar
Ustle carried. It is of great importance and they have been
searching for it for some time. But can you not say now that the
ring is your most important possession?”
I clutched the bag closer. “Yes!”
Then, startled, I looked down at the pouch. It was moving in my
hand, and there was heat. We had come into the open and there was
daylight around, but I thought I could also detect a glow.
“It is coming alive again!”
“Use it then for a guide!” urged Eet.
I fumbled with the seal on the pouch, slipped the ring on my
finger. But the band was so large it would have fallen off if I had
not closed my fist. My hand, through no volition of mine, moved
out, away from my body, to the right and ahead. It would seem that
once more the stone used my flesh and bone as an indicator. And I
turned to follow its guidance.
“Any suggestions as to how we do find the
ship?” I asked Eet.
Without inquiring if I cared to be his mode of transportation,
he had climbed to my shoulders. In this dank heat and with the
weight of the suit pressing me down, his presence was a drag.
Eet’s head waved back and forth, almost as if he could
sniff out our path. There was a constant patter of drops from
above. It might have been raining forever in the dusk of the forest—or rather, dripping from the condensation of moisture above.
No underbrush existed here, save for the parasitic plants, which
apparently did not need sunlight and were rooted on tree or vine
trunks. Most of these gleamed ghostlily.
But there was no clear vista in any direction. The trunks of the
tree giants stood well separated one from the other because of
their size, the large and strong forcing their way to the light and
sun, the weaker dying. However, every one bore a lacy coating of
vines, those twined and twirled from their own rootings to make a
chocked maze.
Under the tree where we had seen the clubber make his kill we
came upon a kind of path, maybe a game trail. It was tempting to
turn into that easier way—tempting, but dangerous.
“Right!” Eet’s head swung in that
direction.
“How—?”
“Smell!” he rapped out. “Burning—hot metal—At
least this body has some good points. Try right and walk
softly.”
“As I can,” I snapped in return. Slogging through
the soft muck of long-dead vegetation was not easy. The plated
boots I wore sunk in at each step and I had to pull my way wearily
through either sifting sand or glutinous mud. Yet I clung to the
suit, unwieldy as it was for such travel, because it gave me a
sense of security.
As usual Eet proved to be right. Light pierced the gloom ahead
after we rounded two more of the giant tree boles and their
attendant festoons of vine stems. In this dusk the brilliant,
eye-dazzling shafts of sunlight made me stop short, blinking.
There was a mass of splintered limbs, torn and mangled vines.
Smoke still arose in languid trails, the stench of burned
vegetation as thick as gas. But so full of sap or moisture was that
growth that the fire set by the crash of the LB had not spread, but
been quickly smothered. The ship had rammed down on nose and side
and was buried deep in the muck, the metal shell crumpled and rent
in some places.
Across the forest hole its fall had torn, brilliantly hued
insects darted or drifted, lighting to crawl over the still-oozing
sap. I saw a scurry as some four-footed explorer crossed the burst
hull. And, surveying that wreck, I was shaken by the closeness of
our escape. What if we had not been able to scramble out before the
LB had plunged from its first landing in the treetops?
Fighting my way over the mass of splintered, entangled, and
half-burned debris about the ship was a slow and painful business.
Eet had jumped from my shoulder and reached our goal with a couple
of bounds, then raced along the sloping side.
“The hatch is buried,” he reported. “But there
is a break here—not large enough for you—”
“But all right for you.” I snapped apart a nasty
trap of spiky, splintered limbs, pulled it away, then stepped out
on a charred crust, my tread raising smoke and a bad smell.
I was just in time to see Eet vanish into the rent. From here
the wreck looked even worse, and I believed that the inside of the
cabin must be folded and pleated until there could be room there
for no explorer larger than the mutant.
“A line—” came my companion’s thought command.
“Drop me a line—”
I clumped through the smoldering debris and wriggled close to
the break, dropping one of the hooked lines I had used in my tree
descent. A weight swung upon it and I hauled in slowly, the line
jerking as if Eet steadied whatever it raised.
One of those things I had thought might be a weapon appeared,
butt first. I grasped it eagerly. To have some arm available gave
one a feeling of security. It did not fit comfortably in my palm
and I guessed it had not been wrought for use by a human hand.
There was no firing button such as one saw on laser or stunner,
only a small lever difficult to finger. I pointed it at a ragged
stub of limb projecting not too far away and drew back on that
lever.
There was a weak flash, hardly more than a blink of light, but
nothing else. Whatever charge this weapon had once operated upon
had been exhausted. It was of no more use to us now than an
awkwardly shaped club. And I said so to Eet.
He expressed no disappointment, but dived once more into the
ship, while I dropped the line. In the end we assembled a motley
collection of survival equipment. There was another canister of
liquid, a sharp-bladed, foot-long tool which at least was still
effective, for my practice swings at spikes cut those neatly
through. Lastly there was a roll of fabric which could be folded
into a small packet, or shaken out into a wide square, and which
appeared to be moisture-resistant.
I had found among the shredded debris some more of those pods,
and had shelled their seeds into the canister we had already
drained. We ate and drank before we decided in which direction to
go.
There was no use in lingering by the wrecked ship. Had it been
an LB of my own people, we could have set up a call signal and
stayed hopefully nearby—though even then eventual rescue would
have depended upon so many chance factors that we might never have
been found. But we now had not even that slender tie with any
predictable future.
“Where?” I asked as I made the fabric into a pack to
lash to my harness. “Where—” And I added to myself,
“Why?”
Eet scrambled up on the elevated end of the wreckage once again.
His head turned and his nostrils expanded, as if he cast about for
some scent as a guide. But as for me I could see no goal in this
wilderness. We could continue to wander through the dusk under the
trees until we died, and find no way out.
“Water—” His thought reached me. “A river—
lake. If we can find such—”
A river meant an open highway of sorts—but leading where? And
how were we going to find a river?
I had a sudden inspiration. “The game trail!”
Surely any animals large enough to beat that slot in the forest
muck would need water. And a well-marked trail could lead to
it.
Eet ran back along the battered tail of the wreck.
“An apt suggestion.” He jumped to land heavily on my
shoulder, nearly rocking me off balance. “To the left, no,
more that way—” He used his forepaw to point. The path he
indicated was not that which had been made by my blundering feet,
but led off at a sharper angle to the left.
As we left the torn clearing, I glanced back. Eet’s body
somewhat masked it from view, but I saw that my dragging progress
left very visible tracks. Anything with eyes could tail us. And
what of the hunter with the club? Drawn to this break in the forest
ceiling through curiosity, a native might well hunt us down.
“A contingency we cannot help. Therefore we can only be
alert,” Eet returned.
Alert he certainly was, and not to my comfort, he constantly
changed his position. Too, since his weight was not inconsiderable,
I was afraid of stumbling. The long knife from the LB allowed me to
cut a path through the rim of debris beyond the burned space; then
we were back in the dusky forest.
I would have been entirely lost as soon as the clearing was left
behind, for we had to weave in and out to avoid the latticework of
the vine roots. But Eet appeared to know just where we were going,
sniffing at intervals and then directing me, until I almost fell
into a sharp slot which marked the game trail. It had been so well
used that it was cut more than a hand’s breath below the
surrounding surface soil. On it were prints of what might have been
hoofs and paws, and even odder marks, overlaid one upon
another.
We came in time to another opening, where one of the giant trees
had crashed to its death, perhaps seasons earlier, taking with it
the lesser growth, giving living room to bushes and shrubs. So
riotously had these grown that they made a vast matted plug in the
opening. There were things which might be flowers, wide of petal,
with deep throats. But I saw a green tentacle whip from one of
those gaping throats, seize upon a small, winged thing which had
lit on a petal, and carry the victim, still struggling, back into
the cavity. The petals were brilliant yellow, striped with a
strident green, and the whole thing gave off a sickly odor which
made me turn away my head.
The trail did not cut across this space, but skirted around the
perimeter, almost three quarters of the circle, so that we
reentered the forest not far from where we had come out. And it was
just before we went back into that gloom that I paused in slashing
at a looping vine to examine a sign beside the trail which proved
to me that we were not alone in walking it.
There was a clump of tall stalks, lacking leaves to their very
tips. On each of these tips was a cluster of tiny, feathery dark-red
fronds. Two of the stalks had been so recently severed that a
watery substance still oozed from the clean cuts across their
hollow stems. I leaned to see them the closer and there was no
doubt. They had not been broken, but cut. I sliced another to prove
it. In my hand the smooth stalk was supple, whipping, but from the
cut lower portion the liquid welled.
“Fishing—”
“What—?” I began.
“Silence!” Eet was at his most arrogant.
“Fishing—yes. Now take care. I cannot read much of this
creature’s mind. It is on a very low band—very low. It
thinks mainly of food, and its thought processes are very slow and
primitive. But it is traveling toward a body of water where it
hopes to fish.”
“The one with the club?”
“Unless there are two native species of primitive
forms,” conceded Eet, “this one is like that. As to its
being the same, who knows? I think this is a route often used by
its kind. It walks the trail with the confidence of a thing going a
familiar road on which it has nothing to fear.”
I did not share his confidence. For there was a thunderous crash
not too far away. I threw myself, and incidentally Eet, toward the
nearest tree, planted my back to it, and stood with that
sap-stained knife ready. My field of vision was too limited. I
could see nothing beyond the vines and boles. But I tried to put my
ears to service.
Nothing stirred. It had sounded as if one of those trees, which
must have roots reaching to the very core of this world, had
crashed. Crashed—? But the trees must eventually die. And having
died and begun to rot, with the weight of the vines and parasites
with which they were covered, would they not fall? As had the one
which had made the second clearing? But what if the very one I had
chosen as my backing would be the next? I moved away almost as fast
as I had sought it.
I do not know how a thought can suggest laughter, but such a
thought flowed from Eet. He was fast becoming, I decided, a less
than perfect companion.
As if I were being punished for that, I caught one of my boots
in a loop of root or vines and crashed as helplessly as the dead
tree must have done. A thrust of irritation, sharp as any physical
blow, struck me. Eet had leaped free in one of his flash reactions,
and now sat a short distance away, his fangs bared, his whole
stance expressing disgust.
“If you must clump about,” he spat, “then at
least lift your feet when you move them. But why do you continue to
wear that burden of a useless overskin?”
Why indeed? I struggled to sit up. Inside the confines of the
suit, my coverall was plastered to my body with sweat. I itched
where I could not scratch, and I felt as if soaking in a bath for
several days would not be enough to free me from the smelly burden
of myself. Yet I clung to the suit as a shell animal might cling to
its shell as a protection against the unknown.
I could never wear it into space again. When I examined if I
could see tears which must have been inflicted during my descent of
the tree. And the boots weighed my feet into a shuffle which could
be dangerous in the muck. The harness which carried our very
limited supplies could be adapted, but the suit itself—Eet was
right. It had no further use. Yet when my fingers went to the
various seals and buckles, they moved reluctantly, and I had to
fight down the strong need to hold to my shell.
However, as I discarded that husk and felt the cool wreath about
my damp body, I had a sense of relief. When we moved on, I had a
small pack on my back, my hands were free to swing the cutting
knife, and I found I was no longer slipping and sliding. For the
tough web packs worn inside space boots not only protected my feet
from close contact with the muck, but gave me purchase. Now I
longed for a pool or stream in which I could dunk my steaming body
and get really clean—though any such exercise on a strange world
would be utter folly, unless I could be very sure that the water in
question had no inhabitants who might resent intrusion.
“Water—” Eet announced. His head swung from right to
left and back again. “Water—much of it—also alien
life—”
Scents crowded my nose. I could put name to no one of them. But
I accepted Eet’s reading. I slowed my pace. Underfoot the
game trail was no longer so hard of surface, and the slots of the
tracks in it were deeper sunk, more sharply marked. I made out one,
superimposed on earlier prints, which was a little larger than
those I myself left. It was wedge-shaped, with indentations sharply
printed in a fringe of points extending beyond the actual
track.
I am certainly no tracker, nor have I hunted as a reader of
trails. Though I had gone to frontier and primitive planets, it had
been to visit villages, port trading posts. My acquaintance with
any wilderness arts was close to zero.
But my guess was that whatever creature had so left his mark was
large and heavy, as those indentations were deep and cleanly
marked. And perhaps it was advancing at a deliberate pace.
“Water—” Eet repeated.
He need not have given that caution. The trail was mud now,
holding no recognizable prints. There were here and there humps
formed by harder portions of earth, and I jumped from one to the
next where I could. In no time at all the mud was covered with a
glaze of liquid out of which the trees and growth projected. And
there were bits of refuse caught in tangles of vine roots, held
there as high as my shoulder. It had the appearance of a land which
had been flooded in the not too distant past, and which was now
slowly drying off.
Puddles smelling of decay and bordered by patches of yellow
slime showed between the trees, in hollows in the ground. And there
were noisome odors in plenty. We passed a huddle of bones caught
between exposed vine roots, and a narrow skull bared its teeth at
us.
The puddles became pools and the pools linked into stagnant
expanses of water. Here trees had been undermined, so that they
leaned threateningly. And smaller ones that had been overthrown
showed masses of upturned roots.
“Caution!”
Again I did not need Eet’s warning. Perhaps his sense of
smell was so assaulted by the stenches about that he had not
sniffed that worker ahead until I had sighted him, her, or it.
On a tree trunk which was not yet horizontal, but leaned at an
angle out over the largest pond we had yet seen, lurked a creature.
In this light it was easy to see. It was humanoid, save that a
bristly hair grew in a stiff upright thatch on its head, in two
heavy brows, down the outer sides of its arms and legs to wrists
and ankles, and in round, shaggy patches, three of them, down its
chest and middle.
Around its loins was a skirt or kilt of fringe, and encircling
its thick neck was a thong on which were strung lumps of dull green
alternating with red cylinders. A heavy-headed club had been wedged
for safekeeping beside a stub of branch, as its owner was busy with
an occupation demanding full attention.
A withe, which I recognized as one of the slender canes cut from
the patch we had passed, had been bent into a hoop, one end
extending for a handle. This was held firmly between the back feet
of the worker, gripped tightly in huge claws. In its hands the
native held a forked stick in which was imprisoned a wriggling
black thing that fought so furiously and was in such constant
motion I could not be certain of its nature.
Its struggles did it no good as the worker passed it back and
forth across the hoop, from one side to the other, then from top to
bottom and back again. A thread trailed from the end of that
whipping body, to be caught on the frame of the hoop and joined to
its fellows, forming a mesh. With a last pass of the captive, the
workman appeared satisfied with the result. Then, with a sharp flip
of his wrist, he sent the forked stick and its prisoner out into
the pond. As soon as the stick hit water there was a turmoil into
which stick and captive vanished, not to appear again.
The hoop holder now got to his feet, the net in one hand. He was
taller than I by a head. While his arms and legs were thin, his
barrel body suggested strength. His face was far from human,
resembling more one of the demon masks of Tanth.
The eyes were deep-set under extravagantly bushy brows, so that
while one believed them there, one did not see them. The nose was a
fleshy tube, unattached save at its root, moving up and down and
from side to side in perpetual quest. Below that appendage was a
mouth, showing two protruding fangs and no real chin, the flesh,
wattled in loose flaps, sweeping straight back from the lower set
of teeth to join the throat.
Any traveler of the space lanes becomes inured to strange native
races. There are the lizard-like Zacathans, the Trystians, who have
avian ancestors, and others—batrachian, canine, and the like. But
this weird face was repellent—at least to me—and I felt
aversion.
When he reached the far end of the tree, which swayed under his
weight, he moved with caution, trying each step before he put his
full weight on it. Then he settled down, to lie full length,
staring intently into the scummed water, the webbed hoop clasped in
his left hand.
I did not dare yet to move. To skirt the edge of this lake meant
coming into the sight of the fisherman, and I shrank from that. As
I hesitated, Eet saying nothing though he watched the creature
intently, the arm of the fisherman swept down and up again,
scooping in his hoop a scaled thing about as long as my
forearm.
He grabbed it out of the net, knocked it sharply against the
tree trunk, and then knotted its limp length to a tie of his
kilt.
“Go right—” Eet’s thought came.
The fisherman was left-handed, his attention on that side. Right
it was. I moved slowly, trying to put a screen of brush between us.
But even when I was able to do so I felt no safer. It would be easy
to become mired in a bog patch, and thus helpless prey for the
club. My cutting knife was sharp but the native had the longer
reach and knew this swamp. Also, to work any deeper into this
flooded land and perhaps become lost in it was folly. And I said as
much to Eet.
“I do not think this is a true swamp,” he observed.
“There are many signs of a great past flood. And a flood can
be born of a river—”
“What is the advantage of a river—here?”
“Rivers are easier to follow than game trails. And there
is this—civilizations are born on rivers. Do you presume to call
yourself a trader and not know that? If this planet can boast any
civilization, or if it is visited by traders from off-world, you
would find evidence of that along a major river. Especially where
it meets a sea.”
“Your knowledge is considerable,” I observed.
“And you certainly did not learn it all from
Valcyr—”
Again I felt his irritation. “When it is necessary to
learn, one learns. Knowledge is a never-emptied storehouse. And
where else can one learn better of trade, traders, and their ways,
then on such a ship as the Vestris? Her crew were born to that way
of life and have a vast background of lore—”
“You must have spent some time reading their minds,”
I interrupted. “By the way, if you know so much—why did
they take me off Tanth?” I did not really expect him to
answer that, but he replied promptly.
“They were paid to do so. There was some plan there—I do
not know its details, for they did not. But that went wrong and
then they were approached and well paid to get you off planet and
deliver you at Waystar—”
“Waystar! But—that’s only a legend!”
If Eet could have snorted perhaps he would have produced such a
sound.
“It must be a legend of substance. They were taking you
there. Only they insisted upon following their regular schedule
first. And when you took ril fever they decided prudence was in
order. They would get rid of you lest you contaminate the rest.
They would just not turn up at Waystar, but send a message to those
who had arranged it all.”
“You are a mine of information, Eet. And what was behind
it—who wanted me so badly?”
“They knew only an agent. His name was Urdik and he was
not of Tanth. Why you were wanted they did not know.”
“I wonder why—”
“The stone in the ring—”
“That!” My hand went to the pouch where I carried
it. “They knew about that?”
“I do not think so. They wanted something you or Vondar
Ustle carried. It is of great importance and they have been
searching for it for some time. But can you not say now that the
ring is your most important possession?”
I clutched the bag closer. “Yes!”
Then, startled, I looked down at the pouch. It was moving in my
hand, and there was heat. We had come into the open and there was
daylight around, but I thought I could also detect a glow.
“It is coming alive again!”
“Use it then for a guide!” urged Eet.
I fumbled with the seal on the pouch, slipped the ring on my
finger. But the band was so large it would have fallen off if I had
not closed my fist. My hand, through no volition of mine, moved
out, away from my body, to the right and ahead. It would seem that
once more the stone used my flesh and bone as an indicator. And I
turned to follow its guidance.