"ROGAN?"
The tel-visor expert had spun his seat around and was facing
another section of the control panel, his fingers flying across the
buttons there. Needles spun on dials, indicators moved, and Rogan's
lips shaped words silently. When he had done Kimber flicked the
control of the visa-screen which had gone dead at their
landing.
Slowly pictures of the immediate surroundings of the ship
unrolled before their fascinated eyes.
"Late afternoon," Rogan commented, "by the length of the
shadows."
The ship had planeted in the middle of an expanse of gray-blue
gravel or sand—backed at a distance by perpendicular cliffs of
reddish rock layered by strata of blue, yellow and white. As the
scene changed, those in the control room saw the cliffs give way to
the mouth of a long valley down the center of which curved a
stream.
'That water's red!" Dard's surprise jolted the words out of
him.
The red river was hemmed in by blue-green, low-growing
vegetation which cloaked the ground within the valley itself and
ran in tongues along the water into the semi-arid stretch of sand.
Their viewing device was across the river, picking up more cliffs
and sand. Then they were fronted by ocean shore and vivid
aquamarine waves tipped with white lacy foam. Into this emptied the
river, staining the sea red for some distance. Sea, air, cliffs,
river—but no living creature!
"Wait!" Kimber's order sent Rogan's finger down on a button and
the picture on the screen became fixed. "Thought I saw
something—flying in the air. But guess I was wrong."
The scene changed until they were looking at the same spot where
it had begun. Kimber stretched.
"This part of the country appears unoccupied. And, Tas, we
didn't sight any signs of civilization when we came in either.
Maybe our luck's held and we have an empty world."
"Hmm. But is it one we can venture into?" The First Scientist
squeezed over to Cully's side of the cabin. "Atmosphere,
temperature—within a fraction of Terra's. Yes, we can live and
breathe here."
Kimber freed himself from the pilot's straps. "Suppose we have a
look-see in person then."
Dard was the last to leave the cabin. He was still a little
drunk with that riot of color on the visa-screen. After the
remembered drabness of his home section of Terra this was
overpowering. He was halfway down the ladder when he heard that
clang which announced the opening of the hatch and the emergence
of the ramp that would carry them safely over ground super-heated
by their jets.
When he came out the others were strung along the ramp,
breathing the warm air, air that was pungent with a fresh tang. The
breeze pulled at Dard's hair, whipping a lock across his forehead,
singing in his ears. Clean air—with none of the chemical taint
which clung in the ship. Around the fins of their ship the sand had
been fused into a curdled milky glass which they avoided by leaping
from the end of the ramp to the dunes.
Kimber and Kordov plowed straight ahead to the wave-smoothed
shore. Cully merely dropped in the soft grit of the beach, lying
full length, his hands pressed tight to the earth, staring
bemusedly up at the sky, while Rogan was pivoting slowly, as if to
verify the scene the visa-screen had shown them.
Dard made his way to the sand. The redness of the river occupied
him. Red water—why? The sea was normal enough except where it was
colored by the river. He wanted to know what painted the stream and
he started off determinedly to its bank.
The sand was softer, more powdery than any he had known on
Terra. It shifted into his boot laces, arose in puffs and covered
all but the faintest outline where he had stepped. He stooped and
sifted the stuff through his fingers, knowing a strange tingle as
the earth of this new world drifted away from his palm—blue
sand—red river—red, yellow and white striped cliffs—color
everywhere about him! Overhead that arch of cloud-studded blue—or
was it blue at all? Didn't it have just the faintest shading of
green? Turquoise rather than true blue! Now that he was becoming
accustomed to the color he could distinguish more subtle shades
among the glows of brighter tones—shades he could not name—like
that pale violet which streaked the sand.
Dard went on until he was in the stone-and-pebble strewn border
of the river. It was not a large stream, four strides might take
him across it. There was a ripple of current but the water was
opaque, dull rusty red, and it left a reddish rim about every stone
it lipped in passage. He went down on one knee and was about to dip
in a cautious exploratory finger when a voice called a warning:
"Don't try that, kid. Might not be healthy." Rogan came down the
stony bank to join him. "Better be safe than sorry. Learned that
myself on Venus—the hard way. See a piece of drift wood anywhere
about?"
Dard searched among the rocks and found what appeared to be a
very ordinary stick. But Rogan inspected it carefully before he
picked it up. The stick was lowered into the flood and as
cautiously withdrawn, an inch or so of it now dyed red. Together
they held it close for examination.
"It's alive!" If he had been holding that test branch, Dard
thought later, he might have dropped it at the realization of what
the red stain was. But Rogan kept a tight grip.
"Lively little beggars, aren't they?" he asked. "Look like
spiders. Do they float—or swim? And why so thick in the water? Now
let's just see." He knelt and using the stick along the surface of
the water skimmed off a good portion of what Dard secretly
considered the extremely repulsive travelers. With the layer of
"spiders" removed the water changed color, becoming a clearer
brownish fluid.
"So they can be scraped off," Rogan observed cheerfully. "With a strainer we may be able to get a drink—if this stuff is
drinkable."
Dard swallowed hastily as Rogan tapped off on a convenient
boulder the greater number of creatures he had fished out of the
stream; and then together they followed the water to the sea.
Several times they detoured, quite widely on Dard's part, to escape
contact with patches of red marooned on shore. Not that the
"spiders" appeared uncomfortable on the firmer element for they
made no attempt to move away from the spots where some sudden eddy
had deposited them.
A stiff breeze came in over the waves. It was heavy with the
tang Rogan now identified for Dard.
"Natural sea—that's salt air!" What he might have added was
drowned out by a hideous screech.
Close on its dying echo came a very human shout. Kimber and
Kordov were running along the beech just beyond the water's edge.
And above their beads twisted and darted a nightmare, a small
nightmare to be sure, but still one horrible enough to have winged
out of an evil dream.
If a Terran snake had been equipped with bat wings, two clawed
legs, a barbed tail, and a wide fanged mouth, it might have
approached in general this horror. The whole thing could not have
been more than eighteen or twenty inches long, but its snapping
fury was several times larger than its body and it was making power
dives at the running men.
Rogan dropped his spider stick as Dard's hand flew inside his
blouse to claim the only possession he had brought from Terra. He
threw the hunting knife and by some incredible luck clipped a wing,
not only breaking the dragon's dive but sending it fluttering down,
end over end, screeching. It flapped and beat with the good wing,
squirming across the sand until Kimber and Kordov pinned it to the
shingle with hastily flung stones.
Its eyes gleamed with red hate as they gathered in a circle
around it, avoiding the snapping jaws and the flipping of the
barbed tail which now dripped oily yellow drops.
"Bet that's poison," suggested Rogan. "Nice critter—hope they
don't grow any bigger."
"What's the matter?" Cully came tearing down the slope, one of
the green ray guns in his band. "What's making all that
racket?"
Rogan moved aside to display the injured dragon. "Native telling
us off."
"Usually," Kimber broke in, "I don't believe in shooting first
and investigating afterward. But this thing certainly hasn't any
better nature to appeal to—nearly stripped the ear off my head
before I knew he was around. Can you shoot it, Jorge, without
messing it up too much? Tas, here, probably will want to take it
apart later to see what makes it tick."
The biologist was squatting at a safe distance watching the
convulsive struggles of the dragon with fascinated eyes.
"Yes, please do not destroy it utterly. A snake—a flying snake!
But that is not possible!"
"Maybe not on Terra," Kimber reminded him. "What can we say is
possible or impossible here? Jorge, put it out of its misery!"
The green ray clipped the top of the creature's head and it went
limp on the sand. Tas approached it gingerly, keeping as far as he
could from the tail barb still exuding the yellow venom. Rogan went
back down the beach to retrieve his spider collection, and Dard
picked up and wiped his knife clean.
"Flying snakes and swimming spiders," the communications
techneer held out his stick for their appraisal. "I'm going to be
afraid to sit down out here—anything may pop up now."
Tas was plainly torn between the now-tractable dragon and the
water dwellers Rogan had brought him. "All this"— his pudgy hands
indicated the world of cliffs, sand and sea —"new,
unclassified."
Cully holstered his gun. He was frowning at the ceaseless
waves.
"What do you make of those, Sim?" he demanded of the pilot,
pointing to a low bank of clouds slowly expanding up the rim of the
sky.
"On earth, I'd say a storm."
"Might be a bad one, too," Rogan commented. "And we have no
shelter but the ship. At least this is summer—we're warm
enough."
"You think so?" asked Dard with some reason. The sea wind was
rising, to become a wet lash with an icy bite in its flail. The
temperature was dropping fast.
Kimber studied the clouds. "I'd say we better get back."
But when he turned inland his gasp brought them all around.
They had left the star ship on an even keel. Now it listed so
that its nose pointed down the valley away from the sea.
A good half hour later Kimber got to his feet, relief mirrored
on his face. One of the fins had broken through the fused coating
the jet heat had put on the beach. But beneath the splintered glass
crust it had found rock support —it would slip no farther. The
scarred sides towering above them were no longer mirror bright as
they had been in the Cleft, she had too many years, too long a
voyage behind her. But she was not going to fail them.
"Rock all right," Kimber repeated the statement he had made so
joyfully a few minutes before. "The ledge slants a little, which is
why she canted that way. But she'll stand. And," he did not need to
draw their attention to the darkness closing in, "maybe it's some
more luck at work again. With her nose pointing away from this
breeze, she's less likely to come a cropper, even if it turns out
to be a full-sized blow."
Dard held on to the rail of the ramp. The wind screamed around
them, stirring up devils born of the powdery sand, which filled
unwary eyes and any mouth that had the misfortune to be open. The
dust had already driven Kordov inside, his precious dragon in a
pair of forceps. He was more interested in that and Rogan's spiders
than he now was in the ship.
"Full-sized blow?" drawled Rogan. "This has the makings of a
hurricane if I'm any judge. And unless you fellas want to be buried
alive in these marching sand dunes, you'd better run for cover. As
long as you're sure we're not going to land bottom side up, I think
it's time to adjourn."
Dard followed him up the ramp just in time to escape a miniature
sandstorm through which the other two had to fight their way. There
was a brushing-off party in the air lock, but, as they climbed back
to the crew's quarters Dard could still taste grit in his mouth and
hear it crunch under his feet.
Kordov was not to be found in the control cabin or bunk room
when Kimber and the other two sat on the bunks and Dard dropped
down cross-legged on the floor. The ship was vibrating under him.
Could the wind have risen to that pitch already? It was Rogan who
answered that.
"Like to see what's happening out there?" He got up and went
into the control cabin.
Kimber and Dard got up to follow, but Cully shook his head.
"What you don't know, doesn't hurt you much," he remarked. "And
I don't see anything exciting about a sandstorm."
It was true that when Rogan adjusted the visa-screen there was
little for them to see. The storm had brought night and obscurity.
With an exclamation of annoyance, the techneer clicked off the
viewer and they drifted back to find Cully asleep and Kordov
climbing up to join them.
"Your 'spiders,' " he burst out as soon as he sighted Rogan,
"are plants!"
"But they moved!" protested Dard. "They had legs."
Kordov shook his head. "Roots, not legs. And plants they are in
spite of being mobile. Some form of aquatic fungi."
"Toadstools with legs yet!" Rogan laughed. "Next, trees with
arms, I suppose. What about the dragon—was he a flying
cabbage?"
Kordov did not need any urging to discuss the dragon.
"Poisonous reptile—and carnivorous. We shall have to beware of
them. But it was full grown, we need not worry."
"About their coming in larger sizes?" asked the relaxed Kimber
in a lazy voice. "Let us be thankful for small favors and hope that
they do a lot of that screeching when they go a-hunting. But
now—let us think about tomorrow."
"And tomorrow—and tomorrow—" Rogan repeated sleepily, but Cully
sat up thoroughly aroused.
"When do we wake up the others?" he wanted to know. "And are we going to stay right here?"
Kordov locked his fingers behind his head and leaned back
against the wall of the cabin. "I will revive Dr. Skort—Carlee—in the morning. She can help me with the others. Do you
intend to explore the immediate terrain then? We should decide soon
whether to stay here or try to find semi-permanent headquarters
elsewhere."
"There is just one thing," said Kimber, "I can lift ship again,
yes. But I can't guarantee another safe landing. The fuel—" he
shrugged. "I don't know how long our voyage here lasted, but if we
hadn't made this landfall when we did, we might not have been able
to come in at all."
"So?" Kordov's lips shaped a soundless whistle. "Then we had
better be very sure before we think of a move. What about taking
out the 'sled'?"
"I'll break it out first thing tomorrow. That is, I will if this
storm blows itself out by then. I don't propose to take that
contraption up in a high wind—the bugs aren't out of it yet,"
Kimber retorted.
"And how about food?" Cully asked. "Specifically here and now
for us, and objectively for the rest when they wake up."
"Specifically," Kordov opened one of the storage cabinets and
took out five small packages which he tossed around to the company.
"Concentrates. But, you're right, supplies are not going to last
forever. We shall not be able to awaken all our company until we
are reasonably sure of food and shelter. But—we'll get Harmon out
of storage and have him investigate the soil upriver where the
vegetation is so thick. The exploration party might also hunt."
"Not dragons, I hope," Rogan mumbled through a mouthful of the
dry concentrate cake. "I have a distinct feeling dragons will not
agree with my internal arrangements! Or traveling fungi
either—"
For the first time Dard ventured to break in upon his elders.
"Some fungi—mushrooms—are good." He had no desire to lunch off red
spiders, but he knew what real hunger meant and if it were a
question of being hungry or eating swimming mushrooms, he could
close his eyes and eat.
"Just so," Kordov beamed at him. "And we shall investigate the
food value of these. I shall get the hamsters out of cold storage
and try the local products on them."
"So if they don't curl up and go blue in the face we feast,"
Kimber stretched and yawned. "Since we have quite a full day before
us tomorrow, suppose we hit the sack now. Toss for the bunks and
the acceleration pads."
They solemnly tossed a coin—one with a hole in it which Kimber
wore on a chain about his neck as a lucky piece. Dard found that
Fortune relegated him to one of the acceleration pads and did not
care. To his mind the soft sponge of that support was infinitely
more comfortable than any bed he could remember.
But when he curled up on it he found that he could not sleep.
All the wonders of the new world whirled through his mind in a mad
dance. And behind them lurked fear. Lui Skort had been a strong
young man but he had not survived the passage. How many more of the
boxes housed below in the star ship held death instead of life?
What about Dessie?
Now that there was nothing to distract him, nothing he could
give attention to, he remembered only her—the tight yellow braids
sticking out at sharp angles, how she had been able to sit so
quietly in the grass that birds and little animals accepted her as
part of their world and had been entirely unafraid—how good and
patient she had always been. Dessie!
He sat up. To lie there and sleep when Dessie might never wake
to see this new land! He couldn't!
On his hands and knees Dard crawled out of the control cabin and
between the bunks. Kimber was curled in a ball on one, but the
other, which had fallen to Kordov, was empty. Dard started down the
stair.
The deck below showed a patch of strong light and he could hear
someone moving. He ventured to the door of the laboratory where he
had helped to revive Cully and Rogan. The First Scientist was busy
there, setting out instruments and bottles. He looked up as Dard's
shadow fell into the room.
"What is it?"
"Dessie!" the boy blurted out. "I've got to know about
Dessie!"
"Ah, so? But it is for their own comfort and protection that our
companions must continue to sleep. Until we are sure of food and
shelter."
"I know that." But the desperation in Dard could not be so
sensibly silenced. "But—isn't there any way at all of telling? I
have to know about Dessie—I just have to!"
Tas Kordov pulled out his lower lip with thumb and forefinger
and allowed it to snap back hate place with a soft smacking
sound.
"That is a thought, my, boy. We can tell whether the mechanism
has in any way failed. And perhaps—just perhaps we can have other
assurance. I must open that particular compartment in the morning
anyway to bring out Carlee Skort. Carlee—" his face puckered with
the misery of an unhappy child. "And then I must be the one to tell
her about Lui. That will be a very hard thing to do. Well, we do
not escape the hard things in this life. Come along."
They went down five levels in the ship. Here the few lights were
very dim, and the force of the wind against the hull could be more
strongly felt. Kordov verified markings on the sealed door and at
last released the fastening of a portal which came open with a
faint sigh of displaced air. The chill of the room fed Dard's
unease. He edged along after Kordov, between doubled racks of the
coffin boxes to the final set. The First Scientist dropped to his
knees and snapped on a hand torch to read dials.
"Dessie and Lara Skort are in this one together, they were so
small they could share a compartment." The light in Kordov's hand
flashed from one dial to the next, and the next. Then he smiled up
at Dard.
"These are all as they should be, son. There has been no organic
or chemical change inside since this was sealed. To my honest
belief they are alive and well. Soon they will be out to run about
as little girls should. They shall be free—as they never could
have been on Terra. Do not worry. Your Dessie shall share this
world with you!"
Dard had himself under control now and he was able to answer
quite levelly:
"Thanks—thanks a lot, sir."
But Kordov had moved to another box and was reading more dials.
He gave that case a slap of approbation as he straightened to his
full height again.
"Carlee, too—we have been so very lucky."
"ROGAN?"
The tel-visor expert had spun his seat around and was facing
another section of the control panel, his fingers flying across the
buttons there. Needles spun on dials, indicators moved, and Rogan's
lips shaped words silently. When he had done Kimber flicked the
control of the visa-screen which had gone dead at their
landing.
Slowly pictures of the immediate surroundings of the ship
unrolled before their fascinated eyes.
"Late afternoon," Rogan commented, "by the length of the
shadows."
The ship had planeted in the middle of an expanse of gray-blue
gravel or sand—backed at a distance by perpendicular cliffs of
reddish rock layered by strata of blue, yellow and white. As the
scene changed, those in the control room saw the cliffs give way to
the mouth of a long valley down the center of which curved a
stream.
'That water's red!" Dard's surprise jolted the words out of
him.
The red river was hemmed in by blue-green, low-growing
vegetation which cloaked the ground within the valley itself and
ran in tongues along the water into the semi-arid stretch of sand.
Their viewing device was across the river, picking up more cliffs
and sand. Then they were fronted by ocean shore and vivid
aquamarine waves tipped with white lacy foam. Into this emptied the
river, staining the sea red for some distance. Sea, air, cliffs,
river—but no living creature!
"Wait!" Kimber's order sent Rogan's finger down on a button and
the picture on the screen became fixed. "Thought I saw
something—flying in the air. But guess I was wrong."
The scene changed until they were looking at the same spot where
it had begun. Kimber stretched.
"This part of the country appears unoccupied. And, Tas, we
didn't sight any signs of civilization when we came in either.
Maybe our luck's held and we have an empty world."
"Hmm. But is it one we can venture into?" The First Scientist
squeezed over to Cully's side of the cabin. "Atmosphere,
temperature—within a fraction of Terra's. Yes, we can live and
breathe here."
Kimber freed himself from the pilot's straps. "Suppose we have a
look-see in person then."
Dard was the last to leave the cabin. He was still a little
drunk with that riot of color on the visa-screen. After the
remembered drabness of his home section of Terra this was
overpowering. He was halfway down the ladder when he heard that
clang which announced the opening of the hatch and the emergence
of the ramp that would carry them safely over ground super-heated
by their jets.
When he came out the others were strung along the ramp,
breathing the warm air, air that was pungent with a fresh tang. The
breeze pulled at Dard's hair, whipping a lock across his forehead,
singing in his ears. Clean air—with none of the chemical taint
which clung in the ship. Around the fins of their ship the sand had
been fused into a curdled milky glass which they avoided by leaping
from the end of the ramp to the dunes.
Kimber and Kordov plowed straight ahead to the wave-smoothed
shore. Cully merely dropped in the soft grit of the beach, lying
full length, his hands pressed tight to the earth, staring
bemusedly up at the sky, while Rogan was pivoting slowly, as if to
verify the scene the visa-screen had shown them.
Dard made his way to the sand. The redness of the river occupied
him. Red water—why? The sea was normal enough except where it was
colored by the river. He wanted to know what painted the stream and
he started off determinedly to its bank.
The sand was softer, more powdery than any he had known on
Terra. It shifted into his boot laces, arose in puffs and covered
all but the faintest outline where he had stepped. He stooped and
sifted the stuff through his fingers, knowing a strange tingle as
the earth of this new world drifted away from his palm—blue
sand—red river—red, yellow and white striped cliffs—color
everywhere about him! Overhead that arch of cloud-studded blue—or
was it blue at all? Didn't it have just the faintest shading of
green? Turquoise rather than true blue! Now that he was becoming
accustomed to the color he could distinguish more subtle shades
among the glows of brighter tones—shades he could not name—like
that pale violet which streaked the sand.
Dard went on until he was in the stone-and-pebble strewn border
of the river. It was not a large stream, four strides might take
him across it. There was a ripple of current but the water was
opaque, dull rusty red, and it left a reddish rim about every stone
it lipped in passage. He went down on one knee and was about to dip
in a cautious exploratory finger when a voice called a warning:
"Don't try that, kid. Might not be healthy." Rogan came down the
stony bank to join him. "Better be safe than sorry. Learned that
myself on Venus—the hard way. See a piece of drift wood anywhere
about?"
Dard searched among the rocks and found what appeared to be a
very ordinary stick. But Rogan inspected it carefully before he
picked it up. The stick was lowered into the flood and as
cautiously withdrawn, an inch or so of it now dyed red. Together
they held it close for examination.
"It's alive!" If he had been holding that test branch, Dard
thought later, he might have dropped it at the realization of what
the red stain was. But Rogan kept a tight grip.
"Lively little beggars, aren't they?" he asked. "Look like
spiders. Do they float—or swim? And why so thick in the water? Now
let's just see." He knelt and using the stick along the surface of
the water skimmed off a good portion of what Dard secretly
considered the extremely repulsive travelers. With the layer of
"spiders" removed the water changed color, becoming a clearer
brownish fluid.
"So they can be scraped off," Rogan observed cheerfully. "With a strainer we may be able to get a drink—if this stuff is
drinkable."
Dard swallowed hastily as Rogan tapped off on a convenient
boulder the greater number of creatures he had fished out of the
stream; and then together they followed the water to the sea.
Several times they detoured, quite widely on Dard's part, to escape
contact with patches of red marooned on shore. Not that the
"spiders" appeared uncomfortable on the firmer element for they
made no attempt to move away from the spots where some sudden eddy
had deposited them.
A stiff breeze came in over the waves. It was heavy with the
tang Rogan now identified for Dard.
"Natural sea—that's salt air!" What he might have added was
drowned out by a hideous screech.
Close on its dying echo came a very human shout. Kimber and
Kordov were running along the beech just beyond the water's edge.
And above their beads twisted and darted a nightmare, a small
nightmare to be sure, but still one horrible enough to have winged
out of an evil dream.
If a Terran snake had been equipped with bat wings, two clawed
legs, a barbed tail, and a wide fanged mouth, it might have
approached in general this horror. The whole thing could not have
been more than eighteen or twenty inches long, but its snapping
fury was several times larger than its body and it was making power
dives at the running men.
Rogan dropped his spider stick as Dard's hand flew inside his
blouse to claim the only possession he had brought from Terra. He
threw the hunting knife and by some incredible luck clipped a wing,
not only breaking the dragon's dive but sending it fluttering down,
end over end, screeching. It flapped and beat with the good wing,
squirming across the sand until Kimber and Kordov pinned it to the
shingle with hastily flung stones.
Its eyes gleamed with red hate as they gathered in a circle
around it, avoiding the snapping jaws and the flipping of the
barbed tail which now dripped oily yellow drops.
"Bet that's poison," suggested Rogan. "Nice critter—hope they
don't grow any bigger."
"What's the matter?" Cully came tearing down the slope, one of
the green ray guns in his band. "What's making all that
racket?"
Rogan moved aside to display the injured dragon. "Native telling
us off."
"Usually," Kimber broke in, "I don't believe in shooting first
and investigating afterward. But this thing certainly hasn't any
better nature to appeal to—nearly stripped the ear off my head
before I knew he was around. Can you shoot it, Jorge, without
messing it up too much? Tas, here, probably will want to take it
apart later to see what makes it tick."
The biologist was squatting at a safe distance watching the
convulsive struggles of the dragon with fascinated eyes.
"Yes, please do not destroy it utterly. A snake—a flying snake!
But that is not possible!"
"Maybe not on Terra," Kimber reminded him. "What can we say is
possible or impossible here? Jorge, put it out of its misery!"
The green ray clipped the top of the creature's head and it went
limp on the sand. Tas approached it gingerly, keeping as far as he
could from the tail barb still exuding the yellow venom. Rogan went
back down the beach to retrieve his spider collection, and Dard
picked up and wiped his knife clean.
"Flying snakes and swimming spiders," the communications
techneer held out his stick for their appraisal. "I'm going to be
afraid to sit down out here—anything may pop up now."
Tas was plainly torn between the now-tractable dragon and the
water dwellers Rogan had brought him. "All this"— his pudgy hands
indicated the world of cliffs, sand and sea —"new,
unclassified."
Cully holstered his gun. He was frowning at the ceaseless
waves.
"What do you make of those, Sim?" he demanded of the pilot,
pointing to a low bank of clouds slowly expanding up the rim of the
sky.
"On earth, I'd say a storm."
"Might be a bad one, too," Rogan commented. "And we have no
shelter but the ship. At least this is summer—we're warm
enough."
"You think so?" asked Dard with some reason. The sea wind was
rising, to become a wet lash with an icy bite in its flail. The
temperature was dropping fast.
Kimber studied the clouds. "I'd say we better get back."
But when he turned inland his gasp brought them all around.
They had left the star ship on an even keel. Now it listed so
that its nose pointed down the valley away from the sea.
A good half hour later Kimber got to his feet, relief mirrored
on his face. One of the fins had broken through the fused coating
the jet heat had put on the beach. But beneath the splintered glass
crust it had found rock support —it would slip no farther. The
scarred sides towering above them were no longer mirror bright as
they had been in the Cleft, she had too many years, too long a
voyage behind her. But she was not going to fail them.
"Rock all right," Kimber repeated the statement he had made so
joyfully a few minutes before. "The ledge slants a little, which is
why she canted that way. But she'll stand. And," he did not need to
draw their attention to the darkness closing in, "maybe it's some
more luck at work again. With her nose pointing away from this
breeze, she's less likely to come a cropper, even if it turns out
to be a full-sized blow."
Dard held on to the rail of the ramp. The wind screamed around
them, stirring up devils born of the powdery sand, which filled
unwary eyes and any mouth that had the misfortune to be open. The
dust had already driven Kordov inside, his precious dragon in a
pair of forceps. He was more interested in that and Rogan's spiders
than he now was in the ship.
"Full-sized blow?" drawled Rogan. "This has the makings of a
hurricane if I'm any judge. And unless you fellas want to be buried
alive in these marching sand dunes, you'd better run for cover. As
long as you're sure we're not going to land bottom side up, I think
it's time to adjourn."
Dard followed him up the ramp just in time to escape a miniature
sandstorm through which the other two had to fight their way. There
was a brushing-off party in the air lock, but, as they climbed back
to the crew's quarters Dard could still taste grit in his mouth and
hear it crunch under his feet.
Kordov was not to be found in the control cabin or bunk room
when Kimber and the other two sat on the bunks and Dard dropped
down cross-legged on the floor. The ship was vibrating under him.
Could the wind have risen to that pitch already? It was Rogan who
answered that.
"Like to see what's happening out there?" He got up and went
into the control cabin.
Kimber and Dard got up to follow, but Cully shook his head.
"What you don't know, doesn't hurt you much," he remarked. "And
I don't see anything exciting about a sandstorm."
It was true that when Rogan adjusted the visa-screen there was
little for them to see. The storm had brought night and obscurity.
With an exclamation of annoyance, the techneer clicked off the
viewer and they drifted back to find Cully asleep and Kordov
climbing up to join them.
"Your 'spiders,' " he burst out as soon as he sighted Rogan,
"are plants!"
"But they moved!" protested Dard. "They had legs."
Kordov shook his head. "Roots, not legs. And plants they are in
spite of being mobile. Some form of aquatic fungi."
"Toadstools with legs yet!" Rogan laughed. "Next, trees with
arms, I suppose. What about the dragon—was he a flying
cabbage?"
Kordov did not need any urging to discuss the dragon.
"Poisonous reptile—and carnivorous. We shall have to beware of
them. But it was full grown, we need not worry."
"About their coming in larger sizes?" asked the relaxed Kimber
in a lazy voice. "Let us be thankful for small favors and hope that
they do a lot of that screeching when they go a-hunting. But
now—let us think about tomorrow."
"And tomorrow—and tomorrow—" Rogan repeated sleepily, but Cully
sat up thoroughly aroused.
"When do we wake up the others?" he wanted to know. "And are we going to stay right here?"
Kordov locked his fingers behind his head and leaned back
against the wall of the cabin. "I will revive Dr. Skort—Carlee—in the morning. She can help me with the others. Do you
intend to explore the immediate terrain then? We should decide soon
whether to stay here or try to find semi-permanent headquarters
elsewhere."
"There is just one thing," said Kimber, "I can lift ship again,
yes. But I can't guarantee another safe landing. The fuel—" he
shrugged. "I don't know how long our voyage here lasted, but if we
hadn't made this landfall when we did, we might not have been able
to come in at all."
"So?" Kordov's lips shaped a soundless whistle. "Then we had
better be very sure before we think of a move. What about taking
out the 'sled'?"
"I'll break it out first thing tomorrow. That is, I will if this
storm blows itself out by then. I don't propose to take that
contraption up in a high wind—the bugs aren't out of it yet,"
Kimber retorted.
"And how about food?" Cully asked. "Specifically here and now
for us, and objectively for the rest when they wake up."
"Specifically," Kordov opened one of the storage cabinets and
took out five small packages which he tossed around to the company.
"Concentrates. But, you're right, supplies are not going to last
forever. We shall not be able to awaken all our company until we
are reasonably sure of food and shelter. But—we'll get Harmon out
of storage and have him investigate the soil upriver where the
vegetation is so thick. The exploration party might also hunt."
"Not dragons, I hope," Rogan mumbled through a mouthful of the
dry concentrate cake. "I have a distinct feeling dragons will not
agree with my internal arrangements! Or traveling fungi
either—"
For the first time Dard ventured to break in upon his elders.
"Some fungi—mushrooms—are good." He had no desire to lunch off red
spiders, but he knew what real hunger meant and if it were a
question of being hungry or eating swimming mushrooms, he could
close his eyes and eat.
"Just so," Kordov beamed at him. "And we shall investigate the
food value of these. I shall get the hamsters out of cold storage
and try the local products on them."
"So if they don't curl up and go blue in the face we feast,"
Kimber stretched and yawned. "Since we have quite a full day before
us tomorrow, suppose we hit the sack now. Toss for the bunks and
the acceleration pads."
They solemnly tossed a coin—one with a hole in it which Kimber
wore on a chain about his neck as a lucky piece. Dard found that
Fortune relegated him to one of the acceleration pads and did not
care. To his mind the soft sponge of that support was infinitely
more comfortable than any bed he could remember.
But when he curled up on it he found that he could not sleep.
All the wonders of the new world whirled through his mind in a mad
dance. And behind them lurked fear. Lui Skort had been a strong
young man but he had not survived the passage. How many more of the
boxes housed below in the star ship held death instead of life?
What about Dessie?
Now that there was nothing to distract him, nothing he could
give attention to, he remembered only her—the tight yellow braids
sticking out at sharp angles, how she had been able to sit so
quietly in the grass that birds and little animals accepted her as
part of their world and had been entirely unafraid—how good and
patient she had always been. Dessie!
He sat up. To lie there and sleep when Dessie might never wake
to see this new land! He couldn't!
On his hands and knees Dard crawled out of the control cabin and
between the bunks. Kimber was curled in a ball on one, but the
other, which had fallen to Kordov, was empty. Dard started down the
stair.
The deck below showed a patch of strong light and he could hear
someone moving. He ventured to the door of the laboratory where he
had helped to revive Cully and Rogan. The First Scientist was busy
there, setting out instruments and bottles. He looked up as Dard's
shadow fell into the room.
"What is it?"
"Dessie!" the boy blurted out. "I've got to know about
Dessie!"
"Ah, so? But it is for their own comfort and protection that our
companions must continue to sleep. Until we are sure of food and
shelter."
"I know that." But the desperation in Dard could not be so
sensibly silenced. "But—isn't there any way at all of telling? I
have to know about Dessie—I just have to!"
Tas Kordov pulled out his lower lip with thumb and forefinger
and allowed it to snap back hate place with a soft smacking
sound.
"That is a thought, my, boy. We can tell whether the mechanism
has in any way failed. And perhaps—just perhaps we can have other
assurance. I must open that particular compartment in the morning
anyway to bring out Carlee Skort. Carlee—" his face puckered with
the misery of an unhappy child. "And then I must be the one to tell
her about Lui. That will be a very hard thing to do. Well, we do
not escape the hard things in this life. Come along."
They went down five levels in the ship. Here the few lights were
very dim, and the force of the wind against the hull could be more
strongly felt. Kordov verified markings on the sealed door and at
last released the fastening of a portal which came open with a
faint sigh of displaced air. The chill of the room fed Dard's
unease. He edged along after Kordov, between doubled racks of the
coffin boxes to the final set. The First Scientist dropped to his
knees and snapped on a hand torch to read dials.
"Dessie and Lara Skort are in this one together, they were so
small they could share a compartment." The light in Kordov's hand
flashed from one dial to the next, and the next. Then he smiled up
at Dard.
"These are all as they should be, son. There has been no organic
or chemical change inside since this was sealed. To my honest
belief they are alive and well. Soon they will be out to run about
as little girls should. They shall be free—as they never could
have been on Terra. Do not worry. Your Dessie shall share this
world with you!"
Dard had himself under control now and he was able to answer
quite levelly:
"Thanks—thanks a lot, sir."
But Kordov had moved to another box and was reading more dials.
He gave that case a slap of approbation as he straightened to his
full height again.
"Carlee, too—we have been so very lucky."