THEIR ATTEMPTS to explore on foot were frustrated by the mounds of
debris and danger from falling rubble. Cully jumped to safety from
the top of a mound which caved in under his weight, and so escaped
a dangerous slide into one of the pits. Those pits were everywhere,
dug so deeply into the foundations of the city that the Terrans,
huddling on the rims, could look down past several underground
levels to a darkness uncut by the sun.
A little shaken by the engineer's narrow escape, they retired to
the sled and made an unappetizing meal on concentrates.
"No birds," Dard suddenly realized that fact. "Nothing
alive."
"Unhuh." Santee dug his heel into the grass and earth.
"No bugs either. And there're enough of them back in the
valley!"
"No birds, no insects," Kimber said slowly. "The place is dead.
I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I've had just about
enough."
They did agree with that. The brooding stillness, broken only
when debris crashed or rolled, rasped their nerves.
Dard swallowed his last bite of concentrate and turned to the
pilot.
"Do we have any microfilm we can use?"
"For what—a lot of broken buildings?" Cully wanted to know.
"I'd like one of those bands of color around that doorway," Dard
answered. His idea that the bands had a meaning was perhaps silly
but he could not push it away.
"All right, kid." Kimber unpacked the small recorder and focused
it on a place where the sun was strong. "No pattern I can see. But,
it just might mean something at that."
That was the only picture they took when on the ground. But once
again in the air Cully ran the machine for a bird's-eye view of as
much of the ruined area as could be recorded.
They were approaching the outer reaches of the city to the east
when Santee gave an exclamation and touched Kimber's arm. They were
over a street less cumbered with rubble than any they had yet
crossed, and there was a flicker of movement there.
As the sled coasted down they disturbed a pack of grayish,
four-footed things that streaked away into the ruins leaving their
meal behind them on the blood-smeared pavement.
"Whew!" Cully coughed and Dard gagged at the stench the wind
carried in their direction. They left the sled to gather around the
tangle of stripped bones and rotting flesh.
"That wasn't killed today," Kimber observed unnecessarily.
Dard rounded the stained area. The dead thing had been large,
perhaps the size of a Terran draft horse, and the skeleton—tumbled
as the bones now were—suggested that it was four-footed and hooved.
But that skull, to which ragged and blood-clotted hair still clung,
was what he had moved to see. He had been right—two horns sprouted
above the eye sockets. This was the horned horse of the game
set!
"A duocorn?" mused the pilot.
"A what?" Santee wanted to know.
"There was a fabled animal mentioned in some of the old books on
Terra. Had a single horn in the middle of the forehead, but the
rest was all horse. Well, here's a horse with two horns—a duocorn
instead of a unicorn. But those things we saw feeding here—they
were pretty small to bring down an animal of this size."
"Unless they carry a burper, they didn't!" Dard, in spite of the
odor, leaned down to inspect that stretch of spine beyond the loose
skull. A section of vertebra had been smashed just as if a giant
vise had been applied to the nape of the duocorn's neck!
"Crushed!" Kimber agreed. "But whatever could do that?"
Cully studied the body. "Mighty big for a horse."
"There were breeds on earth which were seventeen to twenty hands
high at the shoulder and weighed close to a ton," returned Kimber.
"This fellow must have been about that size."
"And what is big enough to crunch through a spine supporting a
ton of meat?" Santee wanted to know. He went back to the sled and
picked up the rifle.
Dard back-trailed from the evil-smelling bones. Several paces
farther on he discovered what he was looking for, marks which
proved that the body had been dragged and worried for almost half
of a city block. And also, plain to read in a drift of soil across
the street, prints. The marks cut deeply by the hooves of the
duocorn were half blotted out in places by another spoor—three
long-clawed toes, with faint scuffed spaces between, as if they
were united by a webbed membrane. Dard went down on one knee and
flexed his own hand over the clearest of those prints. With his
fingers spread to the fullest extent he could just span it.
"Looks like a chicken track." Santee had come up behind him.
"More likely a reptile. I've seen a field lizard leave a spoor
such as this—except for the size."
"Another dragon—large size?" Cully suggested.
Dard shook his head as he got to his feet and started along that
back trail. "This one runs, not flies. But I'm sure it's a nasty
customer."
There was a scuttling to their left. Santee whirled, rifle
ready. A small stone rolled from the top of the nearest pile of
rubbish and thudded home against the yellow teeth of the skull.
"Somebody's getting impatient over an interrupted dinner." Cully
ended with a laugh which sounded unnaturally loud in those
surroundings.
Kimber went back to the sled. "We might as well let him—or
her—or it—come back to the table. There are," he glanced around
at the ruins, "altogether too many good lurking places here. I'll
feel safer out in open country where I can see any lizard that big
before it sees me!"
But when they were airborne Kimber did not turn inland, instead
he followed the curve of the bay on to the northwest. The ruins
beneath them dwindled to isolated houses—domed or towered—in
better repair than those situated in the heart of the city. Beneath
them now were brilliant patches of flowers long since returned to
the wild. Little streams made graceful curves through what Dard was
sure had been pleasure gardens. Fairy towers, which appeared too
delicate to withstand the pull of the planet's gravity, pointed
useless fingers up at the cruising sled.
Once they flew for almost half a mile above a palace. But here
again a curdled crystalline blotch cut the building in two. None of
what they saw gave them any desire to descend and explore. Here the
trees grew too high, there were too many shadows. The tangled
pleasure gardens and wild grounds were good lurking places for
terror to stalk the unwary.
The broken city faded into the green of the rolling country and
the aquamarine of the sea. Fewer and fewer domed houses broke the
green—and those were probably farms. Here were birds as if the
haunted horror of the city was gone. The seashore curved again but
Kimber did not follow it west. He veered to the east, to cross
fields of which the old regular patterns were marked by bushy
hedgerows. It was in one of these that they sighted the first
living duocorns, four adults and two colts, but all four well under
the size of the monster whose skeleton had attracted their
attention in the city.
These animals were uniform in color, showing none of the
variations in marking possessed by Terran horses. Their coats were
a slaty blue-gray, their unkempt manes and tails black, and their
bellies and the underportions of their legs silver. The horns were
silver with the real sheen of the precious metal.
As the sled droned over them, the largest flung up its head to
issue a trumpeting scream. Then, herding its companions before it,
it settled into a rocking gallop up the sloping field to the hedge
at the far side beyond which was a grove of trees. With graceful
ease all of the fleeing animals leaped the hedge and disappeared
under those trees, nor did they come out on the other side of the
grove.
"Good runners," Cully gave credit. "Do you suppose they were
always wild—or the descendants of domestic stock? Bet Harmon'd
like to have a couple of them. He was pretty fed up when he found
we couldn't bring those two colts he had picked out."
"The big one was a fighter! D'yuh see him shake them horns?"
demanded Santee. "I wouldn't want him to catch me out in the open
walkin'."
"Odd." Dard had been watching the far end of the grove and was
now puzzled. "You'd think they'd keep on running. But they're
staying in there."
"Under cover. Safe from any menace from the air," Kimber said.
"Which suggests some unpleasant possibilities."
"A large flying danger!" Dard whistled as he caught Kimber's
idea. "A thing maybe as big as this sled. But it would be too big
to fly on its own power!"
"Bigger things than this have flown in Terra's past," the pilot
reminded him. "And it may not be a living thing they fear—but a
machine. Either way—we'd better watch out."
"But those flying things were far back in our history,"
protested the boy. "Could such primitive things exist along with
man—or whatever built that city?"
"How can we say what may or may not have survived here? Or—if
that city was destroyed by radioactive missiles—what may have
mutated? Or what may fly machines?"
Since the duocorns remained stubbornly in hiding, the sled gave
up investigation and flew east, the setting sun behind them and
long afternoon shadows stretching to point their path.
"Where we gonna camp?" Santee wanted to know. "Out here
somewheres?"
"I'd say yes," Kimber said. "There's a river over there. Might
find a good place somewhere along it."
The river was shallow and its waters were clear enough for them
to be able to sight from the air the rough stones which paved its
bed. An uneven fringe of water plants cloaked the shoreline until
climbing ground provided bluffs. The sparkle of sun on ripples
flashed up from a wider expanse as the sled reached a place where
the graveled bed flattened out into a round lake. The stream
spattered down from heights to feed this, forming a miniature
waterfall, and there was a level stretch of sand unencumbered by
rocks which made a good landing for the sled.
Cully stretched and grinned. "Good enough. You know how to pick
'em, Sim. Even a cave to sleep in!"
The space he pointed to was not a real cave, rather a
semiprotected hollow beneath an overhang of rock. But it gave them
a vague sense of security when they unrolled their sleeping bags
against its back wall.
This was the first night Dard had spent in the open under a
moonless sky and he found the darkness discomforting—though stars
made new crystal patterns across the heavens. They had a fire of
river drift, but beyond that the darkness was thick enough to be
smoothed between thumb and forefinger.
The fire had died down to gleaming coals when Dard was shocked
awake by a howling wail. The sound was repeated, to be either
echoed or answered from downriver. Above the rumble of the fall he
was sure he caught the clink of disturbed gravel. Another
ear-splitting shriek made his heart jump as Kimber flashed on the
beam of a pocket torch without moving from beside him.
Pinned in that beam hunched a weird biped. About four feet tall,
its body was completely covered with fine silky hair which arose in
a fluff along its back and limbs, roughened by its astonished
fright. The face was three-quarters eyes, round, staring, with no
discernible lids. There was no apparent nose above an animal's
sharply fanged muzzle. Four-digit hands went up to shield those
eyes and the thing gave a moan which arose to a howl. But it made
no attempt to flee, as if the strange light held it prisoner.
"Monkey!" that was Santee. "A night runnin' monkey!"
Into that beam from the torch, insects began to gather—great
feathery-winged moth things, some as large as birds. And, at their
appearance, the night howler came to life. With a feline's lithe
grace it leaped and captured two of the moths and then scurried
into the darkness where a low snarl suggested that it was now
disputing possession of these prizes with another. Kimber held the
torch steady and the moths came in, a drifting cloud, coasting
along that ray toward the explorers. Round eyeballs of
phosphorescence glittered just on the border of that light. And
furry paws clawed through it at the flying things. Triumphant
squeaks heralded captures and the howling arose in a triumphant
chorus as if others were being summoned to this lucky hunting.
Kimber snapped off the light just before the first wave of moths
reached the Terrans.
The whisper of wings was drowned out by several shrill cries.
But when the light was not turned on again the four heard the
rattle of gravel and a fading wailing as the "monkeys" withdrew
downriver.
"Show's over for this night—I hope," Cully grunted sleepily.
"Bet some wise guy could make a fortune selling torches to those
boys as moth lures."
Dard allowed his head to drop back on the padded end of the
sleeping bag. Suppose those "monkeys" were intelligent enough to
enable the Terrans to establish trade relations. Could one make
contact with them? To the human eye their manlike stance and the
way they used their hands made them appear more approachable than
any other native creatures of this world which the Terrans had so
far sighted. Surely these creatures had not built the city. But
they walked erect and had been quick enough to evaluate the use of
light for attracting their food supply. If they were wholly night
creatures, as their large eyes and ease in traveling through the
dark suggested, would the Terrans ever see them again?
Dard was still puzzling that out when he slipped into a dream in
which he again stood before the ruined building within the city and
studied those baffling lines of color. But this time those bands
held a meaning, and he had almost grasped it when he heard a sound
behind him. Not daring to turn his head—for he knew that death
sniffed his trail—he began to run with dragging, leaden feet. And,
behind him, death pounded relentlessly. With bursting lungs he
turned the corner into another cluttered, half-blocked street and
saw before him blood and bones from which gray things ran. He
slipped, went down . . . He awoke, his heart pounding wildly, his
body slippery with a dank, chill sweat. It was gray light. He could
see the moving water, the remains of the previous night's fire.
Stealthily he wriggled out of his sleeping bag and crawled into
the open.
Then he went to the water and splashed it over head and
forearms, until its clear chill washed out of him the fear the
nightmare had left. Gasping a little from the chill, he tramped
along to the rising cliffs beside the falls.
Vines ran down the shiny black of this stone, clinging to its
uneven surface with tiny sucker feet. The lianas themselves were a
gray-white and bare of leaves except for a few which grew in tight
bunches near the top of the cliff. Clusters of ropy creepers
dangled in a limp fringe along each main stem.
In a pocket formed by the crossing of several lianas he sighted
a find. Surely that brighter green marked one of the perfume plants
Trude Harmon wanted! The triangular leaves, glossy and colorful
against such a drab background, bobbed from scarlet stems. And
there were seed pods also! They hung, red and yellow, pulled down
by the weight of their contents, within his reach. He snapped off
three and stretched to reach a fourth.
It was just then he caught sight of the twitching close to the
ground, where something struggled hopelessly. Two of the creepers,
about the size of his little finger, were holding in a throttling
grip the writhing body of a hopper. The small animal's eyes
protruded agonizingly and a bloody froth ringed its gasping mouth.
Dard drew his knife and slashed at the white cords. But the steel
did not cut through them. It rebounded as if he had tried to sever
rubber with a dull edge. Before he could raise it for a second
blow, a larger creeper flicked out and encircled his wrist, pulling
him off balance against the cliff. With lightning speed the ropy
fringe dangling there came to life, those near enough whipping over
his body, those too far away straining toward the struggle until
they were stretched in straight lines. And, as each tie fell about
him, he discovered that it was equipped with small thorns which
tore his skin in red-hot torment. He shouted and fought, but all
his struggles seemed to carry him closer to other suckers and they
were fast winding him helpless when he heard the excited cries of
the others and saw them racing for him.
Before they were close enough to help he was able to tear his
knife arm free, to slash and score the mass of waving tendrils
which enclosed him. Then he paused—the things were failing away of
their own accord. Within another minute the last and largest
sullenly relinquished its hold.
"What happened?" yelled Santee. "What did you do to make those
things let go?"
Wherever the plants had met his flesh they had left their brand
in pin-point dots of oozing blood which trickled down his arms,
throat and one cheek. But those lianas which had fallen away from
him—they were turning black, shriveling, rotting away in pieces!
The thing had tasted his blood and it was poisoned!
"Poisoned! I poisoned it!"
"Be glad that you did," snapped Kimber. "You're in luck. These
weren't!" He kicked up the gravel below the vines with the toe of
his boot and plowed up brittle bones and small skulls.
The pilot as he treated Dard's slight wounds was emphatic:
"Hereafter we stay together. It worked out all right this time.
But again it might not. Stick together and distrust everything
unless you have already seen it in action!"
But they were all together and apparently in no danger when
disaster struck them a back-handed blow that same day. They had
been using the sleepy stream as a guide back into a range of hills
and by midmorning had sighted in the northeast what could only be a
chain of mountains, purple-blue against the sky. These ran from
north to south as far as those in the sled could see.
Perhaps if the Terrans had not been so intent upon those distant
peaks they might have seen something below which would have warned
them. Probably not. Man, when he goes to war, displays the deepest
depths of cunning.
Their first intimation of danger arrived simultaneously with the
blow that smashed them out of the sky. A sharp burst of sound and
the sled bucked—as if batted by a giant club. The craft fluttered
into a falling twirl while Kimber fought the controls, trying to
pull out of the spin. If the passengers had not been strapped in
they would have plunged earthward in the first three seconds of
that wild descent.
While Dard was trying to understand what had happened a burst of
brilliant light temporarily blinded him. More sound, bracketing
them, and someone cried out in pain. Then he knew that they were
failing out of control, and by some instinct he flung up his arms
to shield his head just before they struck and he blacked out.
He couldn't have been unconscious long, because when he raised
his head Cully was still dazedly fumbling to flee himself from the
safety straps. Dard spat to clear a full month and saw a blob of
blood and a tooth strike the ground. He loosened the belt and
lurched out of the sled after Cully. In front Santee bent over a
limp Kimber on whose face blood trickled from a cut just below the
hair line.
"What happened?" Dard wiped his chin and took away a bloody
hand. His lips hurt and his jaw ached.
Kimber's dark eyes opened and stared up at them bemusedly. Then
comprehension came back and he demanded:
"Who shot us down?"
Santee had his rifle in his hands.
"That's what I'm gonna see, right now!'
Before the rest could protest, he darted away, back down the
valley where they had landed, zigzagging into cover as he neared
its mouth. There was a final boom of an exploding shell from that
direction and then silence.
Dard and Cully got Kimber free of the sled. The pilot's right
arm was bleeding from a ragged wound near the shoulder. They broke
open the medical kit and the engineer went competently to work so
that Dard had nothing to do. When Kimber was stretched out on a
bedroll Cully returned to examine the sled itself. He took up the
cover of the motor and squirmed half into the space which enclosed
it, ordering Dard to hold the torch for him. When he crawled back
his face was very sober.
"How bad?" asked Kimber. There was more color in his dark face
and be levered himself up on an elbow.
"Not the worst—but about as near to that as we can get." Cully
was interrupted by a shout from the trees where Santee had
disappeared.
The big man returned walking in the open, his rifle cradled in
the crook of his arm—as if they had nothing to fear.
"Fellas, this here's plain crazy! There's a nest of guns down
there all hidden away. Little stuff—light field pieces. But
there's not a livin' critter in the place. Them there guns fired at
us their ownselves!"
"A robot control triggered when we flew over a certain point!"
exploded Cully. "Some kind of radar, I'll bet. Rogan ought to be
here."
"First," Kimber reminded him grimly, "we've got to get back to
tell him about them."
A broken sled with which to cross several hundred miles of
unknown country. They were going to have quite a hike, thought
Dard. But he did not comment upon that aloud.
THEIR ATTEMPTS to explore on foot were frustrated by the mounds of
debris and danger from falling rubble. Cully jumped to safety from
the top of a mound which caved in under his weight, and so escaped
a dangerous slide into one of the pits. Those pits were everywhere,
dug so deeply into the foundations of the city that the Terrans,
huddling on the rims, could look down past several underground
levels to a darkness uncut by the sun.
A little shaken by the engineer's narrow escape, they retired to
the sled and made an unappetizing meal on concentrates.
"No birds," Dard suddenly realized that fact. "Nothing
alive."
"Unhuh." Santee dug his heel into the grass and earth.
"No bugs either. And there're enough of them back in the
valley!"
"No birds, no insects," Kimber said slowly. "The place is dead.
I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I've had just about
enough."
They did agree with that. The brooding stillness, broken only
when debris crashed or rolled, rasped their nerves.
Dard swallowed his last bite of concentrate and turned to the
pilot.
"Do we have any microfilm we can use?"
"For what—a lot of broken buildings?" Cully wanted to know.
"I'd like one of those bands of color around that doorway," Dard
answered. His idea that the bands had a meaning was perhaps silly
but he could not push it away.
"All right, kid." Kimber unpacked the small recorder and focused
it on a place where the sun was strong. "No pattern I can see. But,
it just might mean something at that."
That was the only picture they took when on the ground. But once
again in the air Cully ran the machine for a bird's-eye view of as
much of the ruined area as could be recorded.
They were approaching the outer reaches of the city to the east
when Santee gave an exclamation and touched Kimber's arm. They were
over a street less cumbered with rubble than any they had yet
crossed, and there was a flicker of movement there.
As the sled coasted down they disturbed a pack of grayish,
four-footed things that streaked away into the ruins leaving their
meal behind them on the blood-smeared pavement.
"Whew!" Cully coughed and Dard gagged at the stench the wind
carried in their direction. They left the sled to gather around the
tangle of stripped bones and rotting flesh.
"That wasn't killed today," Kimber observed unnecessarily.
Dard rounded the stained area. The dead thing had been large,
perhaps the size of a Terran draft horse, and the skeleton—tumbled
as the bones now were—suggested that it was four-footed and hooved.
But that skull, to which ragged and blood-clotted hair still clung,
was what he had moved to see. He had been right—two horns sprouted
above the eye sockets. This was the horned horse of the game
set!
"A duocorn?" mused the pilot.
"A what?" Santee wanted to know.
"There was a fabled animal mentioned in some of the old books on
Terra. Had a single horn in the middle of the forehead, but the
rest was all horse. Well, here's a horse with two horns—a duocorn
instead of a unicorn. But those things we saw feeding here—they
were pretty small to bring down an animal of this size."
"Unless they carry a burper, they didn't!" Dard, in spite of the
odor, leaned down to inspect that stretch of spine beyond the loose
skull. A section of vertebra had been smashed just as if a giant
vise had been applied to the nape of the duocorn's neck!
"Crushed!" Kimber agreed. "But whatever could do that?"
Cully studied the body. "Mighty big for a horse."
"There were breeds on earth which were seventeen to twenty hands
high at the shoulder and weighed close to a ton," returned Kimber.
"This fellow must have been about that size."
"And what is big enough to crunch through a spine supporting a
ton of meat?" Santee wanted to know. He went back to the sled and
picked up the rifle.
Dard back-trailed from the evil-smelling bones. Several paces
farther on he discovered what he was looking for, marks which
proved that the body had been dragged and worried for almost half
of a city block. And also, plain to read in a drift of soil across
the street, prints. The marks cut deeply by the hooves of the
duocorn were half blotted out in places by another spoor—three
long-clawed toes, with faint scuffed spaces between, as if they
were united by a webbed membrane. Dard went down on one knee and
flexed his own hand over the clearest of those prints. With his
fingers spread to the fullest extent he could just span it.
"Looks like a chicken track." Santee had come up behind him.
"More likely a reptile. I've seen a field lizard leave a spoor
such as this—except for the size."
"Another dragon—large size?" Cully suggested.
Dard shook his head as he got to his feet and started along that
back trail. "This one runs, not flies. But I'm sure it's a nasty
customer."
There was a scuttling to their left. Santee whirled, rifle
ready. A small stone rolled from the top of the nearest pile of
rubbish and thudded home against the yellow teeth of the skull.
"Somebody's getting impatient over an interrupted dinner." Cully
ended with a laugh which sounded unnaturally loud in those
surroundings.
Kimber went back to the sled. "We might as well let him—or
her—or it—come back to the table. There are," he glanced around
at the ruins, "altogether too many good lurking places here. I'll
feel safer out in open country where I can see any lizard that big
before it sees me!"
But when they were airborne Kimber did not turn inland, instead
he followed the curve of the bay on to the northwest. The ruins
beneath them dwindled to isolated houses—domed or towered—in
better repair than those situated in the heart of the city. Beneath
them now were brilliant patches of flowers long since returned to
the wild. Little streams made graceful curves through what Dard was
sure had been pleasure gardens. Fairy towers, which appeared too
delicate to withstand the pull of the planet's gravity, pointed
useless fingers up at the cruising sled.
Once they flew for almost half a mile above a palace. But here
again a curdled crystalline blotch cut the building in two. None of
what they saw gave them any desire to descend and explore. Here the
trees grew too high, there were too many shadows. The tangled
pleasure gardens and wild grounds were good lurking places for
terror to stalk the unwary.
The broken city faded into the green of the rolling country and
the aquamarine of the sea. Fewer and fewer domed houses broke the
green—and those were probably farms. Here were birds as if the
haunted horror of the city was gone. The seashore curved again but
Kimber did not follow it west. He veered to the east, to cross
fields of which the old regular patterns were marked by bushy
hedgerows. It was in one of these that they sighted the first
living duocorns, four adults and two colts, but all four well under
the size of the monster whose skeleton had attracted their
attention in the city.
These animals were uniform in color, showing none of the
variations in marking possessed by Terran horses. Their coats were
a slaty blue-gray, their unkempt manes and tails black, and their
bellies and the underportions of their legs silver. The horns were
silver with the real sheen of the precious metal.
As the sled droned over them, the largest flung up its head to
issue a trumpeting scream. Then, herding its companions before it,
it settled into a rocking gallop up the sloping field to the hedge
at the far side beyond which was a grove of trees. With graceful
ease all of the fleeing animals leaped the hedge and disappeared
under those trees, nor did they come out on the other side of the
grove.
"Good runners," Cully gave credit. "Do you suppose they were
always wild—or the descendants of domestic stock? Bet Harmon'd
like to have a couple of them. He was pretty fed up when he found
we couldn't bring those two colts he had picked out."
"The big one was a fighter! D'yuh see him shake them horns?"
demanded Santee. "I wouldn't want him to catch me out in the open
walkin'."
"Odd." Dard had been watching the far end of the grove and was
now puzzled. "You'd think they'd keep on running. But they're
staying in there."
"Under cover. Safe from any menace from the air," Kimber said.
"Which suggests some unpleasant possibilities."
"A large flying danger!" Dard whistled as he caught Kimber's
idea. "A thing maybe as big as this sled. But it would be too big
to fly on its own power!"
"Bigger things than this have flown in Terra's past," the pilot
reminded him. "And it may not be a living thing they fear—but a
machine. Either way—we'd better watch out."
"But those flying things were far back in our history,"
protested the boy. "Could such primitive things exist along with
man—or whatever built that city?"
"How can we say what may or may not have survived here? Or—if
that city was destroyed by radioactive missiles—what may have
mutated? Or what may fly machines?"
Since the duocorns remained stubbornly in hiding, the sled gave
up investigation and flew east, the setting sun behind them and
long afternoon shadows stretching to point their path.
"Where we gonna camp?" Santee wanted to know. "Out here
somewheres?"
"I'd say yes," Kimber said. "There's a river over there. Might
find a good place somewhere along it."
The river was shallow and its waters were clear enough for them
to be able to sight from the air the rough stones which paved its
bed. An uneven fringe of water plants cloaked the shoreline until
climbing ground provided bluffs. The sparkle of sun on ripples
flashed up from a wider expanse as the sled reached a place where
the graveled bed flattened out into a round lake. The stream
spattered down from heights to feed this, forming a miniature
waterfall, and there was a level stretch of sand unencumbered by
rocks which made a good landing for the sled.
Cully stretched and grinned. "Good enough. You know how to pick
'em, Sim. Even a cave to sleep in!"
The space he pointed to was not a real cave, rather a
semiprotected hollow beneath an overhang of rock. But it gave them
a vague sense of security when they unrolled their sleeping bags
against its back wall.
This was the first night Dard had spent in the open under a
moonless sky and he found the darkness discomforting—though stars
made new crystal patterns across the heavens. They had a fire of
river drift, but beyond that the darkness was thick enough to be
smoothed between thumb and forefinger.
The fire had died down to gleaming coals when Dard was shocked
awake by a howling wail. The sound was repeated, to be either
echoed or answered from downriver. Above the rumble of the fall he
was sure he caught the clink of disturbed gravel. Another
ear-splitting shriek made his heart jump as Kimber flashed on the
beam of a pocket torch without moving from beside him.
Pinned in that beam hunched a weird biped. About four feet tall,
its body was completely covered with fine silky hair which arose in
a fluff along its back and limbs, roughened by its astonished
fright. The face was three-quarters eyes, round, staring, with no
discernible lids. There was no apparent nose above an animal's
sharply fanged muzzle. Four-digit hands went up to shield those
eyes and the thing gave a moan which arose to a howl. But it made
no attempt to flee, as if the strange light held it prisoner.
"Monkey!" that was Santee. "A night runnin' monkey!"
Into that beam from the torch, insects began to gather—great
feathery-winged moth things, some as large as birds. And, at their
appearance, the night howler came to life. With a feline's lithe
grace it leaped and captured two of the moths and then scurried
into the darkness where a low snarl suggested that it was now
disputing possession of these prizes with another. Kimber held the
torch steady and the moths came in, a drifting cloud, coasting
along that ray toward the explorers. Round eyeballs of
phosphorescence glittered just on the border of that light. And
furry paws clawed through it at the flying things. Triumphant
squeaks heralded captures and the howling arose in a triumphant
chorus as if others were being summoned to this lucky hunting.
Kimber snapped off the light just before the first wave of moths
reached the Terrans.
The whisper of wings was drowned out by several shrill cries.
But when the light was not turned on again the four heard the
rattle of gravel and a fading wailing as the "monkeys" withdrew
downriver.
"Show's over for this night—I hope," Cully grunted sleepily.
"Bet some wise guy could make a fortune selling torches to those
boys as moth lures."
Dard allowed his head to drop back on the padded end of the
sleeping bag. Suppose those "monkeys" were intelligent enough to
enable the Terrans to establish trade relations. Could one make
contact with them? To the human eye their manlike stance and the
way they used their hands made them appear more approachable than
any other native creatures of this world which the Terrans had so
far sighted. Surely these creatures had not built the city. But
they walked erect and had been quick enough to evaluate the use of
light for attracting their food supply. If they were wholly night
creatures, as their large eyes and ease in traveling through the
dark suggested, would the Terrans ever see them again?
Dard was still puzzling that out when he slipped into a dream in
which he again stood before the ruined building within the city and
studied those baffling lines of color. But this time those bands
held a meaning, and he had almost grasped it when he heard a sound
behind him. Not daring to turn his head—for he knew that death
sniffed his trail—he began to run with dragging, leaden feet. And,
behind him, death pounded relentlessly. With bursting lungs he
turned the corner into another cluttered, half-blocked street and
saw before him blood and bones from which gray things ran. He
slipped, went down . . . He awoke, his heart pounding wildly, his
body slippery with a dank, chill sweat. It was gray light. He could
see the moving water, the remains of the previous night's fire.
Stealthily he wriggled out of his sleeping bag and crawled into
the open.
Then he went to the water and splashed it over head and
forearms, until its clear chill washed out of him the fear the
nightmare had left. Gasping a little from the chill, he tramped
along to the rising cliffs beside the falls.
Vines ran down the shiny black of this stone, clinging to its
uneven surface with tiny sucker feet. The lianas themselves were a
gray-white and bare of leaves except for a few which grew in tight
bunches near the top of the cliff. Clusters of ropy creepers
dangled in a limp fringe along each main stem.
In a pocket formed by the crossing of several lianas he sighted
a find. Surely that brighter green marked one of the perfume plants
Trude Harmon wanted! The triangular leaves, glossy and colorful
against such a drab background, bobbed from scarlet stems. And
there were seed pods also! They hung, red and yellow, pulled down
by the weight of their contents, within his reach. He snapped off
three and stretched to reach a fourth.
It was just then he caught sight of the twitching close to the
ground, where something struggled hopelessly. Two of the creepers,
about the size of his little finger, were holding in a throttling
grip the writhing body of a hopper. The small animal's eyes
protruded agonizingly and a bloody froth ringed its gasping mouth.
Dard drew his knife and slashed at the white cords. But the steel
did not cut through them. It rebounded as if he had tried to sever
rubber with a dull edge. Before he could raise it for a second
blow, a larger creeper flicked out and encircled his wrist, pulling
him off balance against the cliff. With lightning speed the ropy
fringe dangling there came to life, those near enough whipping over
his body, those too far away straining toward the struggle until
they were stretched in straight lines. And, as each tie fell about
him, he discovered that it was equipped with small thorns which
tore his skin in red-hot torment. He shouted and fought, but all
his struggles seemed to carry him closer to other suckers and they
were fast winding him helpless when he heard the excited cries of
the others and saw them racing for him.
Before they were close enough to help he was able to tear his
knife arm free, to slash and score the mass of waving tendrils
which enclosed him. Then he paused—the things were failing away of
their own accord. Within another minute the last and largest
sullenly relinquished its hold.
"What happened?" yelled Santee. "What did you do to make those
things let go?"
Wherever the plants had met his flesh they had left their brand
in pin-point dots of oozing blood which trickled down his arms,
throat and one cheek. But those lianas which had fallen away from
him—they were turning black, shriveling, rotting away in pieces!
The thing had tasted his blood and it was poisoned!
"Poisoned! I poisoned it!"
"Be glad that you did," snapped Kimber. "You're in luck. These
weren't!" He kicked up the gravel below the vines with the toe of
his boot and plowed up brittle bones and small skulls.
The pilot as he treated Dard's slight wounds was emphatic:
"Hereafter we stay together. It worked out all right this time.
But again it might not. Stick together and distrust everything
unless you have already seen it in action!"
But they were all together and apparently in no danger when
disaster struck them a back-handed blow that same day. They had
been using the sleepy stream as a guide back into a range of hills
and by midmorning had sighted in the northeast what could only be a
chain of mountains, purple-blue against the sky. These ran from
north to south as far as those in the sled could see.
Perhaps if the Terrans had not been so intent upon those distant
peaks they might have seen something below which would have warned
them. Probably not. Man, when he goes to war, displays the deepest
depths of cunning.
Their first intimation of danger arrived simultaneously with the
blow that smashed them out of the sky. A sharp burst of sound and
the sled bucked—as if batted by a giant club. The craft fluttered
into a falling twirl while Kimber fought the controls, trying to
pull out of the spin. If the passengers had not been strapped in
they would have plunged earthward in the first three seconds of
that wild descent.
While Dard was trying to understand what had happened a burst of
brilliant light temporarily blinded him. More sound, bracketing
them, and someone cried out in pain. Then he knew that they were
failing out of control, and by some instinct he flung up his arms
to shield his head just before they struck and he blacked out.
He couldn't have been unconscious long, because when he raised
his head Cully was still dazedly fumbling to flee himself from the
safety straps. Dard spat to clear a full month and saw a blob of
blood and a tooth strike the ground. He loosened the belt and
lurched out of the sled after Cully. In front Santee bent over a
limp Kimber on whose face blood trickled from a cut just below the
hair line.
"What happened?" Dard wiped his chin and took away a bloody
hand. His lips hurt and his jaw ached.
Kimber's dark eyes opened and stared up at them bemusedly. Then
comprehension came back and he demanded:
"Who shot us down?"
Santee had his rifle in his hands.
"That's what I'm gonna see, right now!'
Before the rest could protest, he darted away, back down the
valley where they had landed, zigzagging into cover as he neared
its mouth. There was a final boom of an exploding shell from that
direction and then silence.
Dard and Cully got Kimber free of the sled. The pilot's right
arm was bleeding from a ragged wound near the shoulder. They broke
open the medical kit and the engineer went competently to work so
that Dard had nothing to do. When Kimber was stretched out on a
bedroll Cully returned to examine the sled itself. He took up the
cover of the motor and squirmed half into the space which enclosed
it, ordering Dard to hold the torch for him. When he crawled back
his face was very sober.
"How bad?" asked Kimber. There was more color in his dark face
and be levered himself up on an elbow.
"Not the worst—but about as near to that as we can get." Cully
was interrupted by a shout from the trees where Santee had
disappeared.
The big man returned walking in the open, his rifle cradled in
the crook of his arm—as if they had nothing to fear.
"Fellas, this here's plain crazy! There's a nest of guns down
there all hidden away. Little stuff—light field pieces. But
there's not a livin' critter in the place. Them there guns fired at
us their ownselves!"
"A robot control triggered when we flew over a certain point!"
exploded Cully. "Some kind of radar, I'll bet. Rogan ought to be
here."
"First," Kimber reminded him grimly, "we've got to get back to
tell him about them."
A broken sled with which to cross several hundred miles of
unknown country. They were going to have quite a hike, thought
Dard. But he did not comment upon that aloud.