The beam held him steadily again, and Hanlon could hear those pounding feet coming nearer. A gun flamed out again, and Hanlon felt the excruciating pain of a burn on the side of his arm.
"Yipe, that was close," he gritted as he clamped his other hand over the wound, and tried to increase his speed. Weariness seemed forgotten for the moment, and he was able to spurt ahead.
Suddenly he saw twin beams of stronger light coming across the field to intercept him. "Oh, no" he gasped, "the trike!"
He swerved sharply to the right again, and ran on. Ahead he heard a strange sort of roar, and only after a moment or so could identify it. It sounded like the boom of breakers.
"Am I that near the sea?"
Again a sword of flame almost caught him. The car was roaring toward him, closer each second. He knew starkly that death or capture was a matter of moments only.
His mind had been reaching out, searching for any sort of animal life that might come to his assistance. But in this hour of need even that avenue of help seemed to have detoured.
That roar sounded closer—yet curiously distant. Yet he was almost sure it was the sound of breaking water. "If it's close enough, maybe I can find safety there. It's my only hope now," he prayed.
He pounded on and suddenly, almost straight ahead, the nearer of Estrella's two moons swung above the horizon. Both moons were far closer to Estrella than Luna was to Terra. Neither was nearly as large, but they gave considerable light, and this nearer moon was almost at the full tonight. Hanlon could see better now—but he knew his pursuers could, too, and that he was now plain in their sight.
"Sorry, dad, but it looks like I've failed," he groaned.
The sound of the water was closer now, and it had more the texture of breakers than of surf. He devoutly hoped so. Breakers would mean rocks, and rocks would be hard to avoid if he had to dive. But, more important, they would mean greater chances for safety if this meadow ran directly into them, so he could find a hiding place.
Now both gunmen behind were closer. They were firing steadily—and even in his anxiety to escape Hanlon found time to sneer at their marksmanship. "Wish I had a gun or a blaster—I'd show them some real shooting."
Almost blinded now with fatigue, and his run barely more than a stagger, he struggled on . . . and suddenly skidded to a halt just on the lip of a sharp drop-off. He peered downward, and his heart did flip-flops. This cliff was well over a hundred and fifty feet high—and straight down to the water's edge. It was the slapping of the water against it he had heard.
Even in the moon's rays he could see that it was too vertical, too smooth, for a swift downward climb. He looked wildly to right and to left, but could see no possible safety.
The car with its gunmen was closer now, and one of the flames from their guns almost hit him. There was only one possible escape.
He ran back from the cliff's edge for several yards, straight toward the onrushing car. Then he turned and sprinted for that edge. He took off like a broad jumper, as far outward as he could, curving his body downward into a dive.
"Oh, God, please," he prayed earnestly, "deep water and no rocks."
It seemed an interminable age that George Hanlon fell through the air on that incredible dive toward the water so far away. Not knowing what was below made the moments seem dreadful eternities. His mind persisted in painting ghastly pictures . . . .
At long last Hanlon struck—and was instantly numbed from the force of the blow and chilled by the icy water. His bruises, burns and cuts smarted painfully from the salt. He plummeted into the depths, deeper, deeper, until he thought his lungs would burst, despite the great gulp of air he had breathed in just before he hit. Slowly he let out a little bit—and as he sank ever deeper, a bit more. He just couldn't take it any longer. He would have to let go soon, and try to breathe.
But from some hidden source he drew on new reserves of will and of strength, and fought on. He felt his descent slowing, and clawed his way upward.
His head finally burst through the surface, and he trod water while he gratefully gulped in the reviving air.
All at once he heard a sharp
ping
, and water splashed in his face. One of those goons above had a pellet gun.
Hanlon struck out away from the shore, swimming under water as fast and as far as his breath and strength would allow, coming up only to gulp another lungful of air, then submerging again. Finally he surfaced and looked back toward the cliff-top. He could dimly see three forms standing there.
Another pellet struck close by . . . and another. Why, he wondered, hadn't they used that gun on him before? Never too strong a swimmer, the exhaustion and weakness of his wounds and that long run made swimming almost impossible for the young secret serviceman. But he knew his life—and the success of his mission here—depended on his keeping going. He kicked off the heavy, water-logged special shoes that made his feet look Estrellan. Ridding himself of their weight helped a little.
He had felt hundreds of tiny waves of strange thought beating at the fringes of his mind, and now he opened it wide to receive these impressions.
"Fish," he said disgustedly after a moment, as he kept swimming further out. "What good . . .?" He stopped and thought carefully. "If it was a big enough fish, maybe . . . He sent his mind purposefully out and around.
He was still trying to swim, but his body was worn out. He knew desperation, for even if he outdistanced their pellets, there was just not enough strength left in him to swim back to shore. He turned over on his back and floated, resting as much as possible, but still kept his mind searching, searching through the waters. It was his only chance, he felt sure, and sent it ever farther out.
Finally he contacted a larger, stronger thought. Avidly he seized it, insinuated his mind into it, and realized at once that it was the brain of a fish. He forced it to swim at its top speed toward him. From the size and texture of the mind it felt like a large fish. He hoped it was big enough.
Soon it came up to him, and he saw that it was sharklike, almost eight feet long, but rounder, and with a head and face much like that of a Terran sea-elephant. Eagerly and thankfully he grasped one of the small fins protruding from its underside, and his mind started it swimming along parallel to the coast.
The musket-type gun had been
splatting
at him from time to time—evidently as fast as the shooter could reload. He looked up toward the cliff-top, and could see men running along it.
"Must be they can see me," although he doubted if they could see the fish, that swam just below the surface. "Probably," he grinned mirthlessly, "they're wondering how I can swim so fast."
Another pellet plowed into the water close ahead of his face. The portion of his mind inside the fish felt the intolerable, burning shock of pain. The fish seemed almost to stumble. It twisted and coiled about until Hanlon was able to tighten his control and calm it.
In the dim moonlight he could see the water becoming discolored—and knew the fish was bleeding profusely.
His mind in the fish knew where the wound was, and Hanlon reached up for that place and found a gaping hole. He put the tip of a finger into it to stop the bleeding as much as possible. But he realized at once that this would not save his carrier, which by now he knew was not a true fish, but an amphibious mammal, just as Terran's whales are mammals, not fish.
What could he do? As weak as he was, and as poor a swimmer as he was at best, there was absolutely no chance of his making it back to shore under his own power. And even if he did get back, there was no beach, only that unscalable rocky escarpment . . . and the gunmen on top of that.
The fish was his only hope, for he had not been able to locate another fish-mind of the same calibre. And now his savior was dying.
More carefully now, with his mind inside the amphibian, he examined the structure of its brain and nervous and muscular systems. Would it be possible to close that terrible wound?
He traced the nerves to the muscles of that portion of the body and skin. He tested and tried everything he could figure out.
Finally, Hanlon found the nerve-muscle combination that controlled exactly that portion of the body. He made it contract—and felt the muscle tighten about his fingertip. Gently he withdrew the latter from the wound, and made the muscles close it tightly and completely. It was necessary to keep doing it consciously, for the moment he relaxed his concentration it opened again.
He noted subconsciously that there had been no more shots for some time. "Maybe the guy's outta bullets," he thought. "Or perhaps they think I'm dead—can see the blood-stains and think they're mine. Or maybe," as an afterthought, "they've lost track of me in the dimness and the choppy waters."
Whatever the reason, Hanlon knew a deep thankfulness. He relaxed as best he could, shivering in the icy waters, still holding loosely onto the fin of the fish-thing.
He did not try to make it swim. In fact, he kept it from doing so. He would take time out to try to regain some of his own strength, while letting the fish overcome, if possible, some of its own weakness and shock from the pellet-wound.
Adwal Irad had been growing strangely worried. Acting on a compulsion he did not realize existed, he moved Admiral Newton to a different and, a certain being in a spaceship high above hoped, a more concealed place of imprisonment.
CHAPTER 13
IF I WAIT HERE AWHILE, PERHAPS THE FISH'S strength will build up again," George Hanlon had thought wearily. "Then it can carry me back to shore."
So he continued concentrating on the job of keeping those muscles closed around the wound in the amphibian's side, finding it required full use of his mind to think of holding that constriction, and of nothing else.
Only partially was that possible, of course. Humans are just not constituted so they can think of only one thing for long periods of time. "At least," he grimaced, "not this human."
For nearly an hour he and the fish lay there quietly, riding out the waves, while he waited for the great mammal-thing to regain some of its energy. He kept close watch of that mind, and knew it was gradually feeling less pain, less anguish. He had sent it "calming" thoughts as best he could, and they had taken effect. The panic was gone. It was almost asleep, floating there.
Hanlon looked toward the cliff-top, but there were no longer figures there he could see. Had the pursuers, thinking him dead, left? He strained his ears for the sound of the trike motor.
"Maybe, though, they'd already gone before I thought to start listening," he thought.
Finally he decided the fish was strong enough to take him to shore. His own body felt so much more comfortable. Then he realized with a twinge of panic that the reason was that while he had thrown his mind into the healing of the fish his body had become numb with the cold. Now he again became conscious of his various cuts and bruises, aching and flaming from the action of the salt water.
Under his compulsion the fish swam slowly and with some difficulty back toward the shore. When it finally got close to the wall of rock Hanlon let his feet downward, hoping to be able to touch bottom. But the water was far too deep there.
"I hate to do this to you, fellow, but you're my only hope for the time being," Hanlon said feelingly to the great fish-thing, and made it start swimming along the rocky wall. He kept his eyes constantly looking ahead for a break in the escarpment, or for a bit of beach where he could rest.
After a mile or so it seemed the cliff was getting lower, and Hanlon's hopes rose a bit. Another couple of thousand yards, and he was sure of it. It was sloping downward quite sharply toward sea-level. Also it seemed, in the moonlight, that the rocky surface was getting rougher, more climbable.
Finally they came to a place where the cliff was only about twenty yards high—nor did it seem to get lower on ahead. Too, it looked scalable. Hanlon stopped the fish and examined that facing carefully.
Yes, he decided at last, there were enough protuberances and cracks so that it could be climbed.
If
he had strength enough.
"Well, gotta try sometime. And my poor fish is about all done." He made it swim right up until he could reach out and get a firm grip in a large crack.
"Goodbye, fellow. Thanks for saving my life. Hope you make out all right," he told the great mammalian shark-thing. He released his hold on its fin and his control from its mind. It turned and swam away, still feebly.
Hanlon focused his attention on the task before him. Slowly and painfully he climbed, hunting for handhold and foot rest.
He had known he was tired, but had not realized how weak he was. It seemed he could never make even that short climb. His fingers, hands and arms were numb with cold, his feet and legs unresponsive leaden weights. But from the deeps of his subconscious and will, and his urge to survival, he brought renewed strength and scrambled upward.
At last, utterly spent, he pulled himself over the edge, and lay gasping and shivering on the top of the cliff.
He was almost ready to blank out, when a thought struck him, and he struggled to retain consciousness. He could not just lie here and sleep. Probably those goons would still be looking for him. He must get away, somehow, somewhere.
Again he sent his mind outward, and felt whispers of thought quite a little distance away across the meadow. He followed the strongest of these, and found a mind quite powerful, and intelligent in an animalistic way.
He followed that mind into the brain that housed it, and took control. He made the animal, whatever it was, start swiftly toward him. While it was coming he examined the mind more closely, and suddenly realized he was inside the brain of an Estrellan
caval.
These animals, which the Terrans thought of as horses, because they could be ridden or trained to draw carriages, were about the size of a Terran cow-pony. They were striped almost like a zebra, but the colors were brown and yellow, rather than black and white. The animals were quite vicious in the wild state, and none too tractable even when trained. As usual with Estrellan animals, they were tailless, and had heavy, sharp hooves, nearly twice the size of those of Earthly horses, and snouts much like a roch's.