Ayana looked at the small kit she had put togetherbefore she had slept, and she shivered. What had beenin her mind to seek out those particular drugs andwant to hide them—or USE them? She had been moreemotionally disturbed than she could believe possible,in spite of all her training.
If she, a medic, one supposedly dedicated to theservice of life, could, in some wild moment of terror,contemplate such, an array of armament, what wouldthe others do? She might do well now to destroy allwhich lay there, so that if such wild thoughts came tomind again there would be nothing—
Save that which lay there could help as well asharm. The drugs were specially selected for this voyage and they could not be replaced. No, not destruction; however—concealment.
No one knew this cabin, its fittings, better than shedid herself. Ayana began a careful search for a hidingplace, finding it at last, and strapping the packet onthe underside of the bunk.
That done, Ayana faced her ordeal. She must leavethe safety of this cabin, go out into the ship.
Somehow she must be able to pass off what had happenedas a temporary emotional storm, and present to alleyes, including Tan's, the appearance of firm self-control.
As she forced herself to her own cabin, she met noone. There was no sound in the ship. Twice shepaused to listen. Without the vibration, the life whichhad coursed through its walls while they were spaced,this whole complex of cabins had a curious hollow andempty feeling.
It—it was as if she were encased in a dead thing!Ayana caught her lip between her teeth, bit upon ithard that that small pain might be a warning. Emotions rising, fear— What was wrong with her?
She would have no armor against Tan's charges,against the others, until she could face this objectively. Was it herself—or this world? Was there something about this planet that upset her, forced her outof her pattern of living? It was better to believe thatthan to think that there was a flaw so deep in her thatshe was breaking because of it.
No one in the cabin. But Tan's protect suit wasgone. He must have taken off again. And where—when—?
Ayana climbed to the control cabin. No one there—had they all gone and left her? Alone in a dead ship,on a world which their ancestors had fled after somedisaster so great that it must be erased from allrecords?
She almost fell down the steps in her hurry to seekthe cabin of Jacel and Massa. But now she smeltedfood—the mess cabin!
Massa sat there alone. Between her hands was amug of hot nutrient. Of the two men there was nosign.
"Massa—"
She looked up and Ayana was startled out of asking the question she had ready. Massa was older thanAyana by a planet year or two. She had never been atalkative person, but there had been about her suchan air of competence and serene certainty that herpresence was soothing. Perhaps that was one of thefactors the home authorities had considered whenthey made the final selection of the crew.
She had always been detached, held people at arms-length.What she was in private to Jacel must have satisfiedhim. However, Ayana had held the other girl in awe,had not seen in her any ally against Tan.
But this was not Massa's usual serene and untroubled face. She looked as if she had not slept for a longtime, and her eyes were red and swollen as if she hadbeen crying. The way she stared back at Ayana—hostile!
That very hostility brought an end to the wall between them. Had Massa, also, discovered Jacel to beanother person?
"Where is Tan—Jacel?" Ayana slipped by to theheating unit, poured herself a mug of nutrient, andseated herself to face Massa, determined now not tobe driven off by a forbidding look. In fact, the signs ojthe disturbance in the other girl acted on her in anoddly calming way.
"You may well ask! Tan—he is like a wild man.What did you do to him?"
"What has Tan done?"
"He has persuaded Jacel to go in—on foot, not inthe flyer. On foot! Into what may be a trap.
He—he is,unmotivated." She spat forth the worst she could find,to say about a supposedly trained colleague.
"On foot!" Ayana nearly choked on the mouthfulshe had taken. Two men in that huge expanse of ruined buildings! They could easily be lost, trapped—
"On foot!" Massa repeated. "They have beengone"—she consulted the timekeeper on the cabin wall above them—"two complete dial circles."
"But the coms! Why are you not monitoring thecoms?"
"The hook-up is in." Massa laid her hand on thewall com. "They have not reported for a half circle. Ihave the repeat demand on automatic. If they answerwe can hear them at once."
"We can trace their way in then, through that,"Ayana nodded to the com.
"Yes. But dare we try to use it so? I was trying todecide." Massa set her elbows on the table, leaned heihead forward into her hands. "Trying to decide," sherepeated dully. "If we leave the ship and go huntingand are caught by those creeping horrors—"
"Creeping horrors?"
"Tan went out early this morning. He returnedwith recordings. The picture was blurred, but it showed small life forms, in an open place betweenbuildings. They signaled him with one of the old recognition codes—though it did not quite make senseby our records. There was no place near that point where he could land the flyer. That's why they wenton foot. But I say that those things—they were not people!"
"But to go out like that, it is against everything wehave been taught, against all the rules of safety."
Massa shrugged. "It seems that home rules do notapply any more as far as Tan is concerned.
And—hecame and talked at Jacel—not to him but at him! Itwas almost evil the way he worked on Jacel, madehim believe he was not a real man unless he would goto meet those signaling things. They, neither one ofthem, would listen to me when I tried to urge somesense. It was as if they were different people fromthose I had always known. And sometimes, Ayana, Ifeel different, too. What is this world doing to us?"
There was nothing left of her serene confidence.Rather the eyes now looking into Ayana's were thoseof someone lost and wandering in a strange andfrightening place. So—she was not alone! Massa feltit also; that this world was somehow altering them tofit a new pattern, one which was for the worse, compared to that they had known.
"If we only knew," Ayana said slowly, "the reasonwhy the First Ship people left here. That reason—itmay be that we have to face it again now. And wehave no defense, not even guesses. Was it invasion offurred creatures like those on the bridge, or like theseothers who now signal in our own old codes? Disease?It could be anything."
"I only know that Jacel has changed, and Tan is astranger, and I no longer understand myself at times.You are a trained medic, Ayana. Could this air here,which our ship's instruments tells us is good, be somekind of subtle poison? Or is it something from thoserows of dead buildings, standing there like bones seton end to mark old graves which must not, for someterrible reason, be forgotten—something reaching outto send us mad?"
Her voice rose higher and higher, her hands beganto twitch. Ayana put down her mug, caught thosehands to hold them quiet.
"Massa! No, do not imagine things—"
"Why not? What have we left us but what we imagine? I did not imagine that Jacel has taken leave ofhis senses and gone out to hunt evil shadows in thosebuildings! He is gone, Tan is gone, and both for nosane reason. You cannot say I have imagined that!"
"No, you have not." By will Ayana kept her ownvoice level and steady. "But are you of any help now?What if—"
She had no time to see if that argument had any effect on Massa. For at that moment there was a clicking from the com, and they both looked to it, tense,reading in that rattle of sound the message.
"Need aid-Ayana-medic—"
"Jacel!" Massa jerked from Ayana's hold, was onher feet. "He is hurt."
"No. That was Jacel's sending. Did you not recognize it? And if he is sending, he cannot be the one inneed." Clicks might not have any voice tone, but theyhad practiced so long together that they were able todistinguish the sender by rate of speed.
And it would only fit the pattern that Tan, drivenby whatever beset him on this world, had gotten intodifficulty—bad—or Jacel would not have sent for her.
"Keep on that direction beam." Now that she wasbeing pressed into action, Ayana knew what to do."We may need a beacon call back."
"I am going too—"
"No. They need a medic, and we must have someone in the ship. Your place is here, Massa."
For a long moment it looked as if she would arguethat. Then her shoulders slumped, and Ayana knewshe had won.
"I will take a belt com, go in on their out-wave. Setthat for me, Massa, while I go to get a suit and mykit."
"And if this is somehow a trap?"
"We have to take that chance. I must go." Ayanafaced the bare truth squarely.
It was mid-morning with no clouds or sign of storm.The sun was warm, too warm across the glare of fusedscars where ships had taken off and landed—how longago? Beyond, the gray-white cliffs of the buildings.Ayana wearing her protect suit, her belt heavy withexplorer's devices and aids, the medic kit at her back,tramped on, the com beep at her belt as a compass.
As long as those she sought wore similar devices shewould eventually find them. How long would thattake? Her impulse was to run, her self-command kepther to a ground-covering stride which would not invite disaster. There had been no more messages. Butshe had left Massa -at the com in the control cabinready for any such call.
Massa would relay to her any message, but somehow she was sure that none would come.
Now she approached the buildings. Windows regarded her slyly. The sensation of being spied uponwas like a crawling touch on her skin. She had to fighther fears to keep on in the direction the com markedfor her.
Though at a distance the blocks of the buildingsseemed to ring in solidly the open landing site, yet, asAyana advanced, she saw that this was not true.There was a space at a 'side angle, where one couldpass between two towers.
The opening was a narrow street at a sharp angle inrelation to the port, so that when Ayana was only astep or so down it, she could no longer look back tothe ship. But the com urged her ahead—this was theway.
There were drifts of sand and earth at the beginning of the street, but farther down, where the windcould not reach so readily, the pavement was bare. Onboth sides there were no windows or doors in the firststories of the buildings, leaving them blankly solidlike the walls of a fortification. Though well abovethere were windows. It was not until Ayana reachedthe first crossway that there was a change.
Here weredoors, windows, at street level. The doors were closedand she tried none of them. Her beeping guide turnedher into another cross street which headed yet fartherinto the city. They had believed that they had builtcities on Elhorn during the last two hundred years.But what they had done there was the piling up ofchildren's blocks compared to this! And what hadbrought it all to nothing?
There were no signs of such destruction as a natural catastrophe or war might have left. Just silence—but not emptiness! No, with every step she took,Ayana was aware of hidden life. She could not see it,nor hear it, and she did not have a persona detect(that had gone with Tan), but she knew something was there. So her hand swung close to her stunner,and she looked continuously from side to side, sure that soon—from some doorway—
Another crossway, again she was to go right according to the com. Something— Ayana stopped short,the stunner now drawn; something had scuttled awayup ahead. She was sure imagination had not trickedher. She had actually seen that flicker of motion at adoor. All her instincts warned her to retreat, but thebeep of the com held steady. Somewhere ahead Jacel,or Tan, or both of them had their coms on call, andthat would not happen unless need was greater thancaution. She had no choice after all.
But Ayana kept to the middle of the street, wellaway from those buildings. The open would give herwhat small advantage there might be. Now shereached the doorway where she had seen the movement. The door there was open, but, as far as shecould detect, nothing crouched within. She did notexplore. But as she passed it, she went stiff and tense; to have that behind her was bad.
The second cross street brought her out into a placewhich was in direct contrast to the rest of the city.Here was a sprawl of growing things, a huge, autumn killed tangle choked in a frame of corroded metal.Ayana, facing that mass, thought she could trace insome of the upright and horizontal crossbeams theframe of a building. But if it had ever been more thanjust the skeleton of such, the vines and other growthhad taken over and destroyed all but the bones.
Much of the riotous vegetation was dry and dead.But from that black, withered mass new shoots rose.
Not of an honest rich green, but of a green that wasoddly grayed, as if it were indeed only the ghost ofthe plants that had put forth new shoots and runners.
It was into the center of that sickly mass that thebeep directed her. Though how she could enter such atangle—
Ayana walked along the outer fringe of the growth,seeking by will, not by inclination, some possibleopening. Shortly she came upon a path hacked, broken, burnt. Though why those she sought had forcedtheir way into that unwholesome mass she could notguess.
What bothered her most was the sight of a coupleof the ghost-gray vines, perhaps as thick as twofingers together looped directly across the hackedway. They looked as if they had had days to reestablish themselves, although they could only havehad hours.
Slipping her hands into the suit gloves, making sureher flesh was well covered. Ayana reached out andjerked at the stalks. They broke easily, showing hollow stems from which spurted thin streams of reddishliquid. But the noisome smell of rot made her gag.
Broken, the vines visibly shriveled, wilted backagainst the mass from which they had trailed.
Ayanaforced herself into the path.
Her boots sank a little at each step into a muck, whichgave off putrid puffs. Soon, unable to take thatcontinued assault on her nostrils, she stopped to drawup her face mask. What this place had been she couldnot guess. But the eroded partitions showing here andthere were pillars which must have once supported aroof.