John Racham (6 page)

thick
, or
through, or high, and certainly something like seventy or eighty feet long.
And if those spots along its flanks were eyes, then it couldn't see very well,
only when it made a noise and so lit up the magic of the surrounding
vegetation.
And then only if it was something moving.
And the lights! After that first petrifying moment, he felt only intense
curiosity. Lights and noise interlinked, that was obvious. For now that the
splattering barrage of sound was passing, going away as the monstrous creature
headed for the water, the panoply of burning color was fading, dwindling away
in the inrushing silence, closing in like the echoes of the uproar. Even this
tree where they stood had taken on a faint red glow as if it had been infused
with inner heat. His mind itched to follow up the speculation about ecological
balance and survival factors.
Noise and visibility.
You could move silently and blind, or noisily and see—and be seen, too! Which
was best, presumably, would depend on what you were, predator or prey. Then, as
the last faint glows dwindled, he saw, or fancied he saw, furtive pale shapes
standing well back in the painted undergrowth. They were gone like shadows
before he could be sure.

Would
they be more of those humanlike things, like that solitary one he had seen? He
hoped, wildly, that it might be so. Blind conviction assured him they would be
friendly, even helpful, if only they could be located and met. But while he
was still building that fantastic hope in his mind, an idea came to him that
lit a fire of urgency in him.

"Come on!" he muttered, levering the
girl loose from her clutch, and nudging Evans out of his daze. "That thing
must have gorged a hell of a track in the mud.
A furrow.
Better than
sludging
in this stuff.
And all uphill, too! Come on!"

He ran forward in an awkward slurping
scramble as fast as he could, with the girl frantic at his heels and Evans
puffing and snorting after.

"What the hell . . . you reckon that
was?" the old man panted.
"Some kind
...
of lizard?
Suppose . . . there's
more?"

"Thing that size
...
we ought to be able to dodge it!" Query reached an
upflung
ramp of stinking mud, hurled

39 himself at it and over
and down the far side, slithering crazily into a trench that had a gravelly
bottom.
He
scrambled up in time to see Lieutenant Evans come over the edge and skid down
on her front, almost swimming, struggling madly; and then the old man, arms
flailing and feet slipping out from under him. He waited only long enough to be
sure they were unhurt then started up the ready-made track at a trot, turning
his head to urge them on, "before it has time to flow back and swamp us.
We may just get to somewhere high and half-dry. Come on!"

The
mud walls were high on
either side and
already
starting the slow slide back to fluid level, but the center of the track was
reasonably clear. But not completely, as he found when he caught his foot in a
half-buried root and went staggering to his knees.
All this
while he had carried the alloy tube, senselessly, with no clear purpose in mind
except an instinctive need to clutch something.
He got up and ran on,
breathless and leg weary, sweating but unwilling to stop. And now, ahead, the
pole was going to come in useful, possibly. He slowed to a cautious walk,
then
halted.
Square in the base of the
newly cut furrow lay something yellowish and jellylike, a roughly spherical
blob about two feet deep.

It
might be alive, he thought, edging close enough to prod it and be ready to duck
back. It quivered. He prodded again, and it split and burst, releasing a flood
of bright yellow ooze. The stench that came off it, hot and strong, made him
heave instantly, and retch helplessly for a minute. As soon as he could
straighten up and hold his breath, he scrambled queasily around and
past
it to stagger on.

"Sorry about that," he choked.
"Won't do it again!"

His
legs began to fail, to tremble with exhaustion, and his stomach was knotting
itself into protests of its own. Sweat fairly spouted from him now as he
shambled on. A part of his mind went away, cleared and looked down on his
futile struggles with cold scorn.

You're
doing
it
again!
it
said.
Aren't
you?
Yielding
to primitive
instincts.
Can't
give
up,
can
you?
Lie
down
and die,
you
bloody
fool!
You
know
you're
dead.
Why
keep on
struggling?

But his body, his inheritance over untold
millions of years of survival, kept right on driving, staggering, falling down
and getting up again, going on
with neither rhyme, reason nor
sense
. Until there was nothing left to get up with, and panic had
nothing more to feed on. Until he fell to his knees and knew that he just could
not get back up again. Breath burned in his throat as he labored for it. Reason
came in and took charge. He fell flat on the damp, gravelly soil, rolled over
and lay still, looking up into blue green glow-mist.

As
his chest and lungs worked away by themselves, and his legs shivered in
exhaustion, he realized, irrelevantly, that he could see more now and further.
The dark blue boles on either side were indeed trees of some kind. At any rate
they had extensions, and bits stuck on them, like branches and leaves. Would
they light up, he wondered
,
if he could find the
breath to shout loudly? And what about that light, anyway? Sunlight surely
never got this far.
Only this curious blue green glow, like
being underwater.
His memory grasped at that. It happened underwater,
didn't it? Fish that spent all their lives away down deep in the ocean beds, in
perpetual darkness, they had lights of their own.
So why not
here?

His
breathing eased gradually, was almost comfortable, but now he was aware of hot
wire cramps starting up in his stomach.
Hunger?
Or was
it the first pangs of something worse? He sighed and levered himself up on his
elbows, just in time to see Lieutenant Evans staggering into sight, reeling
like a sleepwalker. Her dark brown hair hung in a stringy mass, matted with mud
and sweat, against the stark pallor of her face. Her eyes were dark hollows of
fatigue and fear. Her once sleek uniform was thick with the chocolate brown
mud, burst-split at elbows and knees and gaping loosely in front, her straining
breasts streaked and patched with the same stuff, a pathetic single strand of
gold braid dangling from her waist. Her feet were a shapeless pair of blobs.
She leaned into an invisible wind, caught her foot on his and fell, slowly and
helplessly, so that he stretched to catch her and ease her down by his side.
And now
came
the old man, really old now, tottering,
caked in mud all over except his face, which was darkly

41
red
with effort.
He,
too, fell and rolled over and lay
stilL

Query
stared at them dully, his mind working as if full of the same mud. Why—the
wonder came slowly—why hadn't the mud rolled back by now? He swiveled his tired
eyes to look. It wasn't mud. The low
wall on either side was
a roughcast furrow of stony, gravelly earth, damp but firm
enough to
stand. Beyond those walls was a thickness of wild growth, bushes and shrubs and
creepers and undergrowth. And the inscrutable, standing trees. No mud. They
must be on some kind of high ground, he reasoned, shaking his head and having
to use effort to stop it shaking.
High ground.
No
point in running anymore.
Safe here as anywhere else.
He thought that over,
then
looked again at his
companions. Die right here, why not?

The
girl lay flat on her back, and his eye lingered on the upturned swell of her
bosom, the rounded flesh seeming to symbolize to him all that was feminine and
human and wasted. Beautiful girl destined to be some man's love, some child's
mother . . . but now to die and rot here. That didn't seem right. Half-dreamily,
he reached out a hand to brush away a flake of mud from her breast, and she
stirred, rolled her head, caught his hand and held it fearfully tight to her
flesh, her unspoken need burning in her eyes.

Then
he felt movement on his other side, a grunt and wheeze, and Evans nudged him.
"Just about got my breath back, Query.
Not as young as
I was. And this damned heat. Takes
all the
buck out of
a man. Seem to be shut of the mud, though. What do we do now?"

"Why ask me? How would
I know?"

"
Damnit
, you know the planet. Been here six months, haven't
you?"

"Inside a bubble dome.
In a protective suit.
Nobody knows the planet!"

"Hah! Weill Got to do something,
damnit
! Can't just flop here, and wait for that blasted
lizard thing to come back.
Got to do something!"

"Such as what?"
Query drew his hand away from its warm contact and sat up, but she sat
up with him and caught his hand again, crowding close to him. He could feel her
shivering. "Such as what?" he repeated.

42

"Got to get on, keep moving. Chin up. No
defeatism here!"

"Look,"
Query was patient, "it's time you learned something. We're dead, all
three of us. We were dead from the moment that drive blew. It is just taking us
a while to find out, that's all.
Dead.
All bets are
off!" She shivered again, drew his hand to her heaving breast and pressed
it there, nuzzling her head against him helplessly. He felt her heart
hammering.

"You're
sick!" The old man's face came close, ruddy in anger, his blue eyes stem,
the
sweat running in rivulets among his wrinkles.
"You're sick, Query! Don't know what you're saying. We are alive, and, by
God, we are going to stay alive until we are rescued, got that?"

"Sure
I'm sick." Query smiled at him in
scom
. "So
are you. So is she.
Sick and dying.
Pains in your
guts, have you? Eh? And you?" He turned his head to look down at her and
she stared up blankly.

"Don't
leave me!" she whispered. "Don't leave me. I'm all right as long as
you hold me tight. It doesn't hurt!"

He
put his free arm around her and hugged her tight, turned back to Evans.
"This air is full of life. I told you.
Life,
or
death. It's the same thing, so far as we are concerned. Feel your uniform,
Admiral. Feel the way it is rotting on you as you sit. Feel that titanium alloy
tube there. Go on, feel it! And think of that in your lungs, in your mouth, in
your stomach every time you swallow.
Eating you away!"

"Sick!"
Evans snorted. "Sick in the head, I mean. Queer. Always were, if you ask
me. Where's your common sense, man! This air can't touch living tissue! Stands
to reason,
damnit
! Look! Bushes, trees, plants and
that damned lizard thing—all alive, aren't they? It doesn't eat them, does it?
Does it?"

"They live here. They belong here. We
are alien."

"The hell with that.
We are alive,
damnit
! Sure we have pains, who
wouldn't? But we are
alive!
And we are going to stay
alive until they find us. Get that in your head, Sergeant! Hold on to it!"

"You're out of your mind!" Query
had a sudden rush of rage, spurred by a twist of cramp in his belly.
"Nobody

43
is
coming for us. Why would they? Common sense, you say? Why
the hell don't you use some?"

Evans
edged back at this sudden fury. The girl moaned and clung, and Query was
suddenly disgusted with her, too, shoved her away and stood to stare down at
the pair of them. Evans backed, got to his knees and stood.

"That's
not the way to talk to your superior officer, Sergeant!"

Query
laughed at him openly and then down at her, on her knees, coming to grasp his
legs and clutch in fear.
"Superior?
You two?
Superior what? You don't have a pretty uniform
anymore, either of you. You'd be dead two or three times over if it hadn't been
for me. Not that it matters now, because you're dead anyway. But don't give me
that superior bit, not now!"

VI

E
vans
seemed to wilt
a
little, and Query could feel sorry for him, could understand a little of his
difficulty in facing something utterly new and outside his comprehension.
And the girl, too.
All her snotty efficiency, her pert-
ness
, her down-the-nose look had gone along with the uniform
facade. She was groveling now, dragging at his legs, and it offended him.

"You're
taking advantage, Query," the old man muttered. "
We'
re
in a bit of a mess right now.
Dependent on each
other.
Got to pull together.
And you're taking
advantage. It will be remembered."

"You just can't shake it, can you? This
conviction that you are somehow superior, qualified to give me orders, you
can't shake it. Look, one more time. When that drive blew the ship went. So did
we
, so far as anybody knows or cares. So nobody is
going to come and look for us, even if they had the equipment.
Or the urge.
Think about it, Admiral Evans. Not one man in
Step Two will shed a tear nor heave a single sigh to know that you are dead.
Get that? No rescue. There's just the three of us. As I said, all bets are off.
We start even. If you
are
superior to me,

44
you'll have to show me. And be quick, we
haven't a lot of time."

Evans
turned away from him, made a pathetic attempt to square his shoulders and set
his chin. Then he looked down at his daughter.

"Up on your feet, Christine.
Come on,
upl
Pay
attention now. We're going on and up, aiming for high ground. Better
visibility. Come
onl
"

She
started to scramble up, stood looking from one to the other, and Query smiled
at her and waved ahead. "Go on, Christine," he said softly. "It
will be all right.
Ill
be
right behind you." For what good that does, he added, but inwardly. The
old man set out, trudging doggedly, a pathetic figure, and she tramped wearily
after him. Query shook his head at this latest manifestation of that wildly
irrational creature called Man. Onward and upward to better things.
The final confusion between symbol and reality.
What a
stupid way to die. But then, death makes everything alike, pointless and
unimportant. And that was what these two couldn't grasp.
That
they were not important.
He trudged after them, swinging the tube,
feeling the grit-
tiness
of it in his grasp, wondering
what his insides must be like. He ran his tongue over his teeth, and they felt
normal. Perhaps the digestive juices were battling with the decay?
Perhaps—wildly—the old man was right, and living tissue was somehow immune?

Even
so . . . Query sniffed the riotous smells, felt the steady trickle of sweat
down his face and chest, his back, his legs . . . even so, there was still
starvation. Maybe his stomach cramps were nothing more than hunger, but even
so—that was just as deadly. In all his solitary jaunts outside the Dome he had
never once seen anything that looked even remotely edible. And starvation was
an even slower and more painful way to die.

All
at once he became aware that he was being watched. The spine-tickling sensation
was unmistakable, as was the curious sense of people, curious . . .
they
were curious! And now that it had broken through to consciousness he
realized the feeling had been with him for some time. He took a firmer grasp
on the tube and flicked his gaze about, from side to side, ahead, over his
shoulder, hoping to see something in the mysterious dark jungle. But nothing
moved that he could see. And no sound came. Yet the sense of presence was still
there, quite positive.
And not just one, but many.
A
host, all around,
watching.
And now there was subtle
menace, a warning of impending danger, a threat. The tickle in his spine was
almost tangible. He struggled with it,
then
suddenly
whipped around to stare.
And wheeled back just as frantically
as Evans gave a great shout.
Query ran, saw the girl break into a
shambling run. The old man was nowhere to be seen. All at once Christine
shrieked, flailed her arms wildly, and disappeared from view as if the ground
had swallowed her.

Slowing
through caution, Query ran on, and checked himself only just in time, to catch
his breath and teeter on the lip of a huge, scooped out depression in the
track. It was bowl shaped and steep sided, a
hole
all
of forty feet across of compacted gravel and grit. And about nine feet down was
the level of liquid mud that filled it, now bubbling and churning and giving
off a fetid stench from the frantic struggles of father and daughter. Query
swayed on the edge, staring. It looked to be about shoulder deep, so they
wouldn't drown, at least, but how to reach down
that
nine feet to them? Then, as he fell to his knees and leaned over, trying to
think of something to help, the far surface of the mud pool erupted, heaved up
and splattered away from the big blunt snout and toothless gape of another
many-legged thing.
A lizard beast.
Not as big as the
other, possibly an infant, but terrifyingly huge in that confined pool.