War Against the Rull (4 page)

Great beasts stamped below as he clung to his precarious perch high above them. Eyes of fire glared at him. Seven times in the first few hours monstrous things clambered up the tree, mewing and slavering in feral desire and seven times his gun flashed a thinner beam of destroying energy. Great scale-armored carnivores whose approach shook the ground came to feed on the odorous flesh—and passed on.

Less than half the night gone! At this rate, the charge in his blaster would not last until morning—to say nothing of the next night, and the next, and the next. How many days would it take to reach the raft—providing he could find it at all? How many
nights—how many
minutes
—could he survive after his weapon became useless?

The depressing thing was that the ezwal had just agreed to work with him against the Rulls. Victory so near, then instantly snatched afar. That thought ended. Because something, a horrible something, slobbered at the foot of the tree. Great claws rasped on bark, and then two eyes, disturbingly far apart, suddenly grew even farther apart, and he realized with sick terror that they were coming up at him with astounding speed.

Jamieson snatched at his gun, hesitated, then began to climb hastily up into the thinner branches. Every second, as he scrambled higher, he had the awful feeling that a branch would break and send him sliding toward the slavering thing below; and there was the more dreadful conviction that great jaws were at his heels.

His determination to save the power in his gun worked beyond his expectations. The beast was edging tip into those thin branches after him when there was a hideous snarl below, and another, greater creature started up the tree. The fighting of animal against animal that started then was absolutely continuous. The tree shook as catlike beasts, with gleaming, hooked fangs, fought waddling, grunting shapes. Then, from the blackness nearby came a trumpeting scream, and a moment later a vast, long-necked monster, whose six-foot jaws might have reached Jamieson in his perch, lumbered into the carnage and attacked the whole struggling mass of killers indiscriminately. The first to die was dragged aside and eaten in an incredibly short time, after which the colossal creature wandered off, temporarily sated.

Toward dawn the continuous bellowing and snarling from near and far diminished, as stomach after eager stomach gorged itself and retired in enormous content to some cesspool of a lair.

At dawn he was still alive, completely weary, his body drooping with the desire for sleep, and in his mind was only the will to live, but no belief that he would survive the day. If only the ezwal had not cornered him so swiftly in the control room of the ship, he could have taken antisleep pills, fuel capsules for his gun, a compass chronometer, and—he smiled futilely at that line of reasoning—also a lifeboat which would by itself have enabled him to fly to safety.

At least there had been food capsules in the control room and he had snatched a month's supply. Jamieson descended the tree, put some distance between himself and the blood-soaked ground beneath it, and then took some nourishment.

He began to feel better. He began to think. As nearly as he could judge, based on an estimate of the ezwal's speed while they were traveling and the length of time, the raft should not be more than ten miles or so to the north. Barring a thousand accidents and perils, that would mean, for him, at least a full day or more of travel, depending on how many segments of sea and swamp lay between. Then, of course, he would have to beat the jungle in widening circles till he found the raft and charged his gun. The raft itself would be of no use; even with its power undepleted, it was only a sort of super-parachute, incapable of sustaining aloft much more than its own weight.

With a lot of luck, in other words, he would have the single advantage of a fully charged hand weapon with which to begin a hundred-mile trek to the wrecked ship. A hundred miles of jungle, sea and swamp . . . and the Demon Straits. A hundred miles of heat, humidity, carnivores—
But there was no point in dwelling on the depressing odds against him. One step at a time—that was the only way he could proceed and keep his sanity.

Bone-weary from lack of sleep and the grueling tension of the night just past, he began the day's march. The first hour of struggling progress did little to hearten him. He had covered less than a mile, he was sure, and that was by no means in a straight line. He had wasted at least half of it in skirting areas of quagmire and several acre-wide bramble patches so thickly intertwined he doubted that even the ezwal could have penetrated them.

More time and energy had to be consumed in climbing an occasional tree in order to check on distance and direction—a vital matter, if he expected to arrive at the proper place from which to start a search for the raft.

By noon he estimated that he had advanced not more than three miles in the right direction. The white blur which marked the sun's position was now so close to the zenith as to make his bearings uncertain for the next hour or so. This fact, combined with the presence of a tall tree nearby and his physical exhaustion, made a compelling argument in favor of resting a while. There was a group of branches like an upreaching hand in the treetop; with some of the less abrasive vines in the vicinity he could tie himself in place and...

He awoke with the beasts of the Eristan night snarling their blood lust at the base of his tree.

His first reaction was terror—suffocating terror from the pressing, deadly darkness about him. Then, as he gradually regained control of his nerves, there came a strong feeling of
chagrin at having lost so much time. But he had needed the rest desperately, he told himself, and there was no doubt that physically he felt much better. There was no way of telling how far into the night he had slept; he could only hope there was not too much of it left.

The tree vibrated suddenly as, far below, monstrous paws beat at its trunk. Startled, Jamieson began loosening the vines which secured him to his perch. Not that he could climb much higher, but he had learned that even a few feet could make all the difference.

No stars were visible through the heavy blanket of misty atmosphere which overlay this jungle planet; the absence of any means of marking the passage of time made the hours seem twice as long. Several times, ravening, catlike beasts essayed the climb to his perch, but only one came so close that Jamieson felt compelled to use his gun. When he did so, the thinness of its beam made his heart sink. But it worked, scorching the animal's forepaws and causing it to lose its grip. It fell, screaming and thrashing, to be fought over as a prize by the others below.

When at long last dawn came, it came slowly, and for some time Jamieson could not be sure the scene was actually lightening about him. The carnage had subsided below, and he could make out several of the hyenalike creatures encountered during his wild ride on the ezwal two days (only two days?) ago. They were feeding more or less quietly on the remains of an indeterminate number of dismembered carcasses. It had been the same the previous morning, but this time the sequel was different. For suddenly, silently, a huge head and forty feet of rounded body shot from the undergrowth like a massive javelin and struck the nearest scavenger, which shrieked once while being crushed to a pulp. The others scattered instantly and were gone.

The rest of the giant snake's body undulated leisurely from the tall grass, and it set about the business of swallowing its victim whole. The process took only a few minutes, but, afterward, the snake showed no disposition to move on. It lay there, while the bulge in its body elongated, gradually moving back and finally becoming almost unnoticeable. All this time Jamieson sat frozen in his perch, breathing as softly as possible. He had no extensive knowledge of the creature's hunting practices, but there seemed little doubt that it could pick him out of the treetop with ease, if it were to try.

After the longest hour of Jamieson's life, the snake stirred and slithered away. He waited a few minutes, then climbed down and followed in its clearly marked trail, moving as softly
as possible and keeping a sharp lookout ahead. This would be the least likely quarter, he reasoned, from which the carrion-eaters would return to their feast, and he was counting on the snake not to double back or to stop very soon. After all, one animal was light fare for that colossal stomach, and the hunt must go on.

He was glad enough, however, to leave the trail after a few hundred yards and strike off in the approximate direction he had been traveling the day before. It was now full daylight, and the sun had probably risen, but it would not be visible until it was an hour or so high. That would be time enough to get his bearings and correct his course. In the meantime he would proceed in as straight a line as possible.

By noon he had penetrated considerably farther than on the previous day, due mainly to his improved physical condition. He allowed himself not more than an hour's rest and finished the last two miles by midafternoon. Weariness was settling heavily upon him now, but the thought of spending another endless night with a badly depleted weapon for protection spurred him to begin his circling search for the raft while a few hours of daylight remained.

There was a tall tree about fifty yards from where he stood, and he studied its structure intently for a minute, so that he would be able to recognize it from any angle. It would be his center point. His first circle would be at this distance, the second would be fifty yards farther out and so forth. This pattern would give him an excellent chance of spotting a large, metallic object like the raft, although some of the more densely overgrown areas would demand closer inspection. First of all, of course, he would climb the tree and see what might be seen from its top.

Four hours later he was tottering with exhaustion, having nearly completed his fifth round. It was growing dark. The preliminary survey from the tree had revealed nothing, and soon he must head back to it for another grueling night of fitful sleep and waking nightmares.

The thought spurred him on, as it had several times already. At least he would complete this round, despite the increasing danger of prowling beasts. But he no longer hid from himself the dull realization that he had been foolishly optimistic about finding the raft. He had learned one thing from his bird's-eye view that afternoon: the land was narrowing into a peninsula only a few miles across at this point. But to cover such an area at all thoroughly might take weeks.

He stumbled ahead, making no effort at moving quietly,

actually little caring whether a final disaster ended this hopeless situation now or a few days from now.

The dense jungle fell away before him unexpectedly into a small clearing which had been invisible from the tree, only two hundred and fifty yards away. Even here, of course, the ground was not entirely bare but was thickly splotched toward the center with gray-colored creeping vines.

He had taken a few steps into the open when there was a movement of undergrowth on the far side, and a great shaggy beast with a fiery-eyed, maniacal face emerged to confront him, not fifty feet away. On sighting Jamieson, it growled hideously, opened its tusked jaws and broke into a full charge straight at
him.

Jamieson froze, instinctively realizing the futility of attempting to run and waiting until the big animal gathered straight-line momentum before trying to dodge.

It never did. It had hardly got under way when its legs became tangled in the gray vines, and it fell heavily among them. Incredibly, despite struggles that shook the ground, it seemed unable to get free. The reason was not immediately apparent, in the gathering darkness, but as Jamieson stared in fascination, he began to see what was happening. The vinelike plant was alive —ferociously alive! Tough, whiplike tendrils were wrapping themselves about the beast's legs and neck faster than its mighty efforts could break them apart. And others, needle-tipped, were jabbing again and again through the matted hair into its flesh. All at once the great body stiffened with a jerk, its limbs extending tautly to an unnatural, reaching position and remaining so, motionless. The beast lay there as if turned to stone.

Now the vines slowed their frantic activity and began creeping up over the rigid carcass, spreading out and gradually obscuring it from view.

Jamieson shook himself, tore his gaze from the horrid spectacle and looked hastily about to make sure none of the vines were growing close to him. He had identified the plant by now, although this was the first time he had seen it or been aware of how it functioned. It was the carnivorous Rytt plant, which, together with the giant snake species, made this planet unsuitable as a military base. True, this creeping killer did not range the entire planet, like the snake, but occurred only where soil conditions were just right for its peculiar metabolism. In such areas it generally abounded, and Jamieson shuddered at the thought that he very possibly had passed fairly close to more than one patch of it during the last several hours.

He was suddenly alarmed to notice how dark it had become.

At the same time he became aware that the level of background noises which characterized this primeval world had increased ominously in the last few minutes. There was no such thing as a twilight hush here; rather, it was a time of evil awakening, the stirring of ravening monsters from innumerable foul hideaways, the beginning of a protracted crescendo of wanton slaughter.

He was in the act of turning toward the tree, whose tip was just visible against the dimming sky, when he felt an amazing yet familiar probing in his mind, and a clear thought imposed itself there. "Not that way, Trevor Jamieson; the other way. The raft you are seeking is in the next clearing, not very far from the one you are in. And so am I, waiting for you. Once again, it seems, I need your help."