The forest floor hushed footsteps; some coolness lingered. Paul walked
in front, then Dorothy, and Wright marked blazes on the tree trunks.
Paul glanced backward often, to capture the receding patterns. At the
third such pause the lifeboat was no longer visible--only a sameness
of trees and sparse young life groping through shadow for the food of
the sun. In this depth of forest there was no brush; the going was
easy except for the nuisance of purple vines that sometimes looped
from tree to tree. Paul searched for any change of light ahead.
The boat held all but what they wore, the two rifles, the three
pistols holstered at their hips, the three knives, three sealed ration
packages. Damage had prevented locking the door of the boat: to rob,
an inhabitant of Lucifer would need only intelligence enough to solve
the sliding mechanism. They had seen no life but that huge nocturnal
leaf eater, the small fliers, a white worm, and now a few timid
ten-legged scuttlers on the warm ground and midge-like specks dancing
in shafts of sunlight. Too quietly, Wright said, "Stop."
Paul raised his rifle as he turned. Only untroubled forest. Wright's
warning hand lowered. "Almost saw it. Heard nothing, just felt
a--watching. Might be in my head. Let's go on. And don't hurry."
It would have been possible to hurry, even with an eye on the compass.
It would have been possible, Paul thought, to run in panic, fall
whimpering and waiting. But you wouldn't do it....
No shape in this dim region could be right or wrong; the trees
themselves were no sweetly familiar beech or pine. They halted at
sight of a new sprawling type of vine, uprooted where a break in the
forest ceiling admitted more sunshine. The earth displayed hoof-prints
like a pig's. Some scattered tuberous roots were marked by teeth;
Dorothy sniffed one. "Spud with garlic for a papa." Paul pocketed a
sample. She said, "Not that Lucifer cares, Doc, but what time is it?"
"My watch says we've been walking fifteen minutes. Take it slow."
Wright presently added: "I've had another glimpse. Not a good one.
Furry, gray and white--white face, splashes of white on a gray body
seven or eight feet tall. Human shape. We may be all right if we don't
bother him."
"Or blunder into territory where he doesn't want us."
"There is that, Paul."
"Human shape," said Dorothy evenly. "How human?"
"Very. Upright. Good-sized head.... Ah--hear that?" It was Ann's
voice, calling, from someplace where there should be sunlight. "Don't
answer just yet--no sudden noises."
Close to Paul, Dorothy whispered, "The baby--I don't want to tell the
others quite yet."
That made it real--so real that in spite of a patch of beckoning blue
Paul had to turn to her.
Behind Wright, he saw it, among the pillars of the trees, retreating
in fluid slowness till it was only a black ear, part of a white-furred
cheek, an iridescent green eye showing, like a cat's, no white. But
the blue was also real....
The edge of the forest was a mass of young growth fighting for the
gold coin of sunlight. "Shield your faces"--Wright was panting--"could
be poisonous leaves." They broke through to a red-green field, the
slim silver of the undamaged boat, the certainty of friends, an
expanse of lake no longer blue but sickly white. The boat's nose was
thrust under an overhang of branches. Ann Bryan was unsteady and wan,
but there was welcome in her gray eyes for Dorothy, who joined her at
once and whispered with her. Sears' fat affectionate face carried a
determined smile. Ed Spearman came forward, alert and commanding.
Wright asked, "How long have you been out in the air?"
"An hour." Ed was impatient. "Sealed overnight. Nothing in the boat
for a test of the air, no point in waiting. You----"
"Okay." Wright watched brown wings over the lake. "What are those?"
"Birds or some damn thing. The white on the lake is dead fish. I
suppose the ship blew under water or the impact killed them. Our
Geiger says the water isn't radioactive. We haven't gone into the
meadow--been waiting for you."
In the south the meadow reached the horizon--twenty miles of it, Paul
remembered from the air view, before jungle again took over. Near by,
threads of smoke were rising straight from the grass. "Abandoned
fires? We scared off----"
"Maybe," Spearman said. "Seen no life except those birds."
"Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think--oh my, yes.
Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family,
hey?"