The boy yanked at the door. "I don't want to hear your damned speeches,
Driver. Open the door that's all, before I get mad."
Caine hit the lock and the boy spilled out to the purple-colored
surface.
Caine looked at the girl. She sat there, legs crossed, smiling at him.
"I asked you your name. You didn't ask me mine. Don't you want to know,
Captain?"
"No," Caine said.
"It's Cice. Isn't that pretty? Cice? Doesn't it sound nice with Nic?"
"No," said Caine, "it doesn't."
She pursed her lips and stood up suddenly. "All right, Driver. Let's
look at the jungle."
Caine climbed out and turned to help the girl. He held up a hand and
caught hold of her fingers. He looked up at her and waited for her to
come down into his arms.
She didn't. She threw his hand away and leaped to the ground, a flash
of gold and blue. She was like a cat, and there was no loss of dignity
or presence when she landed beside Caine. Caine turned away and walked
to the tip end of the ship's right wing.
He reached down and felt of the moss-like substance covering the hill.
It was like a thick carpet, but spongier, and it was moist. The air was
moist, too, and it was in the soft breeze that touched Caine's face and
made the slippery leaves around the hill swing and slide together.
The boy was spinning like a gyroscope, snapping pictures this way and
that, jerking the finished prints out, looking at them, and throwing
them away.
The girl had walked to the front of the ship and stood there, very
straight and perfect, letting the wind ripple her blue dress.
Suddenly, the boy swung around and vaulted to the short thin wing of
the jetcopter. He crouched there, clicking his camera, while the ship
tipped.
Caine yelled, and then as though the center had been split out of the
huge moss carpet, it began to slide toward the canal of liquid around
the hill. The ship swung partially sideways, while the white-faced boy
with the camera pranced on its wing. Caine felt himself moving with the
sliding moss and he jumped forward. The girl had fallen to her knees
and was reaching for the solid rock-like surface beneath the moss.
* * * * *
The boy had frozen against the surface of the ship now, and as the tail
jets hit the liquid, the silver metal melted and disappeared in the
shimmering stuff like soft lead going into fire.
Caine let out a yell and scrambled over the shifting carpet and yanked
the girl to the exposed rock. Then he jumped back and grabbed at the
hook of the ship's nose, knowing even as he did it that it was a
senseless action. The ship kept sliding.
Foot by foot it disintegrated, as though the liquid were an acid. Still
the boy hung like a frightened animal to the silver wing. Caine lunged
for the boy's hand, but he slipped to his knees and felt himself
sliding toward the liquid.
He reached up to the wing, now sticking in the air like a broken arm.
He pulled himself to his feet and it was like standing on shifting
grease. He found the boy's arm and yanked hard. The boy came flying
off the wing and hit the slipping moss, the camera swinging around his
neck, his arms fighting.
The ship had nearly melted in the liquid and the right wing, the last
of it, crumpled and slid into the shining acid and disappeared.
Caine fought along the edge of the hill, trying to push the boy to the
exposed rock that had lain beneath the moss-like surface.
The boy screamed and flailed his arms and legs, and the movement was
making them slide toward the waiting liquid. Caine gritted his teeth
and leaped ahead, pulling the boy with him. He found solid rock as the
final covering of the purple carpet slid into the liquid.
Caine lay on the rock, breathing hard, his hands clutching the boy's
jacket.
The boy shook himself loose and he was no longer screaming. "Take your
filthy hands off of me," he said to Caine.
Caine's face flushed and his eyes thinned.
The boy stared back at Caine for a long moment, then he stood up and
examined his camera.
Caine got to his feet and went up the incline to where the girl waited.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
There was a different look in her eyes. There was no mocking or
sarcasm. "Yes," she said, shaking her hair and smiling a little. "I'm
all right, Nic."
"Well, that's damned fine," Caine said, a line cutting between his
eyebrows. "That's really damned fine because my ship isn't. Have you
noticed? Three years of sweat and blood gone down the sewer. Isn't that
fine?"
Her smile flickered and she touched his arm. "I'm sorry, Nic. It was
our fault--"
He shook himself away from her touch. "Yes, it was your fault and it
didn't need to happen, only you and the screaming idiot had to do it.
Ships are a dime a dozen to you but not to Nic Caine."
Her smile had vanished and there was a bright glinting light in her
eyes. She stood very straight and met Caine's furious stare. "I'll buy
you a new one when we get back, Driver. I don't want to see you cry.
Wipe the tears away, honey ..." she reached to pat his shoulder and he
slapped her hand away.
"Keep your hands away from me and don't use that tone of voice when
you're talking to me. I'll take that ship from you when we get back. If
we do get back. And you can count on that. In the meantime don't push
me anymore, or I'll...."
"You'll what?" she said, her white smile shining at him. "You'll do
what? I'm interested. Say what you're going to do. Or better yet, just
do it. I'm ready."
Her smile was a shimmering thing and her eyes danced like bright stars.
Caine felt of his strength by clamping his hands into fists.
He hardened his arm muscles and his shoulder muscles, but he knew he
didn't have at that moment enough strength to meet her smile and her
eyes and her tanned smooth skin. He could strike her half-way across
the rock, but she was stronger and he could see in her eyes that she
knew it.
But that was her strength right now.
He would test it later and see how it was. And he would test his own,
because if they were going to get out of this jungle, they would need
all the strength they could find.
Caine whirled. "What do you want?" he asked the boy who had come up
behind him.
"I want to know how you're going to get us out of here, Driver." The
boy's face still held the same stretched sarcastic look, but his eyes
were no longer sharp and insolent. The fright showed easily, and behind
the fright, Caine knew there was panic.
"I'm not going to get you out of here," Caine said, his voice suddenly
soft. "I'm going to leave you right here to think about your stupidity."
"Listen, listen!" the boy screamed. "You don't talk that way to me,
friend. You listen, you don't talk to me that way, do you hear?"
Caine's voice was a quick snapping sound. "Shut up!" He stood there,
body tense, his eyes glaring at the frantic youth.
The boy turned and ran a few feet across the hill where he fell down
on his knees and crouched, his eyes darting like those of a penned
wildcat. He lifted his camera, released the shutter, and yanked out the
finished picture to throw it into the waiting liquid.
The picture skipped and then floated.
Caine stared at the floating picture. It lay on the surface for a long
minute and then slowly it disappeared.
He turned and looked at the liquid where his ship had disintegrated.
Bobbing near the surface was the plastic of the seats. Caine frowned.
The boy was running at him again, arms flailing, and Caine felt the
sting of the boy's fists striking him. He pushed the boy back so that
he fell sprawled on the rock surface.
"It's all around us!" the boy screamed. "The damned stuff is all around
us. You get us out of here, Driver. Do you hear, you get us out of
here!"
The girl stood over the wild boy. "You know, Vanny, you're really a
jolly fellow."
"You keep your mouth shut!" he yelled at her.
The girl turned away and looked at Caine. "What do we do, just stand
here?"
Caine watched the contained look on her face. He knew she was
frightened and feeling the panic that was so obvious in the boy. But
she stood very straight and her voice was very steady. She would not
show her fear.
Caine pointed at the plastic. "The seat covering didn't disintegrate
and neither did the picture. Only the metal of the ship."
"So?" she said.
"So maybe we wouldn't disintegrate either."
Caine walked down the hill and crouched at the edge of the liquid. The
girl followed and waited a few feet behind him.
The boy still lay sprawled near the top of the hill, his darting eyes
watching them.
Caine took a handkerchief from his pocket and dropped it into the
liquid. It floated until it was soaked through and then it sank.
"All right," the girl said. "How do we find out what it does to human
flesh?"
Caine looked back at the boy.
The boy slammed his palms back against the rock and his body tightened
so that the cords of his neck stuck out. His lips trembled.
Caine kept his eyes upon the boy, flexed his fingers, and then drove
his hand into the liquid.
The girl screamed and her hand flew against her mouth. The boy lay
twitching against the rock, his eyes upon Caine's submerged arm.
Caine brought his hand out of the liquid.
The metal snap that had fastened his sleeve at the wrist was gone and
so was the small gold ring he had worn on his little finger. But there
was no trace of effect on his skin.
Caine stood up.
There was only the sound of the whispering leaves and in the sky an
infrequent sun appeared and edged toward the tops of the trees, sending
its glittering reflection into the depths of the moat-like liquid
around them.
Caine pointed to the vine-trees at the other side. "There's the
direction of the nearest post. We'd better start."
The boy scrambled to his feet. He stood, feet spread, like a thin
scarecrow. "You're not going to get me into that stuff! You can't make
me do that. Do you hear me?" His voice was a screeching whine that rose
and fell through the peace of the thick jungle.
"I'm not going to make you do anything," Caine said, unbuckling his
holster. "You can stay here and starve. It'll be nobody's loss. Stay
here. Both of you," he said, looking at the girl.
Her teeth caught her underlip and her eyes glinted. "Thank you," she
said. "Thank you very much."
"You're welcome," Caine said, and then he turned and stepped into the
liquid.
His nerves jumped inside of him and he wanted to leap out of the stuff
and run and lie against the protection of the rock the way the boy had
done. But he set his teeth and took one step after another, holding his
pistol high above his head.
He felt his jacket open as the metallic snaps disintegrated, and the
liquid seeped against his chest. His belt fell loose as the buckle went
away, but his trousers, cut in the Venusian Colony style, hugged his
hips tightly. The nails in his boots disappeared, and he could feel his
soles coming off. The floor of the liquid was like soft clay against
his stocking-covered feet.
The liquid crawled up until it was even with his chest and Caine kept
moving, one step after another, forcing his muscles to work. The liquid
touched his shoulders. If it crawled any higher it would get in his
mouth and melt the fillings out of his teeth. Caine thought about that
and he kept going. He reached the center and the liquid rose no higher.
When he reached the opposite bank he looked at his body. His skin was
not harmed. He jerked the useless boots off and threw them away. Then
he hung his holstered pistol on the branch of one of the vine-trees to
wait until his body had dried of the deadly liquid.
He looked back to the hill.
The girl was stepping into the liquid.