The spacemen spent a cramped and almost sleepless night. Although in
his training on Terra, on his trial trips to Mars and the harsh Lunar
valleys, Raf had known weird surroundings and climates, inimical to
his kind, he had always been able to rest almost by the exercise of
his will. But now, curled in his roll, he was alert to every sound out
of the moonless night, finding himself listening--for what he did not
know.
Though there were sounds in plenty. The whistling call of some night
bird, the distant lap, lap of water which he associated with the river
curving through the long-deserted city, the rustle of grass as either
the wind or some passing animal disturbed it.
"Not the best place in the world for a nap," Soriki observed out of
the dark as Raf wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"I'll be glad to see these bandaged boys on the ground waving good-bye
as we head away from them--fast--"
"Those weren't animals they killed--back on that island." Raf brought
out what was at the heart of his trouble.
"They wore fur instead of clothing." Soriki's reply was delivered in a
colorless, even voice. "We have apes on Terra, but they are not men."
Raf stared up at the sky in which stars were sprinkled like carelessly
flung dust motes. "What is a 'man'?" he returned, repeating the
classical question which was a debating point in all the space
training centers.
For so long his kind had wondered that. Was a "man" a biped with
certain easily recognized physical characteristics? Well, by that
ruling the furry things which had fled fruitlessly from the flames of
the globe might well qualify. Or was "man" a certain level of
intelligence, no matter what form housed that intelligence? They were
supposed to accept the latter definition. Though, in spite of the
horror of prejudice, Raf could not help but believe that too many
Terrans secretly thought of "man" only as a creature in their own
general image. By that prejudiced rule it was correct to accept the
aliens as "men" with whom they could ally themselves, to condemn the
furry people because they were not smooth-skinned, did not wear
clothing, nor ride in mechanical transportation.
Yet somewhere within Raf at that moment was the nagging feeling that
this was all utterly wrong, that the Terrans had not made the right
choice. And that now "men" were _not_ standing together. But he had no
intention of spilling that out to Soriki.
"Man is intelligence." The com-tech was answering the question Raf had
almost forgotten that he had asked the moment before. Yes, the proper
conventional reply. Soriki was not going to be caught out with any
claim of prejudice.
Odd--when Pax had ruled, there were thought police and the cardinal
sin was to be a liberal, to experiment, to seek knowledge. Now the
wheel had turned--to be conservative was suspect. To suggest that some
old ways were better was to exhibit the evil signs of prejudice. Raf
grinned wryly. Sure, he had wanted to reach the stars, had fought
doggedly to come to the very spot where he now was. So why was he
tormented now with all these second thoughts? Why did he feel every
day less akin to the men with whom he had shared the voyage? He had
had wit enough to keep his semirebellion under cover, but since he had
taken the flitter into the morning sky above the landing place of the
spacer, that task of self-discipline was becoming more and more
difficult.
"Did you notice," the com-tech said, going off on a new track, "that
these painted boys were not too quick about blasting along to their
strongbox? I'd say that they thought some bright rocket jockey might
have rigged a surprise for them somewhere in there--"
Now that Soriki mentioned it, Raf remembered that the alien party who
had gone into the city had huddled together, and that several of the
black-and-white warriors had fanned out ahead as scouts might in enemy
territory.
"They didn't go any farther than that building to the west either."
That Raf had not noticed, but he was willing to accept Soriki's
observation. The com-tech had a ready eye for details. He'd better pay
closer attention himself. This was no time to explore the why and
wherefore of his present position. So, if they went no farther than
that building, it would argue that the aliens themselves didn't care
to go about here after nightfall. For he was certain that the isolated
structure Soriki had pointed out was not the treasure house they had
come to loot.
The night wore on and sometime during it Raf fell asleep. But the two
or three hours of restless, dream-filled unconsciousness was not what
he needed, and he blinked in the dawn with eyes which felt as if they
were filled with hot sand. In the first gray light a covey of winged
things, which might or might not have been birds, arose from some
roosting place within the city, wheeled three times over the building,
and then vanished out over the countryside.
Raf pulled himself out of his roll, made a sketchy toilet with the
preparations in a belt kit, and looked about with little favor for
either the scene or his part in it. The globe, sealed as if ready for
a take-off, was some distance away, but installed about halfway
between it and the flitter were two of the alien warriors. Perhaps
they had changed watches during the night. If they had not, they could
go without sleep to an amazing degree, for as Raf walked in a circle
about the flyer to limber up, they watched him closely, nor did their
grips on their odd weapons loosen. And he had a very clear idea that
if he stepped over some invisible boundary he would be in for trouble.
When he came back to the flitter, Soriki was awake and stretching.
"Another day," the com-tech drawled. "And I could do with something
besides field rations." He made a face at the small tin of
concentrates he had dug out of the supply compartment.
"We'd do well to be headed west," Raf ventured.
"Now you can come in with that on the com again!" Soriki answered with
unwonted emphasis. "The sooner I see the old girl standing on her pins
in the middle distance, the better I'll feel. You know"--he looked up
from his preoccupation with the ration package and gazed out over the
city--"this place gives me the shivers. That other town was bad
enough. But at least there were people living there. Here's nothing at
all--at least nothing I want to see."
"What about all the wonders they've promised to show us?" countered
Raf.
Soriki grinned. "And how much do we understand of their mouth-and-hand
talk? Maybe they were promising us wonders, maybe they were offering to
take us to where we could have our throats cut more conveniently--for them!
I tell you, if I go for a walk with any of these painted faces, I'm going
to have at least three of my fingers resting on the grip of my stun gun.
And I'd advise you to do the same--if I didn't know that you were already
watching these blast-happy harpies out of the corner of your eye.
Ha--company. Oh, it's the captain--"
The hatch of the globe had opened, and a small party was descending
the ladder, conspicuous among them the form and uniform of Captain
Hobart. The aliens remained in a cluster at the foot of the ladder
while the Terran commander crossed to the flitter.
"You"--he pointed to Raf--"are to come along with us."
"Why, sir?" "What about me, sir?" The questions from the two at the
flitter came together.
"I said that one of you had to remain by the machine. Then they said
that you, in particular, must come along, Kurbi."
"But I'm the pilot--" Raf began and then realized that it was just
that fact which had made the aliens attach him to the exploring party.
If they believed that the Terran flitter was immobilized when he, and
he alone, was not behind its controls, this was just the move they
would make. But there they were wrong. Soriki might not be able to
repair or service the motor, but in a pinch he could take it up, send
it westward, and land it beside the spacer. Each and every man aboard
the _RS 10_ had that much training.
Now the com-tech was scowling. He had grasped the significance of that
arrangement as quickly as Raf. "How long do I wait for you, sir?" he
asked in a voice which had lost its usual good-humored drawl.
And at that inquiry Captain Hobart showed signs of irritation. "Your
suspicions are not founded on facts," he stated firmly. "These people
have displayed no signs of wanting to harm us. And an attitude of
distrust at this point might be fatal for future friendly contact.
Lablet is sure that they have a highly complex society, probably
advanced beyond Terran standards, and that their technical skills will
be of vast benefit to us. As it happens we have come at just the right
moment in their history, when they are striving to get back on their
feet after a disastrous series of wars. It is as if a group of
off-world explorers had allied themselves with us after the Burn-Off.
We can exchange information which will be of mutual benefit."
"If any off-world explorers had set down on Terra after the Burn-Off,"
observed Soriki softly, "they would have come up against Pax. And just
how long would they have lasted?"
Hobart had turned away. If he heard that half-whisper, he did not
choose to acknowledge it. But the truth in the com-tech's words made
an impression on Raf, a crew of aliens who had been misguided enough
to seek out and try to establish friendly relations with the officials
of Pax would have had a short and most unhappy shrift. If all the
accounts of that dark dictatorship were true, they would have vanished
from Terra, and not in their ships either. What if something like Pax
ruled here? They had no way of knowing for sure.
Raf's eyes met Soriki's, and the com-tech's hand dropped to hook
fingers in his belt within touching distance of his side arm. The
flitter pilot nodded.
"Kurbi!" Hobart's impatient call sent him on his way. But there was
some measure of relief in knowing that Soriki was left behind and that
they had this slender link with escape.
He had tramped the streets of that other alien city. There there had
been some semblance of habitation; here was abandonment. Earth drifted
in dunes to half block the lanes, and here and there climbing vines
had broken down masonry and had dislodged blocks of the paved sideways
and courtyards.
The party threaded their way from one narrow lane to another, seeming
to avoid the wider open stretches of the principal thoroughfares. Raf
became aware of an unpleasant odor in the air which he vaguely
associated with water, and a few minutes afterward he caught glimpses
of the river between the buildings which fronted on it. Here the party
turned abruptly at a right angle, heading westward once more, passing
vast, blank-walled structures which might have been warehouses.
One of the aliens just ahead of Raf in the line of march suddenly
swung around, his weapon pointing up, and from its nose shot a beam of
red-yellow light which brought an answering shrill scream as a large,
winged creature came fluttering down. The killer kicked at the
crumpled thing as he passed. As far as Raf could see there had been no
reason for that wanton slaying.
The head of the party had reached a doorway, sealed shut by what
looked like a solid slab of material. He placed both palms flat down
on its surface at shoulder height and leaned forward against it,
almost as if he were whispering some secret formula. Raf watched the
muscles stand up on his slender arms as he exerted strength. And then
the door split in two, and his fellows helped him push the separate
halves back into the wall.
Lablet, Hobart, and Raf were among the last to enter. It was as if
their companions had now forgotten them, for the aliens were pushing
on at a pace which took them down an empty corridor at a quickening
trot.
The corridor ended in a ramp which did not slope in one straight reach
but curled around itself, so that in some places only the presence of
a handrail, to which they all clung, kept them from losing balance.
Then they gathered in a vaulted room, on which opened a complete
circle of closed doors.
There was some argument among the aliens, a dispute of sorts over
which of those doors was to be opened first, and the Terrans drew a
little apart, unable to follow the twittering words and
lightning-swift gestures.
Raf tried to work out the patterns of color which swirled and looped
over each door and around the walls, only to discover that too long an
examination of any one band, or an attempt to trace its beginning or
end, awoke a sick sensation which approached inner turmoil the longer
he looked. At last he had to rest his eyes by studying the gray
flooring under his boots.
The aliens finally made up their minds, or else one group was able to
outargue the other, for they converged upon a door directly opposite
the ramp. Once more they went through the process of unsealing the
panels, while the Terrans, drawn by curiosity, were close behind them
as they entered the long room beyond. Here were shelves in solid tiers
along the walls, crowded with such an array of strange objects that
Raf, after one mystified look, thought that it might well take months
to sort them all out.
In addition, long tables divided the chamber into aisles. Halfway down
one of these narrow passageways the aliens had gathered in a group as
silent and intent now as they had been noisy outside. Raf could see
nothing to so rivet their attention but a series of scuffed marks in
the dust which covered the floor. But an alien, whom he recognized as
the officer who had taken him to inspect the globe, moved carefully
along that trail, following it to a second door. And as Raf pushed
down another aisle, paralleling his course, he was conscious of a
sickly sweet, stomach-churning stench. Something was very, very dead
and not too far away.
The officer must have come to the same conclusion, for he hurried to
open the other door. Before them now was a narrow hall broken by slit
windows, near the roof, through which entered sunlight. And one such
beam fully illuminated a carcass as large as that of a small elephant,
or so it seemed to Raf's startled gaze.
It was difficult to make out the true appearance of the creature,
though guessing from the scaled strips of skin it had been reptilian,
for the body had been found by scavengers and feasting had been in
progress.
The alien officer skirted the corpse gingerly. Raf though that he
would like to investigate the body closely but could not force himself
to that highly disagreeable task. There was a chorus of excited
exclamation from the doorway as others crowded there.
But the officer, having circled the carcass, turned his attention to
the dusty floor again. If there had been any trail there, it was now
muddled past their reading, for remnants of the grisly meal had been
dragged back and forth. The alien picked his way fastidiously through
the noxious debris to the end of the long room. Raf, with the same
care, toured the edge of the chamber in his wake.
They were out in a smaller passageway, which was taking them
underground, the Terran estimated. Then there was a large space with
barred cells about it and a second corridor. The stench of the death
chamber either clung to them, or was wafted from another point, and
Raf gagged as an especially foul blast caught him full in the face. He
kept a sharp look about him for signs of those feasters. The feast had
not been finished--it might have been that their entrance into the
storeroom had disturbed the scavengers. And things formidable enough
to drag down that scaled horror were not foes he would choose to meet
in these unlighted ways.
The passage began to slope upward once more, and Raf saw a half-moon
of light ahead, brilliant light which could only come from the sun.
The alien was outlined there as he went out; then he himself was
scuffing through sand close upon another death scene. The dead
monster had had its counterparts, and here they were, sprawled out,
mangled, and torn. Raf remained by the archway, for even the open air
and the morning winds could not destroy the reek which seemed as
deadly as a gas attack.
It must have disturbed the officer too, for he hesitated. Then with
visible effort he advanced toward the hunks of flesh, casting back and
forth as if to find some clue to the manner of their death. He was
still so engaged when a second alien burst out of the archway, a
splintered length of white held out before him as if he had made some
important discovery.
The officer grabbed that shaft away from him, turning it around in his
hands. And though expression was hard to read on those thin features
under the masking face paint, the emotion his whole attitude expressed
was surprise tinged with unbelief--as if the object his subordinate
had brought was the last he expected to find in that place.
Raf longed to inspect it, but both aliens brushed by him and pattered
back down the corridor, the discoverer pouring forth a volume of words
to which the officer listened with great intentness. And the Terran
pilot had to hurry to keep up with them.
Something he had seen just before he had left the arena remained in
his mind: a forearm flung out from the supine body of what appeared to
be the largest of the dead things--and on that forearm a bracelet of
metal. Were those things pets! Watchdogs? Surely they were not
intelligent beings able to forge and wear such ornaments of their own
accord. And if they were watchdogs--whom did they serve? He was
inclined to believe that the aliens must be their masters, that the
monsters had been guardians of the treasure, perhaps. But dead
guardians suggested a rifled treasure house. Who and what--?
His mind filled with speculations and questions, Raf trotted behind
the others back to the chamber where they had found the first reptile.
The alien who had brought the discovery to his commander stepped
gingerly through the litter and laid the white rod in a special spot,
apparently the place where it had been found.
At a barked order from the officer, two of the others came forward and
tugged at the creature's mangled head, which had been freed from the
serpent neck, rolling it over to expose the underparts. There was a
broad tear there in the flesh, but Raf could see little difference
between it and those left by the feasters. However the officer,
holding a strip of cloth over his nose, bent stiffly above it for a
closer look and then made some statement which sent his command into a
babbling clamor.
Four of the lower ranks separated from the group and, with their hand
weapons at alert, swung into action, retracing the way back toward the
arena. It looked to Raf as if they now expected an attack from that
direction.
Under a volley of orders the rest went back to the storeroom, and the
officer, noting that Raf still lingered, waved him impatiently after
them.
Inside the men spread out, going from shelf to table, selecting things
with a speed which suggested that they had been rehearsed in this task
and had only a limited time in which to accomplish it. Some took piles
of boxes or other containers which were so light that they could
manage a half-dozen in an armload, while two or three others struggled
pantingly to move a single piece of weird machinery from its bed to
the wheeled trolley they had brought. There was to be no lingering on
this job--that was certain.
11