Caine moved, trying to find some hate to use on himself for letting
the sight of the rifle in the man's hands frighten him the way it did.
But there was only a dull craziness within him, where the strength
and nerve used to be. It was as though his steel had been melted and
drained out of him by the drug.
I'm like a fish, he thought, pushing through the foliage, a fish with
a broken fin. Do cats like fish with broken fins? he wondered. And the
three of them were moving in a slow silent line through the Venusian
wilds.
The sounds were in Caine's brain like a dozen records being played in
a large echoing room. Teewh birds pointed their yellow beaks and came
screaming at his head. The kiitz birds fluttered wildly out of the
thickets, their frightened sound like the rake of giant fingernails
across smooth slate.
But there were other things in this part of the jungle. Soft,
gelatinous phules, the size of a man's hand, hung to the vine-trees,
and when Caine passed them they shifted off the trees to his skin and
began their search for juices out of his own body. He swept them away,
one at a time, and more found him.
"I have nothing left in my veins for you," he said to one of them
sticking to his waist. "Maybe warm tea?"
Fairchild touched the rifle against his back, and Caine pushed the
phule away.
A snake-like trill wriggled in front of him, its purple and black skin
glistening as though it had been drawn through oil. It was about four
feet long and as thick as a heavy rope. Its never-closing eyes stared
at Caine. "Hello, friend," Caine said, reaching out his good arm. The
trill slid away.
That's what I really am like, he decided, wondering when the pain would
come shattering into him again. I am like the trill. I ought to lie
down on the ground and start wriggling, instead of walking.
The pain found him then, and his brain was cleared briefly of the veil
of the drug. The pain lasted longer this time. Drug wearing off, he
thought, only now I don't want it to. And then he thought of the cats;
the terrible cats, the horrible cats....
His brain spun and the veil dropped. What was I thinking about? he said
to himself. Cats? Was it the cats? Why? Cats are pretty, especially
grith cats. They are black, like the spots on a leopard. And what makes
me think of a leopard? I'll ask the man behind me, he thought, and
stopped.
"Go on, Caine," Fairchild whispered. "Go on, damn you."
Leopards? Leopards? Caine asked himself, and he pushed on through the
growth, feeling the ground rising more steeply.
Razor plants licked at his skin, until his flesh was slit finely in a
dozen places. The gauze around his arm became a fuzzy mass, like rags.
If I see a cat, Caine promised himself, I'll take a splint off my arm
and hit him over the head with it.
The mist hung around them like a hungry shroud, eager to cloak
everything on the planet with its muggy wetness. Then the growth
lessened a bit, and Caine saw bare rock here and there. It was easier
to move and he did not jar his arm as much, but somewhere in his brain
an old knowledge told him that this would be certain grith territory,
and every step now was a step closer to the black face with the orange
eyes and sharp teeth.
Caine felt himself growing weaker, and each motion was a building
effort. The heat had risen, but there was no sweat on his face now,
only a burning dryness. His head seemed to start its floating again,
and he thought for a moment that it might drift up over the trees,
like a balloon.
The idea was very funny to him, and laughter grew inside of him. He
grinned, feeling his stomach move with it, until suddenly he was
freezing his movement, laughing into the mist-filled air, staring
straight into the orange eyes of a grith cat.
The laughter stopped in his mouth. He blinked once. The cat didn't
move. Fairchild and the woman, Caine knew, had halted behind him. The
cat's eyes shown through the mist like fiery globes. I'll pet him,
Caine thought with great detachment, right on his black head, and then
he'll go away.
The cat was motionless.
Caine knelt slowly, looking straight into the cat's eyes. It was about
ten yards away.
Caine turned to look at Fairchild. The man was on one knee, the rifle
pointing at the cat's head. The woman waited behind him, half-crouched,
holding her rifle tight against her side.
Caine looked back to the cat, moving his head slowly. He could see the
great swishing tail, moving back and forth, back and forth.
Why doesn't the man shoot? Caine asked himself. Why is he waiting this
way?
Time halted.
Caine edged his look back to Fairchild. You crazy fool, he thought. You
have the rifle in your hands, you....
And then he saw the sweat dripping from the man's face, the staring
eyes, drained of their focus by fear. The man's body was trembling, and
Caine thought: he's going to drop the rifle out of his hands, he's....
* * * * *
The woman screamed. "Kill him! Kill him--" The rifle exploded in her
hands and bullets whined through the air. Caine felt a hot sting in his
shoulder. And the cat was a roaring, crazed thing that swept through
the air, a flash of shining blackness.
The air came apart with the sound of the rifle and the screams of the
woman and the roaring of the cat. Caine waited, as though this were a
dream he was watching. The cat had leaped straight for the woman, and
she was tangled with the black and white claws now, so that Caine saw
only a rolling, screaming mass.
Then there was no more sound from the woman, just a broken, bleeding
body, and the cat was crouching again, the black coat stippled with
red, the orange eyes wild.
Caine blinked, realizing that Fairchild was sprawled beside him, a
bullet through his head, his hands just touching his unfired rifle.
I can't do it, Caine thought, looking at the rifle. Too slow. I'll have
those claws in me before I can even touch it.
The cat hugged closer to the ground, its muscles bunching.
I'll try, Caine thought, and his hand was moving toward the rifle,
slowly, like a floating feather, it seemed. Jump, he said silently to
the cat. I can't do it.
"Grith?" sounded a flute-like voice.
The cat was motionless.
"Grith?"
The cat rose slowly and backed, tail swishing. Green hands slapped
together, and the cat turned and disappeared.
Caine placed his palms flat against the ground, propping himself, and
watched the approaching figures. The mist seemed to be disappearing,
and he could see more clearly the green skin and the large, unblinking
eyes that looked out solemnly from beneath the hoods of the gray capes.
_Priests?_ Caine wondered. _From the temple?_ I didn't know there were
Venusians here, he said to himself, and although it was a very slight
disclosure, as though he had suddenly learned that there were more men
on Venus than women, he was astounded and impressed with it. "Well," he
said, grinning up at them as they stopped beside him. "Well, well."
He got to his knees and, still smiling, looked at his arm where the
gauze had come loose. He shook his head in wonderment. He narrowed his
eyes and examined the blood trickling from the surface wound in his
shoulder. "Well, well," he repeated, and stood up.
The woman was a mangled shape on the wet ground, and the man lay very
still. Caine looked from one to the other. "Yes, yes," he said, aloud.
He turned to the gray-caped Venusians and found the somber eyes
watching him, in their kindly way. One of them reached out and touched
Caine's shoulder above the broken arm. Others moved to the bodies of
the man and woman and bent over them, making floating motions with
their delicate green hands.
_Praying?_ Caine wondered, watching these motions. He shrugged. He
couldn't hold a thought very long.
The mist was evaporating quickly. Caine, looking up, thought he could
see a pointed outline. Then suddenly--high above--there was the golden
temple, a shimmer of towering spires of yellow beauty, splashed over by
brilliant sunshine.
Caine turned his face up to a strange sun, a blinding sun that sent its
bright life down through the leaves. And Caine was aware that the caped
figures were kneeling all around, praying in a jumble of voices, their
hands stretching up to the infrequent visitor of light.
What are they saying? Caine asked, smiling queerly. What is it they're
saying? Screece? The Sun? The most valuable gem on Venus? Is that what
they worship in the golden temple? Caine looked at the man and then at
the woman. Is that what they had come from Earth and from Mars to find?
The Sun? He felt the laughter starting in him again, as though it were
someone else laughing. But his mouth widened and his teeth glistened in
the sunlight, and he laughed long pealing laughter.
"Here it is," he said, staggering to the side of the man's body.
"Here's your gem. Do you see it, Fairchild?" He pointed to the sky.
"Give it to her," he said, laughing through his words. "No? I'll give
it to her for you then. How's that?" He turned and moved slowly to the
woman, stumbling. "Here," he said to the woman's staring eyes. "Here it
is, you see?"
He looked at her face, shadowed by a large leaf of a vine-tree. He
reached up and jerked the leaf away so that the sunlight fell full on
her white face. "There! Take it! From Charles, to you, through me.
Isn't it beautiful, so big, so brilliant, so...." The laughter was
getting in the way of his words and he could feel tears going down his
face.
Pale green hands were holding him so that he wouldn't fall. And they
were moving him away toward the temple. Caine looked at the large
kindly eyes around him, feeling the hands guiding him. He couldn't stop
laughing, only he wished to God he could, because it made the pain
worse. And he couldn't take much more pain.
The lips of one of the green faces moved. "Wress?" said the voice, the
word pronounced with difficulty.
"Rest?" Caine said, between spasms of laughter that he was quite
certain now was crying, instead. "Yes, yes," he said, trying to wipe at
his tears. "Oh, yes. Rest...."
* * * * *
_Pale green hands extend again, palms down, and make sweeping downward
motions, destroying evil. They are cupped then and raised, slowly, as
though lifting purity to the top of the golden spires and beyond, where
a bright sun burns. Feet step soundlessly and figures kneel, circling
about a fist-sized orb. "Screece," says a flute-like voice. "Screece,"
says another. "Screece," say a dozen voices. Hands motion and the
silver globe is no longer dull and cloudy, but filled with pure shining
sunlight, so that it glitters like a thousand diamonds. Lips move
silently. A cat whimpers somewhere, then sleeps. Silence._