The sun was a harsh ball of heat baking the ground and then, in some odd
manner, drawing back that same fieriness. In the coolness of the eastern
mountains Shann would not have believed that Warlock could hold such
heat. The men discarded their jackets early as they swung to dip the
poles. But they dared not strip off the rest of their clothing lest
their skin burn. And again gusts of wind now drove sand over the edge of
the cut to blanket the water.
Shann wiped his eyes, pausing in his eternal push-push, to look at the
rocks which they were passing in threatening proximity. For the slash
which held the river had narrowed. And the rock of its walls was naked
of earth, save for sheltered pockets holding the drift of sand dust,
while boulders of all sizes cut into the path of the flowing water.
He had not been mistaken; they were going faster, faster even than their
efforts with the poles would account for. With the narrowing of the bed
of the stream, the current was taking on a new swiftness. Shann said as
much and Thorvald nodded.
"We're approaching the first of the rapids."
"Where we get off and walk around," Shann croaked wearily. The dust
gritted between his teeth, irritated his eyes. "Do we stay beside the
river?"
"As long as we can," Thorvald replied somberly. "We have no way of
transporting water."
Yes, a man could live on very slim rations of food, continue to beat his
way over a bad trail if he had the concentrate tablets they carried. But
there was no going without water, and in this heat such an effort would
finish them quickly. Always they both listened for another cry from
behind, a cry to tell them just how near the Throg hunting party had
come.
"No Throg flyers yet," Shann observed. He had expected one of those
black plates to come cruising the moment the hound had pointed the
direction for their pursuers.
"Not in a storm such as this." Thorvald, without releasing his hold on
the raft pole, pointed with his chin to the swirling haze cloaking the
air above the cut walls. Here the river dug yet deeper into the
beginning of a canyon. They could breathe better. The dust still sifted
down but not as thickly as a half hour earlier. Though over their heads
the sky was now a grayish lid, shutting out the sun, bringing a portion
of coolness to the travelers.
The Survey officer glanced from side to side, watching the banks as if
hunting for some special mark or sign. At last he used his pole as a
pointer to indicate a rough pile of boulders ahead. Some former
landslide had quarter dammed the river at that point, and the drift of
seasonal floods was caught in and among the rocky pile to form a prickly
peninsula.
"In there----"
They brought the raft to shore, fighting the faster current. The
wolverines, who had been subdued by the heat and the dust, flung
themselves to the rocks with the eagerness of passengers deserting a
sinking ship for certain rescue. Thorvald settled the map case more
securely between his arm and side before he took the same leap. When
they were all ashore he prodded the raft out into the stream again,
pushing the platform along until it was sucked by the current past the
line of boulders.
"Listen!"
But Shann had already caught that distant rumble of sound. It was
steady, beating like some giant drum. Certainly it did not herald a
Throg ship in flight and it came from ahead, not from their back trail.
"Rapids ... perhaps even the falls," Thorvald interpreted that faint
thunder. "Now, let's see what kind of a road we can find here."
The tongue of boulders, spiked with driftwood, was firmly based against
the wall of the cut. But it sloped up to within a few feet of the top of
that gap, more than one landslide having contributed to its fashioning.
The landing stage paralleled the river for perhaps some fifty feet.
Beyond it water splashed a straight wall. They would have to climb and
follow the stream along the top of the embankment, maybe being forced
well away from the source of the water.
By unspoken consent they both knelt and drank deeply from their cupped
hands, splashing more of the liquid over their heads, washing the dust
from their skins. Then they began to climb the rough assent up which the
wolverines had already vanished. The murk above them was less solid, but
again the fine grit streaked their faces, embedding itself in their
hair.
Shann paused to scrape a film of mud from his lips and chin. Then he
made the last pull, bracing his slight body against the push of the wind
he met there. A palm struck hard between his shoulders, nearly sending
him sprawling. He had only wits enough left to recognize that as an
order to get on, and he staggered ahead until rock arched over him and
the sand drift was shut off.
His shoulder met solid stone, and having rubbed the sand from his eyes,
Shann realized he was in a pocket in the cliff walls. Well overhead he
caught a glimpse of natural amber sky through a slit, but here was a
twilight which thickened into complete darkness.
There was no sign of wolverines. Thorvald moved along the pocket
southward, and Shann followed him. Once more they faced a dead end. For
the crevice, with the sheer descent to the river on the right, the cliff
wall at its back, came to an abrupt stop in a drop which caught at
Shann's stomach when he ventured to look down.
If some battleship of the interstellar fleet had aimed a force beam
across the mountains of Warlock, cutting down to what lay under the
first envelope of planet-skin, perhaps the resulting wound might have
resembled that slash. What had caused such a break between the height on
which they stood and the much taller peak beyond, Shann could not guess.
But it must have been a cataclysm of spectacular dimensions. There was
certainly no descending to the bottom of that cut and reclimbing the
rock face on the other side. The fugitives would either have to return
to the river with all its ominous warnings of trouble to come, or find
some other path across that gap which now provided such an effective
barrier to the west.
"Down!" Just as Thorvald had pushed him out of the murk of the dust
storm into the crevice, so now did that officer jerk Shann from his
feet, forcing him to the floor of the half cave from which they had
partially emerged.
A shadow moved across the bright band of sunlit sky.
"Back!" Thorvald caught at Shann again, his greater strength prevailing
as he literally dragged the younger man into the dusk of the crevice.
And he did not pause, nor allow Shann to do so, even when they were well
undercover again. At last they reached the dark hole in the southern
wall which they had passed earlier. And a push from Thorvald sent his
companion into that.
Then a blow greater than any the Survey officer had aimed at him struck
Shann. He was hurled against a rough wall with impetus enough to explode
the air from his lungs, the ensuing pain so great that he feared his
ribs had given under that thrust. Before his eyes fire lashed down the
slit, searing him into temporary blindness. That flash was the last
thing he remembered as thick darkness closed in, shutting him into the
nothingness of unconsciousness.
It hurt to breathe; he was slowly aware first of that pain and then the
fact that he _was_ breathing, that he had to endure the pain for the
sake of breath. His whole body was jarred into a dull torment as a
weight pressed upon his twisted legs. Then strong animal breath puffed
into his face. Shann lifted one hand by will power, touched thick fur,
felt the rasp of a tongue laid wetly across his fingers.
Something close to terror engulfed him for a second or two when he knew
that he could not see! The black about him was colored by jagged flashes
of red which he somehow guessed were actually inside his eyes. He groped
through that fire-pierced darkness. An animal whimper from the throat of
the shaggy body pressed against him; he answered that movement.
"Taggi?"
The shove against him was almost enough to pin him once more to the
wall, a painful crush on his aching ribs, as the wolverine responded to
his name. That second nudge from the other side must be Togi's bid for
attention.
But what had happened? Thorvald had hurled him back just after that
shadow had swung over the ledge. That shadow! Shann's wits quickened as
he tried to make sense of what he could remember. A Throg ship! Then
that fiery lash which had cut after them could only have resulted from
one of those energy bolts such as had wiped out the others of his kind
at the camp. But he was still alive----!
"Thorvald?" He called through his personal darkness. When there was no
answer, Shann called again, more urgently. Then he hunched forward on
his hands and knees, pushing Taggi gently aside, running his hands over
projecting rocks, uneven flooring.
His fingers touched what could only be cloth, before they met the warmth
of flesh. And he half threw himself against the supine body of the
Survey officer, groping awkwardly for heartbeat, for some sign that the
other was still living.
"What----?" The one word came thickly, but Shann gave something close to a
sob of relief as he caught the faint mutter. He squatted back on his
heels, pressed his forearm against his aching eyes in a kind of fierce
will to see.
Perhaps that pressure did relieve some of the blackout, for when he
blinked again, the complete dark and the fiery trails had faded to gray,
and he was sure he saw dimly a source of light to his left.
The Throg ship had fired upon them. But the aliens could not have used
the full force of their weapon or neither of the Terrans would still be
alive. Which meant, Shann's thoughts began to make sense--sense which
brought apprehension--the Throgs probably intended to disable rather
than kill. They wanted prisoners, just as Thorvald had warned.
How long did the Terrans have before the aliens would come to collect
them? There was no fit landing place hereabouts for their flyer. The
beetle-heads would have to set down at the edge of the desert land and
climb the mountains on foot. And the Throgs were not good at that. So,
the fugitives still had a measure of time.
Time to do what? The country itself held them securely captive. That
drop to the southwest was one barrier. To retreat eastward would mean
running straight into the hands of the hunters. To descend again to the
river, their raft gone, was worse than useless. There was only this side
pocket in which they sheltered. And once the Throgs arrived, they could
scoop the Terrans out at their leisure, perhaps while stunned by a
controlling energy beam.
"Taggi? Togi?" Shann was suddenly aware that he had not heard the
wolverines for some time.
He was answered by a weirdly muffled call--from the south! Had the
animals found a new exit? Was this niche more than just a niche? A cave
of some length, or even a passage running back into the interior of the
peaks? With that faint hope spurring him, Shann bent again over
Thorvald, able now to make out the other's huddled form. Then he drew
the torch from the inner loop of his coat and pressed the lowest stud.
His eyes smarted in answer to that light, watered until tears patterned
the grime and dust on his cheeks. But he could make out what lay before
them, a hole leading into the cliff face, the hole which might furnish
the door to escape.
The Survey officer moved, levering himself up, his eyes screwed tightly
shut.
"Lantee?"
"Here. And there's a tunnel--right behind you. The wolverines went that
way...."
To his surprise there was a thin ghost of a smile on Thorvald's usually
straight-lipped mouth. "And we'd better be away before visitors arrive?"
So he, too, must have thought his way through the sequence of past
action to the same conclusion concerning the Throg movements.
"Can you see, Lantee?" The question was painfully casual, but a note in
it, almost a reaching for reassurance, cut for the first time through
the wall which had stood between them from their chance meeting by the
wrecked ship.
"Better now. I couldn't when I first came to," Shann answered quickly.
Thorvald opened his eyes, but Shann guessed that he was as blind as he
himself had been, He caught at the officer's nearer hand, drawing it to
rest on his own belt.
"Grab hold!" Shann was giving the orders now. "By the look of that
opening we had better try crawling. I've a torch on at low----"
"Good enough." The other's fingers fumbled on the band about Shann's
slim waist until they gripped tight at his back. He started on into the
opening, drawing Thorvald by that hold with him.
Luckily, they did not have to crawl far, for shortly past the entrance
the fault or vein they were following became a passage high enough for
even the tall Thorvald to travel without stooping. And then only a
little later he released his hold on Shann, reporting he could now see
well enough to manage on his own.
The torch beam caught on a wall and awoke from there a glitter which
hurt their eyes--a green-gold cluster of crystals. Several feet on,
there was another flash of embedded crystals. Those might promise
priceless wealth, but neither Terran paused to examine them more closely
or touch their surfaces. From time to time Shann whistled. And always he
was answered by the wolverines, their calls coming from ahead. So the
men continued to hope that they were not walking into a trap from which
the Throgs could extract them.
"Snap off your torch a moment!" Thorvald ordered.
Shann obeyed. The subdued light vanished. Yet there was still light to
be seen--ahead and above.
"Front door," Thorvald observed. "How do we get up?"
The torch showed them that, a narrow ladder of ledges branching off when
the passage they followed took a turn to the left and east. Afterward
Shann remembered that climb with wonder that they had actually made it,
though their advance had been slow, passing the torch from one to
another to make sure of their footing.
Shann was top man when a last spurt of effort enabled him to draw
himself out into the open, his hands raw, his nails broken and torn. He
sat there, stupefied with his own weariness, to stare about.
Thorvald called impatiently, and Shann reached for the torch to hold it
for the officer. Then Thorvald crawled out; he, too, looked around in
dull surprise.
On either side, peaks cut high into the amber of the sky. But this bowl
in which the men had found refuge was rich in growing things. Though the
trees were stunted, the grass grew almost as high here as it did on the
meadows of the lowlands. Quartering the pocket valley, galloped the
wolverines, expressing in that wild activity their delight in this
freedom.
"Good campsite."