"He didn't come back," Goodenow said shortly. "This is a one-way trail."
"Well, I'm going after him."
"It's suicidal. But--I suppose I can't talk you out of it?"
"You can't."
"Well, come back to town and I'll find you an outfit. Supplies and a
hack-knife. Maybe I can find some men willing to go with you."
"No," Vanning said. "I don't want to waste time. I'll start now." He
took a few steps, and was halted by Goodenow's restraining grip.
"Hold on," the consul said, a new note in his voice. He looked closely
into Vanning's face, and pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.
"You've got it," he said. "I should have noticed before."
"Got what?"
"The North-Fever, man! Now listen to me--"
Vanning's headache suddenly exploded in a fiery burst of white pain,
which washed away and was gone, leaving his brain cool and ...
different. It was like a--like a _cold_ fever. He found his thoughts
were moving with unusual clarity to a certain definite point.... North.
Of course he had to go north. That was what had been wrong with him all
day. He had been fighting against the urge. Now he realized that it
should be obeyed, instead.
He blinked at Goodenow's heavy, worried face. "I'm all right. No fever.
I want to find Callahan, that's all."
"Like hell it is," the consul said grimly. "I know the symptoms. You're
coming back with me till you're well."
"No."
Goodenow made a movement as though to pinion Vanning's hands behind his
back. The detective writhed free and sent a short-arm jab to Goodenow's
jaw. There was power behind that blow. The consul went over backwards,
his head thumping against a white tree-bole.
He lay still.
* * * * *
Vanning didn't look at the motionless body. He turned and began to
follow Callahan's trail. But he wasn't watching the footprints. Some
instinct seemed to guide him.
North ... North!
His head no longer hurt. It felt strangely cool, numb and stinging
almost pleasantly. The magnetic pull drew him on. Deeper and deeper
into the jungle....
Distantly he heard Goodenow's shout, but ignored it. The consul
couldn't stop him. But he might try. Vanning ran for a while, lightly
and easily, till the wilderness of Venus had swallowed him without
trace. Then he slowed down to a walk. He would have been grateful for a
brief rest, but he could not stop. Not Now....
The fog closed in. Silver mist veiled the strange, ghostly forest.
Then it was torn away as a gust of wind drove down from the upper air.
Above, the clouds twisted in tortured writhings; but Vanning did not
look up. Not once did he turn his head. He faced north ... he plodded
north ... he slogged through mushy, stinking swamp that rose at times
to his waist....
A sane man would have skirted the bog. Vanning floundered across, and
swam when he could no longer walk. Somewhere to the left he heard
the coughing mutter of a swamp-cat's engine, but he did not see the
machine. His vision was restricted to a narrow circle directly ahead.
Dimly he felt pain. The clinging, soft nettles of Venus ripped at his
clothing and his skin. Leeches clung to his legs till they fell off,
satiated. Vanning went on. He was a robot--an automaton.
In silence the pale forest slipped by in a fantastic procession. Lianas
often made a tangled snare where Vanning fought for minutes before
breaking through. Luckily, the vines had little tensile strength,
but soon the man was exhausted and aching in every limb. Far above,
the clouds had thickened and darkened into what passed for night on
fog-shrouded Venus. But the trees gave a phosphorescent light of their
own. Weird beyond imagination was the scene, with the bloody, reeling
figure of the man staggering on toward the north--
North. Ever north. Until overtaxed muscles refused to bear the burden
longer, and Vanning collapsed into exhausted unconsciousness.
He did not know when he awoke. Presently he found himself walking
again. Nothing had changed. The jungle was denser, and the cool light
from above filtered down once more. Only the light was cool. The air
itself was sticky and suffocating.
He went on into hell.
Days and nights merged into a fantastic pattern of dull torture. Some
distantly sane portion of his brain held back and watched, but could
not help. Days and nights. There was no food. There was water, for as
Vanning splashed through shallow pools he would bend his head to drink
of the foul liquid. Once his feet crunched on the green-moulded bones
of a human skeleton. Others had taken this way before him....
* * * * *
Toward the end, a fleshless, gaunt thing that had once been a man
dragged itself laboriously toward a range of mountains that lifted from
the swamp toward the north. They extended to left and right as far
as he could see, and seemed unscalable. But they were V-shaped, and
Vanning headed toward the point of the V--the inner point. The terrible
drive within him drove him on relentlessly.
That night a sulphurous crimson glow lit the sky beyond the mountains.
Vanning did not see it. He slept.
By morning he was on his way again, staggering into the funnel of the
peaks. They were bare rock, eroded by eons of trickling water from the
clouds. He could not climb them, even had he possessed the strength. He
went on, instead, into the narrowing valley....
It ended in a sheer cliff of weathered stone. Vanning reeled toward
the barrier. He could not return. The North-Fever drove him on
remorselessly. He had to climb that wall of rock, or die. And he could
not climb.
He fell, rose, and fell again. In the end he crawled. He crawled to
the foot of the cliff and dragged himself upright. He fell forward, as
though trying to press his body against the towering wall that lifted
to the writhing grey clouds--
Fell--through the stone!
He toppled through the rock curtain as though it were non-existent!
Instantly intense blackness closed around him. Hard stone was under him.
His mind was too dulled to wonder. He knew only that the way north was
still open. He crept on through darkness, leaving a trail of blood
behind him....
The ground dropped from under him. He crashed down on a mound of
moulded vegetation.
Before the shock had passed, the living dead man was moving again. He
crawled forward until his way was blocked by a perpendicular wall.
Gasping dry-throated sobs, he clawed at the barrier with broken,
bleeding finger-tips.
To left and right, an arm's length away, were other walls. He was in a
pit. The sane part of his brain thought: "Circle around! There may be
some way out!"
But Vanning could not circle. He could only move in one direction. That
was north. He fumbled blindly at the wall, until unconsciousness came
at last....
Twice again he awoke, each time weaker, and twice again he slept. The
fever, having passed its peak, dwindled swiftly.
At last Vanning awoke, and he was sane. No longer did he feel the
relentless urge to turn north. He lay for a little while staring into
the blackness, realizing that he was once more in full command of his
traitorous body.
There was little life left in him. His tongue was blackened and swollen
till it filled his mouth. He was a scarecrow, nearly naked, his bones
sharply defined through his skin.
It was an effort even to breathe. But death would not be long in
coming--now....