"I don't know. I just don't know!" The captain grunted as he adjusted
his pack and started on.
If fortune had failed them earlier, she smiled on them now. Asaki
discovered a cave before sundown, located not too far from a mountain
stream. The Ranger sniffed the air before that dark opening as the
Hunter pilot shed his equipment and crept forward on his hands and
knees, his head up and his nostrils expanding as he, too, tested the
scent from the cave mouth.
Scent? It was closer to a stench, and one ripe enough to turn the
stomach of an off-worlder. But the Hunter glanced back over his shoulder
and nodded reassuringly.
"Lion. But old. Not here within five days at least."
"Well enough. And even old lion scent will keep away rock apes. We'll
clean some and then we can rest undisturbed," was his superior's
comment.
The cleaning was easy for the brittle bedding of dried bracken and grass
the beast had left burned quickly, cleansing with both fire and smoke.
When they raked the ashes out with branches, Asaki and Nymani brought in
handfuls of leaves which they crumpled and threw on the floor, spreading
an aromatic odor which banished most of the foulness.
Dane, at the stream with the canteens to fill, chanced upon a small pool
where there was a spread of smooth yellow sand. Knowing well the many
weird booby traps one might stumble into on a strange world, the Terran
prospected carefully, stirring up the stand with a stick. Sighting not
so much as a water insect or a curious fish, he pulled off his boots,
rolled up his breeches and waded in. The water was cool and refreshing,
though he dared not drink it until the purifier was added. Then, with
the filled canteens knotted together by their straps, he put on his
boots and climbed to the cave where Tau waited with water tablets.
Half an hour later Dane sat cross-legged by the fire, turning a spit
strung with three small birds Asaki had brought in. One foot closer to
the heat began to tingle and he eased off his boot; his cramped toes
suddenly seeming to have doubled in size. He was staring wide-eyed at
these same toes, puffed, red, and increasingly painful to the touch,
when Nymani squatted beside him, inspected his foot closely, and ordered
him to take off his other boot.
"What is it?" Dane found that shedding the other boot was a minor
torture in itself.
Nymani was cutting tiny splinters, hardly thicker than a needle, from a
stick.
"Sand worm--lays eggs in flesh. We burn them out or you have bad foot."
"Burn them out!" Dane echoed, and then swallowed as he watched Nymani
advance a splinter to the fire.
"Burn them," the Khatkan repeated firmly. "Burn tonight, hurt some
tomorrow; all well soon. No burn--very bad."
Dane ruefully prepared to pay the consequences of his first brush with
the unpleasant surprises Khatka had to offer.
IV
Dane regarded his throbbing feet morosely. Nymani's operations with
burning splinters had been hard to take, but he had endured them without
disgracing himself before the Khatkans, who appeared to regard such a
mishap as just another travel incident. Now, with Tau's salve soothing
the worst of the after affects, the Terran was given time to reflect
upon his own stupidity and the fact that he might now prove a drag on
the whole party the next morning.
"That's queer...."
Dane was startled out of the contemplation of his misery to see the
medic on his knees before their row of canteens, the vial of water
purifier held to the firelight for a closer inspection.
"What's the matter?"
"We must have hit with a pretty hard thump back there. Some of these
pills are powder! Have to guess about the portion to add." With the tip
of his knife blade Tau scraped a tiny amount of pill fragments into each
waiting canteen. "That should do it. But if the water tastes a little
bitter, don't let it bother you."
Bitter water, Dane thought, trying to flex his still swollen toes, was
going to be the least of his worries in the morning. But he determined
that his boots should go on at daybreak, and he would keep on his feet
as long as the others did, no matter how much it cost him.
And when they set out shortly after daybreak, wanting to move as far as
they could before the heat hours when they must rest, the going was not
too bad. Dane's feet were tender to the touch, but he could shuffle
along at the tail of the procession with only Nymani playing rear guard
behind him.
Jungle lay before them and bush knives began to swing, clearing their
path. Dane took his turn with the rest at that chore, thankful that the
business of cutting their way through that mass of greenery slowed them
to a pace he could match--if not in comfort, then by willpower.
But the sand worms were not the only troubles one could encounter on
Khatka. Within an hour Captain Jellico stood sweating and speaking his
mind freely in the native tongues of five different planets while Tau
and Nymani worked as a team with skinning knives. They were not flaying
the spaceman, but they came near to that in places as they worried a
choice selection of tree thorns out of his arm and shoulder. The captain
had been unfortunate enough to trip and fall into the embrace of a very
unfriendly bush.
Dane inspected a fallen tree for evidence of inimical wild life, and
then rested his blanket between him and it as a protecting cushion
before he sat down. These trees were not the towering giants of the true
forests, but rather oversized bushes which had been made into walls by
twined vines. Brilliant bursts of flowers were splotches of vivid color,
and the attendant insect life was altogether too abundant. Dane tried to
tally his immunity shots and hoped for the best. At the moment he
wondered why anyone would want to visit Khatka, let alone pay some
astronomical sum for the privilege. Though he could also guess that the
plush safari arranged for a paying client might be run on quite
different lines from their own present trek.
How _could_ a tracker find his way through this? With the compasses
playing crazy tricks into the bargain! Jellico knew that the compasses
were off, yet the captain had followed Asaki's lead without question, so
he must trust the Ranger's forest craft. But Dane wished they were clear
on the mountain side again.
Time had little meaning in that green gloom. But when they worked
through to meet rock walls again, the sun said it was well into the
after part of the day. They sheltered for a breather under the drooping
limbs of one of the last trees.
"Amazing!" Jellico, his torn arm in a sling across his chest, came
down-slope from the higher point where he had been using the distance
lenses. "We struck straight across and cut off about ten miles by that
jungle jog. Now I believe all that I've heard of your people's ability
to cross wilderness and not lose their built in 'riding beams,' sir.
With the compasses out, I'll admit I've been nourishing a healthy set of
doubts."
Asaki laughed. "Captain, I do not question your ability to flit from
world to world, or how you have learned to set up trade with strange
humans and non-humans alike. To each his own mystery. On Khatka every
boy before he becomes a man must learn to navigate the jungle, and with
no instruments to help him, only what lies in here." He touched his
thumb to his forehead. "So through generations we have developed our
homing instincts. Those who did not, also did not live to father others
who might have had the same lack. We are hounds who can run on a scent,
and we are migrators who have better than a compass within our own
bodies."
"Now we take to climbing again?" Tau surveyed the way before them
critically.
"Not at this hour. That sun on the upward slopes can cook a man's skin
were he to touch any rock. We wait...."
Waiting for the Khatkans was a chance to sleep. They curled up on their
light blankets. But the three spacemen were restless. Dane would have
liked to have taken off his boots, but feared he could not replace them;
and he could tell from the way the captain shifted his position that
Jellico was in pain too. Tau sat quietly, staring at nothing Dane could
see, unless it was a tall rock thrust out of the slope like a finger
pointing skyward.
"What color is that rock?"
Surprised, Dane gave the stony finger closer attention. To him it was
the same color as most of the other rocks, a weathered black which in
certain lights appeared to carry a brownish film.
"Black, or maybe dark brown?"
Tau looked past him to Jellico. The captain nodded.
"I'd agree with that."
Tau cupped his hands over his eyes for a moment and his lips moved as if
he were counting. Then he took his hands away and stared up-slope. Dane
watched the medic's eyelids blink slowly. "Nothing but black or brown?"
Tau pressed.
"No." Jellico supported his injured arm upon his knees, leaning forward,
as intent upon the designated rock as if he expected it to assume some
far more startling appearance.
"Queer," Tau said to himself, and then added briskly, "You're right, of
course. That sun can play tricks with one's eyes."
Dane continued to watch the finger rock. Maybe strong sunlight could
play tricks, but he could see nothing odd about that rough lump. And
since the captain asked no questions of Tau, he did not quite want to
either.
It was perhaps a half-hour later, and the medic and Jellico had both
succumbed to the quiet, the heat, and their own fatigue, when Dane did
sight a movement up-slope. The throbbing in his feet was worse now that
he had nothing to occupy his mind but his own troubles, and he was
sitting facing the finger rock.
Was that what Tau had seen earlier? That quick movement around the side
of the rough pillar? But if so, why the question of color? There it was
again! And now, centering all his attention on that one point, the
Terran picked out the outline of a head--a head grotesque enough to be
something conjured out of Lumbrilo's sorcerer's imagination. Had Dane
not seen its like among the tri-dee prints in Captain Jellico's
collection, he would have believed that his eyes were playing tricks.
It was a bullet-shaped head, embellished by two out-sized prick ears,
the hair-tufted pointed tips of which projected well above the top of
the skull. Round eyes were set deeply in sunken pits. The mouth was a
swinish snout from which lolled a purple tongue, though the rest of that
gargoyle head was very close in color to the rock against which it half
rested.
Dane had no doubts that the rock ape was spying upon the small camp.
Having heard tales of those semi-intelligent animals--the most
intelligent native creatures of Khatka--most of which were concerned
with their more malignant characteristics, Dane was alarmed. That lurker
could be an advance scout of some pack. And a pack of rock apes, if able
to surprise their prey, were formidable opponents.
Asaki stirred, sat up. And that round head above turned to follow the
Chief Ranger's every move.
"Above ... by the finger rock ... to the right...." Dane kept his voice
close to a whisper. When he saw the sudden constriction of muscle across
the Khatkan's bare shoulders, he knew that the other had heard and
understood.
Only, if Asaki had spotted the rock ape, he did not betray his
knowledge. The Khatkan got lithely to his feet. Then one of those feet
stirred Nymani into the instant wakefulness of the wilderness-trained
man.
Dane slid his hand about the bole of the tree and touched Jellico,
watched the captain's gray eyes open with a similar awareness. Asaki
picked up his needler. Weapon in hand, he whirled and fired almost in
one connected movement. It was the fastest shot Dane had ever seen.
The gargoyle head lifted away from the rock, and then turned to one side
as its body, somehow vaguely obscene in its resemblance to the human
form, fell away, to sprawl limply down-slope.
Though the dead rock ape had not had a chance to give tongue, there came
a cry from above, a coughing, deep-throated hawking. Down the steep
incline bumped a round white ball, bouncing past the tumbled carcass of
the ape, sailing up into the air, to strike and burst open a few feet
away.
"Back!" With one arm Asaki sent Jellico, his nearest neighbor, tumbling
back into the jungle. Then the Chief Ranger pumped a stream of needle
rays into the remains of the ball. A shrill, sweet humming arose as red
motes, vivid as molten copper in the sunlight, climbed on wings beating
too fast to be seen.
The debris of the nest smoked into nothing. But no needle ray could hope
to stop all the poisonous army issuing forth from it, fighting mad, to
seek any warm-blooded creature within scenting distance. The men threw
themselves into the brush, rolling in the thick mold of the vegetable
decay on the ground, rubbing its moist plaster over their bodies in
frantic haste.
Red-hot fire, far worse than any of the splinter torment Dane had
undergone the night before, pierced between his shoulders. He rolled on
his back, shoving himself along, both to kill the fire-wasp and coat the
sting with cooling mold. Cries of pain told him that he was not the only
sufferer, as all dug hands into the slimy stuff under them and slapped
it over their faces and heads.
"Apes...." That half shout got through to alert the men on the jungle
floor. True to their nature, the rock apes, now streaming downhill, were
coughing their challenges, advertising their attack. And it was only
that peculiarity of their species which saved their intended victims.
The apes came forward, partially erect, at a shambling run. The first
two, bulls close to six feet, went down under fire from Asaki's needler.
A third somehow escaped, swerving to the left, and came bounding at an
angle toward Dane. The Terran jerked free his force blade as that swine
snout split wide to show greenish tusks and the horrible stench of the
creature's body made him gasp.
A taloned paw clawed at him eagerly, slipped from his slime-covered body
just as he brought the force blade up. Foul breath coughed in his face
and he stumbled back as the heavy body of the ape crashed against him,
cut in half by the weapon. To Dane's sickened horror the paws still
clawed for him, the fangs still gnashed as he rolled free of the mangled
body and somehow got to his feet.
The roar of a blaster, of two blasters, drowned out the clamor of the
apes as Dane drew his fire ray, set his shoulders against a tree bole
and prepared to fight it out. He fired, saw a smaller and more nimble
enemy go down screeching. Then there were none left on their shaggy
feet, though some on the ground dragged themselves forward, still
striving to reach the men.
Dane slapped a fire-wasp from his leg. He was glad of the support of the
tree at his back as the smell of the ape's blood drenching him from
chest level down, and the mess on the ground, made his stomach churn.
When he could control his retching, he straightened. To his relief he
saw that all the others were on their feet, apparently unharmed. But
Tau, catching sight of the younger spaceman, gasped and started for him.
"Dane! What did they do?"
His junior laughed a little hysterically. "Not mine...." He swabbed with
a handful of grass at his bloodied breeches and blundered on into the
sunlight.
Nymani found them a foam-flecked stream below a miniature falls where
the swift current prevented the lurking of sand worms. They stripped
eagerly, cleaning first themselves and then their fouled clothing while
Tau tended the wealth of fire-wasp stings. There was little he could do
to relieve the swelling and pain, until Asaki produced a reed-like plant
which, chopped in sections, yielded a sticky purple liquid that dried on
the skin as a tar gum--the native remedy. So, glued and plastered, they
climbed away from the water and prepared to spend the night in a hollow
between two leaning rocks, certainly not as snug as the cave but a
fortress of sorts.
"And credit-happy space hoppers pay a fortune for an outing like this!"
Tau commented bitterly, hunching well forward so that a certain stung
portion of his anatomy would not come in contact with the rock beneath
him.
"Hardly for this," Jellico replied, and Dane saw Nymani grin
one-sidedly, his other cheek puffed and painted sticky purple.
"We do not always encounter apes and fire-wasps in the same day,"
supplied the Chief Ranger. "Also, guests at the preserves wear stass
belts."
Jellico snorted. "I don't think you'd get any repeats from your clients
otherwise! What do we meet tomorrow? A herd of graz on stampede, or
something even more subtle and deadly?"
Nymani got up and walked a little way from their rock shelter. He turned
down-slope and Dane saw his nostrils expand as they had when he had
investigated the cave.
"Something is dead," he said slowly. "A very large something. Or else--"
Asaki strode down to join his men. He gave a curt nod and Nymani skidded
on down the mountain side.
"What is it?" Jellico asked.
"It might be many things. There is one I hope it is not," was the Chief
Ranger's somewhat evasive reply. "I will hunt a labbla--there was fresh
spoor at the stream." He set off along their back trail to return a half
hour later, the body of his kill slung across one shoulder. He was
skinning it when Nymani trotted back.
"Well?"
"Death pit," supplied the Hunter.
"Poachers?" Jellico inquired.
Nymani nodded. Asaki continued his task, but there was a glint in his
dark eyes as he butchered with sure and expert strokes. Then he glanced
at the shadow extending beyond the rocks.
"I, too, would see," he told Nymani.
Jellico arose, and Dane, interested, followed. Some five minutes later
none of them needed the native keenness of smell to detect the presence
of some foulness ahead. The odor of corruption was almost tangible in
the sultry air. And it grew worse until they stood on the edge of a pit.
Dane retreated hurriedly. This was as bad as the battlefield of the rock
apes. But the captain and the two Khatkans stood calmly assessing the
slaughter left by the hide poachers.
"Glam, graz, hoodra," Jellico commented. "Tusks and hides--the full line
of trade stuff."
Asaki, his expression bleak, stepped back from the pit. "Day old
calves, old ones, females--all together. They kill wantonly and leave
those they do not choose to pelt."
"Trail--" Nymani pointed eastward. "Leads to Mygra swamp."
"The swamps!" Asaki was shaken. "They must be mad!"
"Or know more about this country than your men do," Jellico corrected.
"If poachers can enter Mygra, then we can follow!"
But not now, Dane protested silently. Certainly Asaki did not mean that
_they_ were to track outlaws into swamps the Khatkan had already labeled
unexplored death traps!
V
Sitting up, Dane stared wide-eyed into the dark. A handful of glowing
coals, guarded by rocks, was the center of their camp. He hunched up to
that hardly knowing why he moved. His hands were shaking, his skin damp
with sweat no heat produced. Yet, now that he was conscious of the
night, the Terran could not remember the nightmare from which he had
just awakened, though he was left with a growing apprehension which he
could not define. What prowled out there in that dark? Walked the
mountain side? Listened, spied and waited?
Dane half started to his feet as a form did move into the dim light of
the fire. Tau stood there, regarding him with sober intensity.
"Bad dream?"
The younger man admitted to that with a nod, partly against his will.
"Well, you aren't the only one. Remember any of it?"
With an effort, Dane looked away from the encircling dark. It was as if
the fear which had shaken him awake, now embodied, lurked right there.
"No." He rubbed sleep-smarting eyes.
"Neither did I," Tau remarked. "But both of 'em must have been
jet-powered."
"I suppose one could expect to have nightmares after yesterday." Dane
advanced the logical explanation, yet at the same time something deep
inside him denied every word of it. He had known nightmares before; none
of them had left this aftertaste. And he wanted no return of sleep
tonight. Reaching to the pile of wood he fed the fire as Tau settled
down beside him.
"There is something else...." the medic began, and then fell silent.
Dane did not press him. The younger man was too busy fighting a growing
desire to whirl and aim the fire ray into that darkness, to catch in its
withering blast that lurking thing he could _feel_ padded there, biding
its time.
Despite his efforts Dane did drowse again before morning, waking
unrefreshed, and, to his secret dismay, with no lessening of his odd
dislike for the country about them.
Asaki did not suggest that they trail the poachers into the morass of
Mygra. Instead the Chief Ranger was eager to press on in the opposite
direction, find a way over the range to the preserve where he could
assemble a punitive force to deal with the outlaws. So they began an
upward climb which took them away from the dank heat of the lowlands,
into the parched blaze of the sunbaked ledges above.
The sun was bright, far too bright, and there were few shadows left. Yet
Dane, stopping to drink sparingly from his canteen, could not lose that
sense of eyes upon him, of being tracked. Rock apes? Cunning as those
beasts were, it was against their nature to trail in utter silence, to
be able to carry through a long-term project. Lion, perhaps?
He noted that Nymani and Asaki took turns at rear guard today, and that
each was alert. Yet, oddly enough, none of them mentioned the uneasiness
they must all share.
They had a dry climb, finding no mountain stream to renew their water
supply. All being experienced in wilderness travel, they made a mouthful
of liquid go a long way. When the party halted slightly before midday,
canteens were still half full.
"_Haugh!_"
They jerked up, hands on weapons. A rock ape, its hideous body clearly
seen here, capered, coughed, spat. Asaki fired from the hip and the
thing screeched, clawed at its chest where the dark blood spewed out,
and raced for them. Nymani cut the beast down and they waited tensely
for the attack of the thing's tribe, which should have followed the
abortive lunge on the part of their scout. But there was
nothing--neither sound nor movement.
What did follow froze them all momentarily. That mangled body began to
move again, drew itself together, crawled toward them. Dane knew that it
was impossible that the creature could live with such wounds. Yet the
beast advanced, its head lolling on its hunched shoulders so that the
eyes were turned blindly up to the full glare of the sun, while it
crawled to reach the man it could not see.
"Demon!" Nymani dropped his needler, shrank back against the rocks.
As the thing advanced, before their eyes the impossible happened. Those
gaping wounds closed, the head straightened on the almost invisible
neck, the eyes glared once more with life, and slaver dripped from the
swine snout.
Jellico caught up the needler Nymani had dropped. With a coolness Dane
envied, the captain shot. And for the second time the rock ape
collapsed, torn to ribbons.
Nymani screamed, and Dane tried to choke back his own cry of horrified
protest. The dead thing put on life for the second time, crawled, got
somehow to its feet, healed itself, and came on. Asaki, his face
greenish-pale, stepped out stiffly as if each step he took was forced by
torture. He had dropped his needler. Now he caught up a rock as large as
his own head, raised it high with arms on which the muscles stood out
like ropes. He hurled the stone, and Dane heard as well as saw the
missile go home. The rock ape fell for the third time.
When one of those taloned paws began to move again, Nymani broke. He
ran, his screams echoing thinly in the air, as the thing lurched up, the
gory mess of its head weaving about. If his feet would have obeyed him,
Dane might have followed the Khatkan. As it was, he drew his ray and
aimed it at that shambling thing. Tau struck up the barrel.
The medic's face was livid; there was the same horror in his eyes. But
he moved out to front that monster.
A spot of shadow coalesced on the ground, deepened in hue, took on
substance. Crouched low facing the rock ape, its haunches quivering for
a deadly spring, narrowed green eyes holding on its prey, was a black
leopard.