At night, on guard, Hague saw a thousand horrors peopling the Stygian
forest murk; but when he flashed his lightpak into darkness there was
nothing. He wondered how long he could stand the waiting, when he would
crack as Supply Sergeant Didrickson had, and his comrades would blast
him down with explosive bullets. He should be like Brian, hard and
sure, and always doing the right thing, he decided. He'd come out of
OCS Gunnery School, trained briefly in the newly-formed U.S. Rocket
Service. Then the expedition to Venus--it was a fifty-fifty chance they
said, and out of all the volunteers he'd been picked. And when the
first expedition was ready to blast off from the Base Camp on Venus,
he'd been picked again. Why, he cursed despairingly? Sure, he wanted
to come, but how could his commanders have had faith in him, when he
didn't know himself if he could continue to hold out.
Sounds on the trail sent his carbine automatically to ready, and he
called a strained, "Halt."
"Okay, Hague. It's Clark and Arndt."
The wiry little navigation officer, and lean, scraggy Geologist Arndt,
the latter's arm still in a sling, came into the glow of Hague's
lightpak.
"Any more horns or arrows?" Clark's voice sounded tight, and repressed;
Hague reflected that perhaps the strain was getting him too.
"No, but Bucci is getting worse. Can't you carry him on the cart?"
"Hague, I've told you twenty times. That cart is full and breaking down
now. Get it through your head that it's no longer individual men we can
think of now, but the entire party. If they can't march, they must be
left, or all of us may die!" His voice was savage, and when he tried to
light a cigarette his hand shook. "All right. It's murder, and I don't
like it any better than you do."
"How are we doing? What's the over-all picture?" Both of the officers
tried to smile a little at the memory of that pompous little phrase,
favorite of a windbag they'd served under.
"Not good. Twenty-two of us now."
"Hirooka thinks we may be within radio range of Base soon," he
continued more hopefully. "With this interference, we can't tell,
though."
They talked a little longer, Arndt gave the gunnery officer a
food-and-medical supply packet, and Hague's visitors became two bobbing
glows of light that vanished down the trail.
A soul crushing weight of days passed while they strained forward
through mud and green gloom, like men walking on a forest sea
bottom. Then it was a cool dawn, and a tugging at his boot awoke the
Lieutenant. Hurd, his face a strained mask, was peering into the
officer's small shelter tent and jerking at his leg.
"Get awake, Lieutenant. I think they're here."
Hague struggled hard to blink off the exhausted sleep he'd been in.
"Listen, Lieutenant, one of them horns has been blowing. It's right
here. Between us and the main party."
"Okay." Hague rolled swiftly from the tent as Hurd awoke the men. Hague
moved swiftly to each.
"Brian, you handle the gun. Bucci, loader. Crosse, charger. Bormann,
cover our right; Hurd the left. I'll watch the trail ahead."
Brian and Crosse worked swiftly and quietly with the lethal efficiency
that had made them crack gunners at Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Bucci
lay motionless at the ammunition box, but his eyes were bright, and he
didn't seem to mind his feverish, swollen leg. The Sergeant and Crosse
slewed the pneumatic gun to cover their back trail, and fell into
position beside the gleaming grey tube. Hague, Bormann and Hurd moved
quickly at striking tents and rolling packs, their rifles ready at hand.
Hague had forgotten his fears and the self-doubt, the feeling that he
had no business ordering men like Sergeant Brian, and Hurd and Bormann.
They were swallowed in intense expectancy as he lay watching the dawn
fog that obscured like thick smoke the trail that led to Clark's party
and the whippet tank.
He peered back over his shoulder for a moment. Brian, Bucci, and
Crosse, mud-stained backs toward him, were checking the gun and
murmuring soft comments. Bormann looked at the officer, grinned
tightly, and pointed at Helen perched on his shoulder. His lips
carefully framed the words, "Be a pushover, Helen brings luck."
The little bird peered up into Bormann's old-young face, and Hague,
trying to grin back, hoped he looked confident. Hurd lay on the other
side of the trail, his back to Bormann, peering over his rifle barrel,
bearded jaws rhythmically working a cud of tobacco he'd salvaged
somewhere, and Hague suddenly thought he must have been saving it for
the finish.
Hague looked back into the green light beginning to penetrate the trail
fog, changing it into a glowing mass--then thought he saw a movement.
Up the trail, the whippet tank's motor caught with a roar, and he heard
Whittaker traversing the battered tank's turret. The turret gun boomed
flatly, and a shell burst somewhere in the forest darkness to Hague's
right.
Then there was a gobbling yell and gray man-like figures poured out
onto the trail. Hague set his sights on them, the black sight-blade
silhouetting sharply in the glowing fog. He set them on a running
figure, and squeezed his trigger, then again, and again, as new targets
came. Sharp reports ran crackling among the great trees. Sharp screams
came, and a whistling sound overhead that he knew were blowgun arrows.
The pneumatic gun sputtered behind him, and Bormann's and Hurd's rifles
thudded in the growing roar.
[Illustration: _With a gobbling yell, gray, man-like figures came
leaping among them._]
Blue flashes and explosive bullets made fantastic flares back in the
forest shadows; and suddenly a knot of man-shapes were running toward
him through the fog. Hague picked out one in the glowing mist, fired,
another, fired. Gobbling yells were around him, and he shot toward them
through the fog, at point-blank range. A thing rose up beside him, and
Hague yelled with murderous fury, and drove his belt knife up into grey
leather skin. Something burned his shoulder as he rolled aside and
fired at the dark form standing over him with a poised, barbed spear.
The blue-white flash was blinding, and he cursed and leaped up.
There was nothing more. Scattered shots, and the forest lay quiet
again. After that shot at point-blank range, Hague's vision had blacked
out.
"Any one else need first aid?" he called, and tried to keep his voice
firm. When there was silence, he said, "Hurd, lead me to the tank."