Was it the pain in his head that made everything seem to sway?
Or was it the swaying that made his head hurt?
Taranto opened his eyes slowly. For two or three minutes, in the
darkness, he did not understand what he saw.
Gradually, comprehension developed. He was on a litter again, and the
bearers were descending a rough track into a shallow valley. There was
no sign of the city or of any other landmark even vaguely familiar.
Jagged rocks formed a ridge to his left, curving around to enclose the
depression. Other rocky buttes, he saw through slitted eyes, projected
from the barren rubble of the Valley floor. There seemed to be little
sand, unless it had blown down into the lower areas.
Cautiously, letting his head roll with the lurching motion of the
bearers, he learned that another group was ahead. He thought they must
be guarding Meyers. The red-uniformed officer marched just preceding
Taranto's litter. That meant that there must be two soldiers behind,
out of his view.
_What now?_ he asked himself. _It was a good try, but it didn't work
out._
It seemed hopeless to attempt anything further until he found out where
he was. Nor would it do any harm to learn _how_ he was--they must have
crowned him beautifully. He tried to move his arms and legs slightly
without being obviously restless. Nothing felt broken. There was just
the sore throbbing behind his left ear.
Were they taking him and Meyers further into the desert, to make sure
they could properly be reported dead? Or was the party on its way back
to the city?
Taranto moved about stealthily, as the litter heaved from side to
side and bounced about with the efforts of his bearers to negotiate
outcroppings of rock. He was surprised that his arms and legs were not
tied. He wondered how long he had been out cold. Perhaps the Syssokans
believed he really was dead from that spear across the skull.
_You shouldn't have underestimated that guy just because you dropped
him a few times_, he told himself. _You caught on to the difference,
but he learned it from you._
From ahead and lower on the path came voices. There was a brisk breeze,
but Taranto thought he could recognize Meyers giving vent to an
outraged whine.
_Wonder how much of a grudge they'll hold?_ he thought. _Some of them
must be lumped up pretty good._
He was beginning to locate a number of scrapes and bruises on his own
sturdy frame. He wondered if it might be best to take things easy until
they reached either their desert destination or the area outside the
city, according to which way they were headed, and then offer to bribe
the officer in charge. It would probably be too risky: he would have
to rely on large promises, and they had already caught him in a crude
whopper. Whatever the case, it would be unwise to open negotiations
without finding out what the Syssokan commander looked like. Taranto
seemed to recall pasting the fellow pretty thoroughly.
He caught a few words of Terran, blown back to him by a random gust.
Meyers was complaining about being too tired to walk any farther. It
did not sound as though he were making his point.
_Of course!_ Taranto realized. _I must be in his stretcher. Mine was
busted. Now the slob will put it on me for making him bump his rump
along this trail!_
The image was not without humor. Contemplating it gave Taranto a
momentary satisfaction.
Well, they knew Meyers was alive, even if they might not be sure about
Taranto himself. Perhaps they were merely saving both Terrans for a
longer jail term. Taranto hoped that the Syssokans had nothing more
unpleasant in mind. The remarks he had used earlier in his attempt to
bluff the officer could be used for inimical purposes by anyone who
cared to point out that Syssokan knowledge of Terran physiology was
scanty. Then what?
Taranto decided that he would be foolish to worry along that line at
the present. What he needed was an idea for getting loose again. He
speculated for a few minutes upon his chances of backtracking to the
scene of his attempt at escape. Somewhere near there, in whichever
direction it was, a spaceship should be landing.
_If they ain't been and gone already_, he thought.
In his supine position on the stretcher, he was able to see the sky
without moving. That was why the distant trail of light was visible to
him for some moments before any of the Syssokans could notice it.
_I can't wait it out after all_, he realized.
The ship would be heard presently, and the flare of its braking rockets
would arouse the guards. Taranto peeked around again and saw that they
were nearing the foot of the slope. Following the natural motion of
the bearers, he let himself roll a little too far each time the litter
swayed. The Syssokans struggled to compensate while scrabbling for
safe footholds on the hard, slippery surface.
In the end, one of them slipped. The litter crashed down. Taranto added
a twist to the natural force of gravity, so that he rolled downhill.
The fallen bearer picked himself up, mumbling something in Syssokan
that sounded remarkably belligerent. One of the others moved to recover
the stretcher. Taranto kept on rolling.
At the first yell, he gave up the pretense and regained his feet with a
lithe bound. For the next sixty seconds, he needed every last smidgin
of concentration to escape taking a fatal spill on the sloping rocks.
Hurtling downward in great leaps, he was forced to hurdle large rocks
because his velocity prevented him from changing course by even a foot.
Once he skidded, thinking his time had come. Near the bottom, where the
incline curved to meet the horizontal, he did go down, ploughing up a
spatter of loose chips and pebbles.
He was up and running again without quite knowing how. A dark shape
loomed up before him, a rock twice his height. Before passing it, he
took the chance of looking back.
The litter party was in a state of confusion. The officer and two
soldiers were bounding after him, slanting away on a more reasonable
path. One Syssokan was still in the process of picking himself up, and
most of the others were either milling about or just beginning to heed
their leader's shouts to follow Taranto.
The intention of yelling to Meyers flashed across his mind but he
dismissed it as being useless. A hasty glance in the opposite direction
showed him the fire trail settling behind another ridge to his right
front. The valley bore a certain resemblance to a meteor crater.
Taranto sprinted past the huge rock and bore right toward the distant
ridge. He would try to locate the ship if and when he reached the
ridge. The immediate necessity was to keep out of the clutches of the
burial party.
Running in the starlit darkness was risky, as he soon found. The ground
was strewn with occasional patches of loose stone, traps of nature
suitable for tripping the unwary or causing a sprain. The only thing
that kept Taranto reckless was the sounds of pursuit behind him.
He had gone about two hundred yards when he realized that some of the
rock-scattering noises came from his right more than from behind. The
Syssokan were better runners than he, and used to the local terrain
besides. He could not tell whether they had seen the trail of the
spaceship or, if so, whether they connected it with him.
_But they know enough to head me off, whichever way I go_, he thought.
He came unexpectedly to a patch of sand, and swore as he felt his speed
slacken. A desperate glance over his shoulder revealed no pursuers,
though he knew they were there somewhere. He could see two runners who
had flanked him on the right fifty yards off; and these forced him into
bearing away from his desired course.
Instead of passing to the right of a tall outcropping of rock ahead, he
turned left. It took him farther from the direction of the spaceship,
but there was no help for it. He floundered over a low dune of sand and
then was out of it and running on flat ground. He circled to the left
of the hill, hearing a howl from the rear.
_Must have seen me against the open valley_, thought Taranto. _They
sound closer than I like._
He ran on, scanning the shadowed rocks towering over him for a place to
climb. It was a foregone conclusion that the two flankers would be on
the lookout for him as he came around the hill.
At last he thought he saw a way up, a sloping ledge leading to a
small plateau before the rock reared higher in a sheer cliff. Taranto
scrambled over a waist-high boulder and made for the opening. Up
he went, on hands and toes. The rock was ridged, but in the wrong
direction, and he slipped to hands and knees twice before he was up.
He slowed to a quick walk as he reached the level expanse. It was ten
or twelve feet above the valley floor and curved off to the right
around the base of the cliff. Taranto was panting by now, but his main
reason for slowing was that he wanted to make less noise until he
spotted the two Syssokans he expected to meet.
The broad ledge he was following dipped, rose a few feet, and dipped
again to less than ten feet above the level ground. Taranto flattened
himself suddenly.
The two Syssokans came loping along the shadowy edge of the
outcropping, spears at the ready. From around the cliff sounded a call.
The first soldier threw back his head to answer. As the howl left
his throat, and masked the noise of the Terran's scrambling, Taranto
launched himself upon the back of the second.
They went down with a thump upon hard rocks. Taranto, saving his ribs
from being caved in by fending himself off from a jagged rock with his
forearm, kicked out and caught the downed Syssokan in the belly. As the
soldier subsided, the Terran snatched up the spear and rose to face
the other one.
It had all gone so fast that the leader was just turning back. Perhaps
he thought merely that his companion had fallen, but the stocky
silhouette of the spacer disabused him of that idea. He advanced with
the point of his spear weaving about menacingly.
"You think you're good with that stick, eh?" growled Taranto. "Well,
try this for something different!"
Gripping his spear near the head, he swung the heavier butt like a bat,
putting as much power into it as he could. It was crude, but he knew
better than to try to match skills with a soldier trained to the use of
the weapon.
The butt cracked resoundingly against the shaft of the Syssokan's
spear, tearing it from the grip of his leading hand. Taranto's own
hands were numbed by the shock. He dropped his spear and slid inside
the Syssokan's one-handed grip before it could be reinforced. The feint
of a left hook to the belly made the soldier relinquish his weapon
completely and grapple with the spacer.
Taranto found his left arm entwined with the right of the Syssokan. He
tried twice to punch to the body with his free hand but was smothered.
Before he could think of it himself, the Syssokan stamped hard upon his
toes.
"Bastard!" spat the spacer.
He butted, successfully but profitlessly. He rabbit-punched twice with
his right hand, reaching around under the soldier's armpit. Only when
he gouged at a large, black eye did the defending arm come up.
Taranto set his feet and banged three times to the midsection, getting
plenty of body twist into his motion.
He found himself holding a very limp Syssokan, who slid down as the
spacer stepped back.
Taranto sucked in a gasping breath. He staggered aside to pick up the
spears, feeling better now that he was armed, no matter how primitively.
He had hardly straightened up when he saw the officer round the edge
of the little butte, a mere fifty feet away. The Syssokan hesitated at
the sight of the Terran standing over two of his soldiers, and Taranto
threw one of the spears.
The trouble was that he did not know how to handle one. A spear, after
all, was not standard equipment on a spaceship. The point twisted away
from the target, and much of the force went into a slow spin. The
officer hissed a disdainful comment and caught the weapon out of the
air with one hand.
Taranto stooped for a rock, which he hurled with more effect. It
shattered with a fine crack against the cliff near enough to the
Syssokan to make him throw himself behind a boulder for cover. Taranto
left him in the middle of a yell to his soldiers and sprinted off into
the open valley.
Carrying the spear did not help matters much, but he thought the
Syssokans might regard it as a more dangerous deterrent than he knew
it to be in his untrained hands. The next time he looked around, he
saw that he could rejoice in a splendid lead of two hundred yards. On
the other hand, the officer now had a numerous group with him, and
would probably get organized at last. Taranto slowed to a jog, to save
himself against the time when they should begin to catch up.
"Taranto!" said a small voice.
He broke automatically into a dead run, without even looking around.
"Wait, Taranto!" called the little voice. "Look up, for the spy-eye!"
The spacer slowed as understanding burst upon him. He looked back and
saw a spark of light gaining on him. It arrived and hovered over his
head.
"It may still work," the voice informed him. "The ship is down. I
told them what happened, and they're putting up a helicopter. Where's
Meyers?"
"I don't know," said Taranto. "Back on the ridge, I guess. Look, I
can't just stand here until that 'copter comes. I'll be a pincushion."
"Head for that hill ahead about a quarter-mile," said the voice from
the little flyer. "I'll guide them there."
The Syssokans were running now, spreading out in a well-drilled manner.
Taranto boosted himself into high speed again.
The hill ahead was more toward the center of the valley. If the
pursuers were aware of some connection between his flight and the
position of the spaceship, they would be satisfied to have him heading
away from the ridge enclosing the valley. Taranto hoped that they would
not worry enough to turn on a burst of speed, for he was convinced that
they could outrun him.
He was right--he reached the steep slopes of the hill with a bare fifty
yards left of his lead, and he was on the point of foundering at that.
His knees buckled for an instant as he hit the first rise, and he saved
himself from pitching on his face only by thrusting out the butt of the
spear he carried.
Somehow, he made it another fifty feet up the slope, hearing the voice
beside his ear say, "To the right, Taranto! Head for that flat spot!
Here comes the helicopter."
He wiped salty sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand and
looked up. A large, quietly whirring shape shadowed the stars. It
dropped rapidly toward him as a howl broke out behind him.
Taranto took the spear in both hands, holding it at one end, and sent
it whirling end over end at the closing Syssokans. The whole center of
the group dropped flat to let it swish over their heads.
Before they could rise, the helicopter reached Taranto. It came down
so fast it bounced against the ground. Someone held out a hand to
Taranto and yelled to him to jump. He was hauled into an open cockpit.
Someone took a deathgrip on the waistband of his pants and he felt the
helicopter climb.
He wiggled around until he could get his knees under him. There were
two spacers in the cockpit of what was obviously an auxiliary craft
from a spaceship. One of them, a very long-eared type with a narrow
head, looked as if he had been born in some stellar colony. The other
had a broad, bland face of an oriental Terran.
"Where is the other one?" asked the latter.
Taranto crept between the seats to which they were strapped before
answering, for there were only chains at the open sides. He got his
bearings, and directed the long-eared pilot to the ridge where he had
rolled out of the litter.
It nearly broke his heart to see them reach it in less than a minute.
"There may be guards with him," he warned. "Maybe he took off too."
"We shall see," said the broad-faced spacer.
He ran a spotlight along the ridge, stopped, and brought it back to
bear upon a lonely figure. Meyers stood up and waved. No Syssokan was
in sight; the officer must have taken them all with him.
_He knew what he was doing_, thought Taranto. _The guy's still here._
The helicopter eased down to hover over a large rock. Meyers climbed
laboriously upon it and was hauled aboard. Taranto squeezed himself
back behind the seats to make room.
"It's about time you got here," puffed Meyers. "I'm worn out."
Taranto said nothing as the craft rose in the air and swooped off
toward the spaceship. Someday, Meyers would ask how he had gotten away
from the Syssokans. When it happened, Taranto swore to himself, he
would _show_ the slob.