"Never mind now. Come on."
He started to drag her toward the ramp that led down from the platform.
She fought him. She was getting hysterical, and he didn't blame her.
The darkbird followed along behind. When they reached the level, Susan
planted her feet mulishly and refused to go any farther.
"I don't dare leave you alone out here," he said desperately. "Come
along to the ship and the captain will see that you get back safely--"
The darkbird circled and dived at Susan. She bolted. It dived at
Durham. He bolted too, off to the right, to the edge of the apron,
where he caught up with Susan again. They ran between the storage
sheds, onto a spur of the freight-belt system. It was still now, not
carrying any freight. They tried to run across it to the other side,
but the darkbird drove them back. It was immediately apparent, of
course, that the thing was herding them. He shouted at it to let Susan
alone, but it did not pay any attention to him. And he thought, it
wants us to go somewhere, so it won't knock us out. Maybe? It's worth a
try.
He took Susan and jumped off the belt and ran.
The darkbird touched him, ever so gently. He tried to yell, gave up,
and tottered back where it wanted him to go, with every nerve in him
pulled taut and twangling in a horrible half-pleasurable fashion that
made his legs and arms move unnaturally, as though he were dancing. The
darkbird followed, once again placid and unconcerned.
They went along the belt for some distance. It was limber, sagging a
bit between the giant rollers, and it boomed under their feet with a
sharp slapping sound. Susan stumbled so often he picked her up and
carried her. There was nobody to call to, nobody to ask for help. The
towering ships were far away.
The darkbird nudged him again at last, out across a landing apron where
a very strange looking ship stood in the solitary majesty of impending
take-off. The flood lights were blinking at twenty-second intervals,
visual warning to stand clear, and Durham ran staggering as through a
strobo-scopic nightmare, with the white-faced girl in his arms.
Dark, light. Black, bright. A haze of exhaustion swam before his eyes.
Things moved in it, jerky shapes in an old film, in an antique penny
peep show. Day, night. Dark, bright. The things moved closer, unhuman
things clad in fantastic pressure suits. Durham screamed.
He tried to run again, and the darkbird touched him. Once more there
was the unbearable twitching of the nerves and he danced in the black,
bright, day, night. He danced into a large box that was waiting for
him, and he kept going until he struck the end wall of hard metal. He
turned then, and saw the very thick door go sighing shut and the dogs
go slipping into place snick-snick one after the other, and it was too
late even to try to get out again.
He set Susan down as gently as he could and sank down beside her. The
floor moved up under him sharply. There was a bonging and clattering
of tackle overhead, and then a sickening sidewise lurch. The on-off
pattern of the light changed outside the two round windows that were in
the box. It became a steady green, in which his hands showed like two
sickly-white butterflies on his knees. There were more noises, hollow
and far away, and then a second lurch, a lift, a drop, and after that
a larger motion encompassing the box and the entire locus in which it
stood.
Durham put his face in his hands and gave up.
V
Susan was screaming. Let me out, let me out. She was pounding on
something. Durham started up. He must have slept or passed out. The box
was perfectly still now. There was no sense of motion. But he could
tell by the change in gravity that the ship was in space.
Susan was by one of the windows. She was pounding on it with her
favorite implement, the heel of her shoe. Durham went to her and
glanced out. Cold sweat broke out on him, and he grabbed her hand.
"Stop it! Are you crazy?" He wrenched the shoe from her and threw it
across the small space of the box. Then he felt of the glass, peering
at it, frantic lest she should have cracked it.
"I'm going to get out," said Susan grimly, and groped around for
something heavier.
"Look." He shook her and turned her face to the window. "Do you see
that air out there?"
The box now stood in a large empty hold. He could see the curve of the
ship's hull, ribbed with tremendous struts of steel, and a deck of
metal plates, glistening in the green light. _Green_ light? Earth ships
have a yellow-white type light, the kind that the sun gives off. Well,
yes--but suppose that the sun was green?
Nanta Dik circles a green star.
So does Senya Dik. Those creatures outside the ship were anything but
humanoid. Jubb's darkbird herded us in here. Easy. Now we know.
"What about the air?" asked Susan. "Let go of me."
"It's poisonous. Can't you tell by looking at it?" It rolled and
roiled and sluggishly shifted in vapors of thick chartreuse and vivid
green. "And don't you remember, they were wearing pressure suits? They
couldn't live in our atmosphere. We surely couldn't live in theirs."
There was no answer.
"Susan. Susan?"
"I want to go home," she said, and began to cry.
"There now, Susie. Take it--"
"Don't call me Susie!"
"All right, but take it easy. I'll find out what the situation is and
then I'll--"
"You'll what? You'll make a mess of things just like you always have.
You'll get me into more trouble, just like you got me into this. You're
no good, Lloyd, and I wish I'd never seen you. I wish I'd never come to
say good-bye!" She rushed to the window and began to pound on it again,
this time with her fists.
Durham hauled her away and shook her until her jaw rattled together.
"I'm sorry you came too," he said savagely. "You're the last person in
the galaxy I'd pick to be in trouble with. A damned spoiled female with
no honesty, no courage, no nothing but your father's position to trade
on." He wrapped his arms tight around her. "Hell, this is no time to be
quarrelling. Let's both keep our mouths shut. Come on, honey, we're not
dead yet."
She choked a little, and stood trembling against him. Then she said,
"I think I fell over a chair a while ago. Maybe there's a lamp. Let's
look."
The green light was dim, but their eyes were used to it. They found a
lamp and turned it on. The box was flooded with a clear white glare,
very grateful to Earthly senses. Durham looked around and said slowly,
"I'll be damned."
The box was about the size of a small room. It had in it an armchair,
a bunk, compact cupboards and lockers, a sink and hotplate, and a
curtained-off corner with a sanitary device. Durham turned on one of
the sink taps. Water came out. He turned it off and went and sat down
in the armchair.
"I'm damned," he said again.
"Freezer," said Susan, looking into things. "Food concentrates. Pots
and pans. Blanket. Change of clothes--all men's. Booze, two bottles of
it. Rack of microbooks. Somebody went to a lot of trouble."
"Yes."
"Pretty comfortable. Everything you need, all self-contained."
"Uh."
"But Lloyd--it's only for one."
He said dismally, "We'll take turns on the bunk." But it wasn't the
bunk that worried him. He went and looked out of the other window. By
craning his head he could see an assembly of storage tanks, pressure
tanks, pumps, purifiers, blower units, all tightly sealed against any
admixture of Senyan air. That, too, was only for one. A most ghastly
claustrophobia came over Durham, and for a moment he saw Susan, not as
a spoiled and pretty girl, but as his rival for the oxygen that was
life.