_"Have you ever seen a dead mahute, or even one
that was ill? Or anything that looks like a
graveyard?" Tang and Lutscher knew not the
answer ... but maybe Bunzo, the clober, knew._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories September 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sometime during the one hundred and seventh day out of Gascol 11 the
hourly signal of the tracer beam changed from a tired burp to a sharp
ping. Sammy Tang knew then that Lutscher had landed and that the
long chase was nearing its end. Over three years on the trail of the
system's most wanted criminal, and now they would meet for the first
time.
Tang had dogged his quarry's flight from the first moment his ship's
beam had picked up its trace. During refueling stops on a dozen worlds
he had sometimes been weeks behind, sometimes only hours, but there had
been never a glimpse of Lutscher or his ship.
The chase had led, first, across, and then down the long arm of the
spiral nebula known as the Milky Way, through the portion occupied by
ever expanding humanity, and beyond.
Lutscher made his final stop for fuel on Gascol 11, the last occupied
world at the tip of the arm. When Tang reached there Lutscher had
gone--out into the blackness of deep space.
That way, Tang knew, led to suicide, for in that direction lay nothing
until the next galaxy, M. 31, and Lutscher had neither the fuel nor the
years of life to reach there. Tang followed. In the beginning he had
expected that Lutscher's flight would turn out to be only an elusive
tactic, and that he would attempt to double back in a dodging curve.
But Tang had underrated his man.
The second week out his ship entered a dust region, or dark nebula,
and when it emerged, the third week, he could see ahead a spot of
brightness that marked an island star cloud. His respect for Lutscher's
ingenuity and resourcefulness went up several points.
Tang spent the next several hours studying his instrument board and
making calculations. At the end his forehead was sprinkled with fine
drops of perspiration. He had enough fuel to reach the star cloud, but
not enough to return! He kept the ship steady on its beam.
The star cloud expanded during the following days into three star
systems--one with observable planets--and on one of them Lutscher had
landed.
Tang timed his landing to come in during the late daylight. His landing
flares would draw attention during the dark hours, and any interval
earlier in the day would give the possible inhabitants of this world a
better opportunity to investigate before he was ready for them.
He had only time enough to observe that the topography of the planet
was mostly stone and sand, with occasional patches of vegetation--and
that Lutscher's ship rested less than a hundred yards from his
own--before he was enveloped in the swift fall of darkness.
He wasted no time in preparing his ship for possible contingencies.
The first button he pressed on a small wall panel activated the
electric eye and automatic guns in the elevated nose of the ship. The
second set in motion the instruments, in the blister at the base of the
ship, that tested the planet's atmosphere, gravity, moisture content,
and temperature. There was nothing more he could do until daylight.
Pulling down his sleeping board he kicked off his shoes and rested
his shoulders against the wall of the compartment. He lit a cigar and
seemed thoroughly preoccupied with the smoke that curled up and through
the air vents.
Even being so near the completion of his task brought Tang no feeling
of elation or triumph. The men of his profession came from many worlds
but their calling had shaped them into a common mold. The internal
discipline that best fitted them to spend long months of solitude in
their lonely space ships left them without the high rises or low
valleys of emotion experienced by most men. If his mission failed Tang
would waste no energy in purposeless regret or worry; if it succeeded
his only sensation would be satisfaction.
His cigar finished he straightened his land-muscled form on the
sleeping pad and rested his head on his folded hands. When the lights
went out three minutes later he was sleeping dreamlessly.
* * * * *
Tang prepared himself a substantial breakfast the next morning, and not
until he had leisurely consumed it did he check his instruments. He was
not too surprised when he found the planet's atmosphere entirely safe
for human habitation.
Whatever else might be said about Lutscher he was not stupid. There had
been no blind chance involved when he headed this way. The star area
was uncharted but Lutscher had either been here before or had learned
about it from someone who had.
The planet's temperature, Tang found, ranged from a low of 72
degrees Fahrenheit during the night to a present reading of 78. The
atmosphere's only deviation from Earth-normal was a slightly higher
oxygen content. Gravity tested 1.29 Gs. A human could function here
quite efficiently.
Unhurriedly Tang buckled on a compact electric pistol and a stout
knife. He hooked a canteen of water on his belt, and slipped a packet
of concentrated food tablets into his shirt pocket. Throwing the sling
of his field glasses over his shoulder, he was ready to leave.
He pulled down the port door release and it slid open a bare six inches
and stopped with a dull click. It was locked and only a force powerful
enough to spring the metal could open it wider until he was ready. He
was certain that no moving object had approached nearer the ship than
eighty-five feet during the night or the firing of the guns in the nose
would have warned him, but the designers of the ship had built it for
men who took chances only when necessary.
Dull daylight came in through the port opening. Outside the ship
something moved.
Tang studied the moving something intently, but it was too far away to
be seen clearly. From where he stood it appeared to be a huge insect.
He pressed the lock release all the way down and stepped into the
opening left by the sliding door.
Slipping his field glasses from their case he put them to his eyes.
The creature he had seen stood gazing back at him. It was definitely
an insect-type, except that it had only four limbs, and stood almost
as tall as a man. Its limbs and body were armored and thin, reminding
him of the cartoons he had seen of stick-men. Squatting upright on two
large legs it stood motionless, holding its smaller upper limbs bent
clawlike at its sides. Sunlight glinted from two eye-lens clusters on
each side of its thin sharp head. It resembled a giant praying-mantis.
For several long minutes Tang studied the insect but it made no further
movement. He lowered his glasses and sat down in the doorway with his
legs hanging outside, making himself plainly visible to his observer.
He suspected that it was not a member of the planet's dominant species,
but he waited to see how it would react to him. That reaction would be
the best demonstration of its intelligence.
After a wait of over fifteen minutes the creature turned slowly and
hopped away. It traveled in long awkward jumps much like an Earth
grasshopper, its progress aided by short wings which Tang noted then
for the first time. It entered a dense copse of brush that grew in
large rings like the practice exercises in a schoolboy's penmanship
book.
Tang rested in the doorway for a good hour after the insect had
disappeared before he stepped to the ground. He looked for the planet's
sun but the sky was thick with clouds that seemed not to move. He
walked around the ship. There was nothing of immediate interest within
sight. Locking the port door he walked toward Lutscher's ship.
His progress became slower as he neared his goal. Whether or not
Lutscher was inside he would probably have his guns set for intruders.
True, most watch guns when activated gave a warning shot overhead
or into the ground, before concentrating on an encroacher, but with
a criminal a man never knew what to expect. And Lutscher could be
ruthless. However, he reached the ship without challenge.
Picking up a shiny bit of crystal at his feet he rapped on the vessel's
metal skin, and waited. He knew the sound would be heard inside, while
his voice probably would not. He repeated the rapping several times
before he decided that Lutscher was not inside. Shrugging his shoulders
he turned away. His next move would be to investigate the brushland
into which the stick-insect had disappeared.
Once there he found that the openings he had noted were not ringlets,
as they had appeared through his glasses. Rather they were formed by
branches growing up from large flat limbs lying on the ground. The
branches were bent inward like barrel staves and gave the limbs the
appearance of huge skeleton torsos, with the ribs pointed upward. Small
finger-like roots reached from the limbs and buried themselves in the
sandy soil.
Progress through the woods, Tang soon found, was possible only by
walking through the tunnels made by the branches. Traveling diagonally
was slow, tortuous work, while walking alongside the limbs was
impossible--they grew too close together. However, the branches of the
tunnel only met well above his head, and the limbs themselves offered a
hard walking surface. He made good progress.
The temperature had gone up several degrees since morning and Tang
was soon perspiring freely. The planet's greater gravity pull brought
a loginess to his limbs, but this was compensated for by a strange
feeling of well-being. The feeling, he surmised, was caused by the high
oxygen content of the air he was breathing.
He walked until he came to the branch tunnel's open end and stepped out
into the planet's murky sunlight. Ahead loomed the trunk of a tree,
a huge trunk probably thirty feet in diameter. He noted now that the
large limbs that ran along the ground grew from this trunk. It took him
only a minute to perceive that the entire plot of vegetation, which
must have covered over a square mile, originated here.
* * * * *
With no warning of its approach, a creature, semi-human in form, walked
into view from behind the tree trunk. Tang stifled his instinctive urge
to reach for his pistol and stood motionless. He had learned long ago,
that when playing a strange game, to let the other fellow play first.
The native possessed two limbs upon which he stood, and two others,
set where its shoulders should have been, but there his human likeness
ceased. Yet there was something about him that more nearly approached
the human standard of a man than did the stick-insect which he had
observed earlier.
The man-creature's body and limbs were well filled out, and covered
with slate-gray skin. There was no neck, his head was merely an
extension of his trunk. Two eye clusters, set high on his head and
wide apart, and a long, slit, mouth just below were his only facial
features. Two flesh-feathered apertures, situated where the breast
nipples would have been on a human, and evidently respiration openings,
fluttered with each breath the creature took. He was entirely unclothed
and in one grubby fist he gripped a long-bladed knife.
About the native's feet frisked a small four-legged animal with the
proportions of a pudgy teddybear. It too was neckless, with the same
dead-white skin as the native, and reminded Tang of a bouncy little
ball of bread dough.
The native stared at him until the silence grew thin and Tang decided
that he would have to make the first move.
"Hello," he said. He knew there was little chance the other could
understand him. In fact, there were no organs of hearing, as far as
he could discern, yet he hoped to convey, by the tone of his voice
that he was not a hostile intruder. He knew by experience that almost
invariably an animal, or a human, feared a stranger, and reacted to
that fear with either flight or a challenge. Sometimes that fear could
be allayed by an early demonstration of animity.
Abruptly the native seemed to lose interest in Tang. He turned and
began cutting small branch shoots from one of the surrounding limbs.
These he placed on a pile which he had started on the ground.
Tang drew a deep breath of relief. Still keeping a wary eye on the
native he walked over to the tree trunk and stood leaning against it.
The other ignored him and went on with his work.
When the pile of shoots reached a size that satisfied him, the native
picked them up and entered one of the branch tunnels leading in the
opposite direction from which Tang had come. Tang followed.
They came out of the woods onto the same type of sandy plain that
Tang had found when he first landed. A half mile away he could see a
small river, and collected along its banks were dozens of adobe-like
dwellings. They stretched away along the river banks until lost to
sight among the foothills.
The small animal made a sound like the tinkling of little bells and
the native walked three more steps and stopped. He bent down and the
teddybear pet sprang up onto the pile of branches and rode there. Once
the native turned his body to see if Tang was still following, then
paid no further attention to him until they reached the village.
On the way they met several more of the man-type creatures, each with
one of the doughballs tagging along, but none of them did more than
glance at Tang. Most of them ignored him completely.
Once five of the stick-insects cut across their path. The native
stopped to let them pass before he walked on. Ignoring each other
seemed to be the custom here, Tang thought whimsically.
The same held true after they entered the village: Men, insects, and
pets mingled indiscriminately, each seemingly oblivious to the presence
of the others.
"Welcome to our fair city," a voice said, and Tang spun halfway around.