IV

The next day Lutscher was missing.

Tang had gone to the space ship for a box of cigars and when he

returned he found that Lutscher's hut had been freshly sealed. As he

stood, uncertain what his next move should be, one of the mahutes came

up and took him by the arm.

He allowed the mahute to lead him to another hut nearby. Inside he

found all of Lutscher's possessions and his own. The furniture had been

carefully placed in the same positions it had occupied in the original

hut. But Lutscher was nowhere in sight.

During the time it took Tang to smoke one cigar he debated with

himself. If they were holding Lutscher prisoner he should be in no

immediate danger. Each sealed hut had air vents in the top that were

never closed. If they had killed him then no amount of haste could help

him. On the other hand, he decided, perhaps they were subjecting him

to some ritualistic torture. He rose to his feet and buckled on his

gun. He'd have to try to get into the sealed hut. If the mahutes hadn't

killed Lutscher he might still be able to save him.

Once outside Tang found the mahutes maintaining their guard. He walked

toward them and they bunched themselves ahead of him. He drove his

shoulder against the nearest one. The native reeled aside but made no

effort to strike back. The other mahutes pressed forward, bearing Tang

back by the very weight of their numbers. He'd have to use more drastic

measures.

He drew his gun but he doubted that they were intelligent enough to

recognize it as a weapon. Pointing the gun at the feet of the nearest

mahutes he squeezed the grip and held it tight while the lethal ray

burned the sand to a bubbling, smoking cauldron. The mahutes stared

stupidly at the molten spot, moving back only when the heat scorched

their legs.

Tang forced them to either side until he had cleared a path to

Lutscher's hut. Taking advantage of their distraction he dashed forward

and turned with his back to the hut.

The mahutes did not hesitate. They rushed him in a body.

That left him no choice, Tang realized. He shot the first to reach him

in the leg. As the native stumbled and fell, others climbed over his

body to get at Tang. He shot a second and a third and still the mahutes

came on. He tried to hold them back by playing the gun's beam at their

feet but they walked into the beam and fell dead or mutilated. Several

of the inevitable accompanying clobers died with them.

Soon the blood and the slaughter of the single-minded natives sickened

Tang and he loosened his grip on his weapon. The mahutes grabbed him

by the arms and legs and carried him away from the hut, making no

attempt to disarm him. They deposited him some yards away and went back

to their posts. Other mahutes came up and carried off the dead and

wounded. Tang cursed and staggered into his own hut.

For a long while he sat with his head in his hands, lost in a gray

obsession. Lutscher had undoubtedly caused the interference of the

mahutes by the picture he had given them of Tang being insane. But

whatever the reason, as a fellow human, it was his duty to rescue

Lutscher, if at all possible. But there was a limit to what lengths he

would go to do it. After all, was the life of one criminal worth that

of all the mahutes he would have to slaughter, or even of the ones he

had already killed? The decision was a hard one.

He heard a noise and looked up. A mahute was standing in the doorway.

In his arms the native held one of the little doughball pets. He set

the clober on the floor and withdrew.

A peace offering? Tang didn't know, but he decided to wait. Perhaps he

would have a better chance to rescue Lutscher later.

What he needed now was some way to communicate with the mahutes. If he

only knew Lutscher's secret. For a moment he debated eating the native

food. Perhaps that was the necessary first step. But his whole nature

shrank from the thought. The risk of making himself an addict was too

much to ask--at least until all else failed.

* * * * *

The clober _was_ company. And it seemed to crave affection. It frisked

about Tang's feet until he picked it up and held it in his his lap. As

he went through his troubled thoughts he idly stroked and fondled the

little pet.

Tang set himself on a schedule. Once every hour he walked to the door

and looked across to Lutscher's hut. Always the situation remained the

same.

Late that night he finally fell asleep. The little clober crawled up on

the bed and curled into the crook of his arm.

He awoke twice during the night. Each time, by the light of his flash,

he could see the patient mahutes keeping their vigil. And each time he

returned to his bed the clober crawled back into its sleeping place

in the crook of his elbow. He found himself growing quite fond of the

little beast.

The third time Tang awoke he saw, through the slit in the eye he

opened, that it was daylight.

_Father?_ For a moment Tang thought he was still dreaming. Had he heard

a voice? He lay quietly, his mind still not functioning too clearly.

_Father?_ the voice came again. But was it a voice? Now that he thought

of it he was certain that there had been no actual sound. It was more

like an audible thought.

A faint inkling of what was happening penetrated his consciousness.

He remained quiet, deliberately keeping his mind in its drowsy,

slow-functioning sleep fog. And then he caught the call in all its

inflections. The sense-impression he caught was not father, exactly;

rather it was a compound picture of benefactor, loved one, guardian.

And Tang was certain the mind picture had been communicated to him by

the clober at his side. He had made his first telepathic contact with

the planet's denizens!

For a half-hour after he arose Tang was unable to reestablish contact

with the little doughball. Then he realized that he was trying too hard.

He sat down and forced himself to relax. His mind gradually calmed and

made itself receptive. _Food? Hungry?_ the clober's thoughts reached

him.

Tang rose and walked to the door. The mahutes had left a small bundle

of shoots at the side of the hut, as they had done every morning for

Lutscher. He brought several of them in with him.

All during the morning he spent his time perfecting his ability to

catch the clober's thoughts. By noon he had it mastered. The little

beast's intellect was quite rudimentary, registering its need for food,

desire to sleep, for affection, and love for its benefactor, himself.

When it became hungry again at noon Tang tried his next experiment.

Lutscher had been able to communicate with the mahutes, and quite

probably with Bunzo. He should be able to do the same.

_Food ... hungry_, the clober broadcast. Tang looked at it, and in

his mind commanded it to go out the door and get a tree shoot. At the

second attempt the little pet turned and obeyed!

So far so good. Now to try his luck with the mahutes.

He went to the door and tried to project his thoughts to the passing

natives. He failed. An hour later he came back in, tired and

discouraged. His head ached with a dull pain that seemed to be trying

to force its way through his skull. He let his body sag across the bed.

The clober climbed up and joined him.

Suddenly he had the answer. The natives were never seen without an

accompanying clober. And Lutscher had had his Bunzo. They were unable

to make direct telepathic contact: It had to be done through the

clobers!

He sprang to his feet and went outside, with the clober clutched in his

arms. A mahute was passing in the packed-sand street. Directing his

thought to the mahute, but through the clober, Tang thought, _Stop_.

The mahute stopped!

_Go_, Tang commanded, and the mahute went on. Success.

He made one more test. The next mahute to pass was carrying a load of

shoots. _Leave them by my door_, Tang directed. Without hesitation the

mahute turned and deposited the shoots.

Next Tang felt for the mahute's thoughts and caught them readily, but

they were almost purely functional, bearing little resemblance to the

activity of a reasoning intellect. There was no chance of his learning

anything of Lutscher's whereabouts there. However he had succeeded in

what he set out to do.

Now for the final step. He went inside and buckled on his sidearm.

V

Suddenly the clober squirmed in his arms and a chaos of mad,

slobbering, disconnected thoughts washed against Tang's mind and

staggered it with their very morbidity and black, hopeless fear.

For a moment he stood mentally numbed, desperately striving to sort the

hodgepodge of impressions into a semblance of lucidity.

But they hit him, wave upon wave, as tangible as physical blows, and

he fought the nausea they brought as he read them. _I'm dead ... like

a spider ... wasps! My God, this can't be happening! The bastards,

bastards, bastards. Move. I've got to move! I can't!_ The thoughts ran

together like the incoherent mass of a madman's ravings.

Then the mind Tang was hearing seemed to halt, as though it felt a new

thing. _Sammy? Sammy? Can you hear me?_

"I hear you!" Tang burst out, speaking aloud, but remembering,

distractedly, to keep the clober in the forefront of his mind.

_Then come and kill me. For God's sake, come and kill me!_

Fighting down the shock that threatened to overwhelm him Tang dashed

from the hut, still clutching the little clober. They wouldn't stop him

this time, he vowed.

A semblance of reason came to him before he reached Lutscher's hut and

he halted. There was something he should try, he realized, before he

began killing. He looked down at the clober and then sent his message

at the mahutes. _Go back to your huts!_ he commanded. They made no move

to leave.

Then he understood that he was unable to contact the whole group at one

time. It had to be done individually.

_Return to your home_, he directed, concentrating on the nearest

mahute. Silently it turned and left. Tang repeated the order to

another. Again and again until he was alone.

There was no time to waste. He aimed his pistol to fire at a tangent

and blasted a hole through the wall of Lutscher's sealed hut. He

crawled in.

The sight that met his eyes was one that Tang knew he would see in his

nightmares the rest of his life.

On the ground against the far wall lay the hide of one of the large

clobers. He recognized the dark fist-shaped mark on the hide's side as

having belonged to Bunzo. Standing on the hide was one of the young

stick-insects, its sharp little face ugly with some emotion and its

mouth casing drawn back from its pointed teeth.

At Tang's feet lay Lutscher. He was muttering hoarsely to himself, and

in his eyes that glared at the ceiling was madness--stark, terrible

madness!

The flesh had been torn from Lutscher's left arm, stripping it to

the bone. A shiny, gelatinous coating, covering the raw meat of the

shoulder, seemed to have stopped the blood flow. Great chunks of

flesh had been torn from one hip, and his teeth showed through where

Lutscher's cheeks had been.

The ankite insect moved toward them and Tang beamed the ugly little

head from its body.

Lutscher muttered something and Tang knelt at his side. God help you,

he thought. "Is there anything I can do, Bill?" he asked softly.

"It's too late to help me now," Lutscher rasped feebly. "But there's no

pain, Sammy." He seemed rational now, but Tang knew it would not last

for long. "Just kill me, Sammy. And get out while you still can."

"What happened?"

"One of the ankites came ... when was it? Yester--yesterday?"

Lutscher's whispering voice broke on the last word and he seemed about

to slip back into his madness, but he drew a deep breath and went on

talking.

"The ankite bit me. It must have injected a poison. I couldn't move.

They sealed me in with Bunzo. Soon after Bunzo screamed and burst.

You see the set-up now, don't you Sammy? The clobers are like cocoons

on Earth. I think metamorphosis is the word. The ankites emerge from

the clobers, like butterflies come from cocoons. And the poor, stupid

mahutes feed them, care for their clobers, and then furnish the _piece

d'occasion_ for the transformation feast." He laughed, and the utter

lack of mirth caused a spasm of sickness in Tang's stomach.

"And you ..." Tang started to say.

"And I.... To the ankites I'm just another mahute. I'm like the spider

that the wasp paralyzes and brings to its nest to be consumed by

the young while it's still alive." Lutscher's voice rose to a shrill

whisper. "Sammy! Kill me. Please! I can't take anymore!"

"I'll get you back to the ship," Tang said.

"I'm too far gone for ..." Lutscher stopped. His eyes seemed to try to

smile. "Go ahead, Sammy," he said. "Try."

Tang put one arm under Lutscher's shoulders and the other under his

knees and lifted him off the ground.

Lutscher's body came unhinged in the middle. A groan started in his

throat and blood gushed from the raw places on his body. Tang put him

down and Lutscher's mouth opened and a long sigh came out. He knew they

would never be able to hurt Lutscher again.

Tang's mind had gone cold now. There was little he could do for

Lutscher, but what little he could do, he would. He drew his gun and

sprayed its beam up and down the length of Lutscher's body until

nothing remained except a charred lump. At least he'd furnish no more

meals for the ankites.

On the way back to the space ship Tang met exactly eight of the

stick-insects. He counted them.

"One for you, Bill. Two for you, Bill," he counted as he burned each

one down. Nothing he had ever done gave him as great a sense of fierce

satisfaction.

[Illustration: _Almost tonelessly Tang counted as he burned the

stick-insects one by one: "One for you, Bill. Two for you, Bill...."_]

Less than an hour after he left Lutscher's remains he blasted off the

planet. He hated to think of the three months he would have to spend

alone before he reached Gascol 11.