Greene, following instructions meant for him, too, snapped the jet
toggle closed. The high-pitched thunder that had been chasing them
across the sky was chopped off into utter silence.
"What you got?" he managed to say and then Pritchard's hip swung
against him, neatly bowling him off the seat as the tall hunter thrust
his feet toward the rudder bar.
"Stand by to fire," snapped Pritchard over his shoulder. The younger
man lurched toward the rocket controls in the nose in front of
Pritchard as the jet cruiser heeled silently over into a dive.
* * * * *
The bowl of Thisbe II tilted up toward them and its features steadied
in the face of that arrowing plunge. Dead ahead lay a meandering thread
of river stitching up a wide, jungle-filled valley. At one point the
river either split in two or broadened momentarily into a lake. At any
rate, there was an island, right above the little flight-sight bead on
the jet cruiser's prow.
The island swelled into detail. It was fairly large, for up from its
center thrust one of those strange rock mountains, the three straight
planes of its cleavage converging in a jagged, towering peak, making it
seem an elongated triangular pyramid that had been driven forth at a
slant and had then had its extreme tip snapped off. The primrose light
of Piramus high above reflected now in a dazzling shimmer from one
flank.
At its base, or at the base of one impossibly machine-smooth wall,
there was a semi-circular mark, as if someone had carelessly strewn
dirt across the olive-hued turf. The grains and clods of this dirt
resolved themselves, as the jets whined on down, into a twinkling,
tumbling cluster of ants--with gnats hovering and darting. Then they
became something larger.
Greene turned to shout excitedly at Pritchard, but at that instant
Sturgis's voice cracked from the two-way mike Pritchard had hung above
him.
"Hey, chief, aren't those some of that girl's animals?"
"Right," barked Pritchard. "That's a big rumpus down there. Follow me
on down for a look. Then I think we'll try a couple of passes."
"Passes? At what?"
"Those are Miss Boyce's 'people', all right. They're fighting."
There was no further chance to talk. Pritchard and Sturgis gripped
their separate toggles almost simultaneously and their jets roared into
life, feeding power to their dives for a pull-out. The ground-contact
alarm chattered its warning that they were coming too close.
As soon as the jets took hold, the pilots leaned back, pushing hard
against the rudder bars. The tail elevators lifted into the slipstream,
and the two silver beetles howled through a long pendulum swing that
flung them far off into the sky.
But the trained eyes aboard them had ticked off the essential details
of the amazing battle being waged through the tall grass toward the
mountain.
"Holy rockets!" came from the blond head in front of Pritchard. "That's
a regular battle line they're holding. Did you see those babies
fighting!"
"Hey, chief," cracked Sturgis, "What goes on down there, anyway? Who's
fighting whom? Or what's fighting which?"
Pritchard trimmed off into level flight before answering. "As far
as I can make out, Cornelia Boyce's people are under attack, but I
can't figure out who's doing the attacking. They're trying to hold
that defense arc, but they're being snowed under. They're catching it
from the air as well as on the ground. I recognize the animals inside
that line. They're her people, all right. But I can't make out the
attackers."
He banked the cruiser around toward that now miles-distant little spine
of mountain.
Sturgis's ship followed him around as if fastened by a wire.
"They looked like reptiles and big insects."
"That's what they looked like to me. I don't remember seeing any of
them yesterday--except for that bad dream I tried to shoot away from
McManus."
"Anyway, there's sure a mob of them," cut in Sturgis. "The water all
around that island is alive with them."
"That kid was right about one thing," said Pritchard. "There's a much
higher level of intelligence here than you'd find in Terran animals,
for instance. But never mind that now. Listen, boys, this is a planned
and directed attack. And we're going to buy ourselves a stack of chips
and sit in on the game. But, first, did anybody see the girl?"
"No," cracked the mike, and Greene shook his head.
"Well, I've got a hunch she's down there. She's mixed up in this
somehow. I've a feeling a big battle like this is pretty unusual. This
has all the earmarks of a war of extermination. And if those are her
'people' protecting her--something, or somebody, has her cornered."
"Could be," came Sturgis's voice. "But, then, who's this somebody or
something?"
"I don't know. I don't care. This scrap's nothing to us. But we want
the wench, boys. We want her on account of last night. And maybe
for a couple of other reasons. She'd better come home for a little
psychotherapy, for one thing. Now, here's our plan of attack...."
* * * * *
Like the pointer of a sundial, the jagged spear of mountain lay its
deep blue shadow across the curve of battle, as if to mark off the
dwindling hours and minutes of life for those who struggled, writhed
and lay with glazing eyes in that long ribbony grass, now mashed and
matted flat for acres in every direction, its pliant green-brown blades
stained and mottled dark.
Red-eyed and snorting, the slate-gray boars stood shoulder to shoulder
from one end of the arc to the other. As each one fell, the others
closed ranks, shuffling backwards until their hides rubbed together
again. Close behind them stood a thinning line of great scaled bears,
clawing and biting what got past the boars. In and out among all their
stiffly planted legs ran the lesser carnivores and the canines,
snapping and worrying at the things creeping through the grass. Behind,
in the shrinking zone of defense, roved the six-legged bovines and
equines, and the leaping ones, and the shaggy-maned gorillas, prancing,
goring, trampling, crushing. Overhead circled and hovered a swarm of
hawks and condors, plunging and tearing.
Against them came a nightmare horde. Those that could not fly or
swim made clumsy rafts from odds and ends of vegetation and branches
plundered from the jungle; some scurried across on swaying creepers,
all along the banks.
Crawling, creeping things, reptilian and crustacean and multi-legged,
undulating and gliding, disappearing into the grass to emerge at
the last deadly moment. Scurrying, spiny things were there in
force--scuttling over the mashed-flat grass in beady-eyed haste to
be in at the kill. Above them flew skull-headed, mandible-snapping
horrors, with membranous wings.
There were no tactics other than individual duel and the wearing down
by sheer weight of numbers. Aloft, the winged ones met, clashed and
fell, buzzing and flapping. Below, tusk and fang and claw and beak and
hoof mandible rent and tore and worried and stung. The long, vicious
lizards and the sudden-striking snakes kept coming through only to go
down under churning, stamping hooves or be shredded by horns and claws
and fangs.
Yet the battle was unequal. Slowly and wearily, the defenders gave
before the superior numbers, the more skillful killing. The bodies they
left dotting the meadow began to outnumber the crushed remains of the
things they fought.
Deep in a cleft in the base of the mountain crouched a young Terran
female. Every inch of her brown body shaking in helpless terror.
Cornelia Boyce's left hand gripped the handle of her long knife, still
in its sheath. She would need it any time now.
For The One was coming for her at last. Why it had ordered Its people
against hers, calling them with Its vicious mind from the far corners
of this world, instead of coming for her directly, she didn't know.
Perhaps It regarded her as the lesser objective and relegated the task
of smashing her and her converts to this horde, while It moved against
the ship. Perhaps It regarded the ship of the hunters with the same
contempt It had had for the Survey ship and was moving against her
first--and was using this battle to toy with her, show her death, as it
were. Perhaps there was some other reason. It didn't matter. Nothing
mattered any more, for this was the end.
It had tolerated her. For four of Thisbe II's years--not quite three
Terran years--The One had left her alone, almost, it would seem,
keeping out of her way. It was as if It realized that she, the only one
of her kind to survive the debacle at the Survey camp, was essentially
harmless. It had not minded her attempts to win over and tame and
domesticate some of the people. After all, she had converted only the
weaker and gentler of them with her synthetabs; she had gained control
over only a small percentage of the killers, the lesser carnivores. No,
she had never really threatened The One's dominance.
Pritchard was right. Now that her carefully woven veil of illusion was
torn away, she knew that there were killers. Everywhere. Always had
been. Killers, killers, killers....
The One proved that. It killed a hundred times a day. This world
was Its preserve and It roamed and fed and slew as It chose, only
occasionally for food. Perhaps this was the only reason for existence,
in the last analysis--in a cruel Cosmos one lived only to be killer or
killed.
It mattered not. This was the end. Angered by the advent of more of
her kind, It had no doubt decided to wipe out both her and them,
recognizing in them all a degree of intelligence which, in force, could
threaten Its control. It would move against the ship, if indeed It had
not already done so.
But It would certainly destroy her. This attack would have no other
meaning.
But she would cheat It. The One could not move faster than her knife!
There was not much time now, and certainly no hope. The battle raging
before her was mounting to its inevitable bloody climax.
Her people could not hold out much longer. Their courage and faith and
loyalty might not survive so terrible an ordeal. Were not some of the
birds already winging away to distant refuge?
It was too bad. She would have liked to see the tall hunter once more
before she.... His eyes had been so piercing! She had forgotten what a
man could be like. If only she had not been so balky yesterday!
But it was not to be. He had come, in one of those two jet cruisers,
thundering across the killer-infested meadow, and he had gone. He
had seen and not understood. Battles between alien beasts were of no
concern to him. He might even return, to make cam-rec footage from
aloft of this amazing battle.
Hope flashed. She could signal him! What could she use?
How could she catch a roving eye in a ten-mile-a-minute jet?
She tossed up her head, eyes suddenly narrowed.
Something came screaming around the mountain above her, followed by a
second screaming something.
Then hell erupted beyond the battle line. Blast followed concussive
blast, causing the big gorillas to cower and the other ones to charge
about in helpless panic. Between the jarring blasts sounded the
rippling crackle of dual-mounted automatic snappers.
The screams faded off into the sky. A stunned silence reigned along the
battle perimeter. An acrid smoke drifted over the ground.
Then, just as groups were sporadically renewing their death-grips here
and there, the twin screams sounded beyond the mountain again.
V
"Two laps around the track and then to the showers!" yelled Greene, his
fingers dancing over the rocket release and snapper buttons.
Leaning back against the rudder bar, Pritchard grinned. "You forget the
passes along the river banks. They make it four laps."
Then he threw a quick glance over his shoulder, but he couldn't make
much through the welter of rising dirt columns.
They came around the mountain in a tight curve. As they flattened for
a run on the meadow they could see things scurrying for the water. The
meadow itself was a churned and pitted mess. Bodies were thickly strewn
everywhere.
"There she is!" yelled Sturgis. "You were right, chief. See her--over
by the mountain?"
A tiny figure, mounted on a six-legged equine, was riding furiously
back and forth. The defense arc was swelling outward, as her "people"
rose to the offensive and began charging the demoralized attackers.
Then the two cruisers were racing through their run on the as yet
unstrafed portion of the meadow furthest from the mountain. Sturgis's
craft bucked as it rode the shock-waves from Greene's rocket blasts.
As they shot in a wide curve around the other side of the mountain
Pritchard said, "We'd better skip our last pass. Let's just sit down
and work in close. I don't want her to get away."
They cut jets and floated in over the jungle, side-slipping to lose
speed. With feather-light fingers at their controls, the cruisers
skimmed the trampled meadow grass and touched down their wheels. As
they rolled, Pritchard and Sturgis flung open cockpit windows and let
bright fire from their flamers spew over the ground, while Greene and
Kemp sprayed right and left with their snappers.
Things struggled in the crisping, burning grass, crackling and
roasting. Even as he turned the nozzle this way and that, Pritchard's
face was a mask of disgust. All around the slowing ships, Cornelia's
"people" galloped and raced with a vengeful, slaying lust.
"All out," said Pritchard. "Everybody take a flamer. We'll have to burn
a path to the girl."
They climbed out and began walking toward the mountain four abreast,
flame billowing ahead of them. There seemed to be only dead things in
their path.
Then, suddenly, the girl was there, astride a magnificent six-legged
equine type of animal, shaggy of coat and rather broad in the head.
She had ridden around the wall of fire and her mount was trembling and
shaking its head.
They turned off the flamers and stared up at her. Rumbling, whinnying
sounds came from the equine's throat. She grunted and cooed back, as if
soothing it. Then she turned her eyes on the men below.
"We wish to thank you." Her pale face was drawn and there was a
suspicion of tears in her voice. "You came just in time."
She seemed small and absurdly girlish perched on that long back. Those
inadequate strips of hide were still her only covering.
Pritchard nodded shortly. "If you'll be so good as to keep your
be--people--out of our way, we'll sterilize this island. Just burn off
all the cover and see to it there's none of them left. Why don't you
herd your--uh--friends over onto what we've already--"
"That won't be necessary," she cut in. "They'll all be gone in another
minute."
"What makes you so sure of that?"
"The One is probably calling them off."
"The--what?"
She put her face in her hands. Pritchard frowned his puzzlement. How
had so helpless a child managed to survive in a world like this?
"I'd like very much to know what this is all about, Miss Boyce," he
said gently. "In fact, the reason we happened along is that we are
looking for you. We thought you might be able to explain what happened
last night."
As he told her, she lifted her face from her hands and her brimming
eyes grew round. Before he had finished describing what they had found
in the blower, she was shaking her head in despair.
"This is all your doing. This world was at peace until you came. Now
The One is aroused. You see, it was The One that went into your ship--"
"The One?" A crispness came into his voice. "Miss Boyce, I think you'd
better start at the beginning and give us a complete explanation. Just
exactly what is this 'One' you keep talking about?"
* * * * *
She closed her eyes again. A slight shudder ran through her body and
she shook her head dazedly.
"The One," she murmured, "is after us all now. It began by entering
your ship. Then It sent Its people against mine--against me. It won't
stop until It has destroyed us all, and It--It's something I'd just as
lief not describe.
"My people call it something which I have translated as 'The One'. To
them, it means 'first', or 'leader', or something like that. It was in
control of all the people here on Thisbe when the Survey arrived, and
I'm afraid It still is. It wants to remain in control. You see, It's
quite intelligent."
"I can believe that," Pritchard said. "It not only figured out how to
get into the ship, but it also figured out how to find McManus."
"Oh, no, I don't believe it just went after him. Wasn't his cabin the
nearest to the place it entered?"
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it was."
"Oh, you don't understand The One as I do," she cried. "It would never
be satisfied with just one. It came into your ship to feed on all of
you. McManus was just the first person It found. From what you tell me,
It wasn't even finished with him. There wouldn't be--anything--left...."
"Then why did It go away?"
"I couldn't tell you. Perhaps when your blower short-circuited, it
arced a little. The One is very sensitive to fire. But It's not
through. It will come back, one way or another."
"I think we can deal with it if it does," Pritchard smiled. "And it
sent these unpleasant things at you? How can it do that?" He shot an
appraising glance around the torn and bloody meadow with its mounds of
dead and dying things.
When he turned back the girl was weeping. Sobs she could not suppress
were shaking those nut-brown, rounded shoulders. "It has some kind
of mental control," came her muffled voice. "Besides, they fear It
dreadfully. Oh, my people, my poor people."
"Well, now, look," soothed Pritchard, "it's all over now. You'd better
come back with us. I guess you've learned you can't make people out of
all these animals. Besides, you've got an interesting story to tell the
Board--"
"D-damn the B-B-Board," she said a little unsteadily. "Then you'll take
me with you?"