Lundy saw them a long way off. For a moment he didn't believe it. He
thought they must be shadows cast by the fitful glare of the fissure.
He braced himself against a building and stood watching.
Stood watching, and then seeing as the rushing current brought them
closer. He didn't move, except to lift his jaw a little trying to
breathe. He simply stood, cold as a dead man's feet and just as numb.
They looked something like the giant rays he'd seen back on Earth, only
they were plants. Great sleek bulbs of kelp with their leaves spread
like wings to the current. Their long teardrop bodies ended in a
flange like a fishtail that served as a rudder and they had tentacles
for arms.
They were colored a deep red-brown like dried blood. The golden flare
of the fissure made their cold eyes gleam. It showed their round
mouth-holes full of sharp hair-spines, and the stinging deadly cups on
the undersides of their huge tentacles.
Those arms were long enough and tough enough to pierce even the fabric
of a vac-suit. Lundy didn't know whether they ate flesh or not, but it
didn't matter. He wouldn't care, after he'd been slapped with one of
those tentacles.
The net with _Her_ in it was getting away from him, and The Others were
coming down on top of him. Even if he'd wanted to quit his job right
then there wasn't any place to hide in these ruined, doorless buildings.
Lundy shot his suit full of precious oxygen and added himself to the
creatures riding that black current to hell.
It swept him like a bubble between the dead towers, but not fast
enough. He wasn't very far ahead of the kelp-things. He tried to swim,
to make himself go faster, but it was like racing an oared dinghy
against a fleet of sixteen-meter sloops with everything set.
He could see the cluster of plant-men ahead of him. They hadn't changed
position. They rolled and tumbled in the water, using a lot of the
forward push to go around with, so that Lundy was able to overhaul them.
But not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.
The hell of it was he couldn't see anything to do if he got there. The
net was way inside the globe. They weren't going to let him take it
away. And if he did, what would it get anybody? They'd still follow
_Her_, without sense enough to run away from the kelp-beasts.
Unless....
It hit Lundy all of a sudden. A hope, a solution. Hit him neatly as the
leading kelp-thing climbed up on his heels and brought its leaf-wings
in around him, hard.
Lundy let go an animal howl of fear and kicked wildly, shooting more
air into his suit. He went up fast, and the wings grazed his boots but
didn't quite catch him. Lundy rolled over and fed the thing a full
charge out of his blaster, right through the eye.
It began to thrash and flounder like a shot bird. The ones coming right
behind it got tangled up with it and then stopped to eat. Pretty soon
there were a lot of them tumbling around it and fighting like a flock
of gulls over a fish. Lundy swam furiously, cursing the clumsy suit.
There were a lot of the things that hadn't stopped, and the ones that
had wouldn't stay long. Lundy kicked and strained and sweated. He was
scared. He had the wind up so hard it was blowing his guts out, and it
was like swimming in a nightmare, where you're tied.
The current seemed to move faster up where he was now. He gathered his
thoughts into a tight beam and threw them into the heart of the cluster
of plant-men, at the creature in the net.
_I can free you. I'm the only one that can._
A voice answered him, inside his mind. The voice he had heard once
before, back in the cabin of the wrecked flier. A voice as sweet and
small as Pan-pipes calling on the Hills of Fay.
_I know. My thought crossed yours...._ The elfin voice broke suddenly,
almost on a gasp of pain. Very faintly, Lundy heard:
_Heavy! Heavy! I am slow...._
A longing for something beyond his experience stabbed Lundy like the
cry of a frightened child. And then the globe of man-things burst apart
as though a giant wind had struck them.
Lundy watched them wake up, out of their dream.
_She_ had vanished, and now they didn't know why they were here or what
they were doing. They had a heart-shaking memory of some beauty they
couldn't touch, and that was all. They were lost, and frightened.
Then they saw The Others.
* * * * *
It was as though someone had hit them a stunning blow with his fist.
They hung motionless, swept along by the current, staring back with
dazed golden eyes. Their brilliant petals curled inward and vanished,
and the green of their bodies dulled almost to black.
The kelp-beasts spread their wings wide and rushed toward them like
great dark birds. And up ahead, under the sullen golden glare, Lundy
saw the distant buildings of the colony. Some of the doors were still
open, with knots of tiny figures waiting beside them.
Lundy was still a little ahead of the kelp-things. He grabbed up the
floating net and hooked it to his belt, and then steered himself
clumsily toward a broken tower jutting up to his right.
He hurled a wild telepathic shout at the plant-men, trying to make them
turn and run, telling them that he'd hold off The Others. They were too
scared to hear him. He cursed them, almost crying. On the third try he
got through and they came to life in a hurry, rushing away with all the
speed they had.
By that time Lundy was braced on his pinnacle of stone, and the
kelp-beasts were right on top of him.
He got busy with both blasters. He burned down a lot of the things.
Pretty soon the water all around him was full of thrashing bodies where
the living had stopped to fight over the dead. But he couldn't get them
all, and a few got by him.
Almost without turning his head he could see huge red bird-shapes
overhauling stragglers, wrapping them in broad wings, and then lying
quiet in the rush of the current, feeding.
They kept the doors open, those little woman-things. They waited until
the last of their mates came home, and then slammed the golden panels
on the blunt noses of the kelp-things. Not many of the little men were
lost. Only a few small wives would hide their petals and wear their sad
blue-grey. Lundy felt good about that.
It was nice he felt good about something, because Old Mr. Grim was
climbing right up on Lundy's shoulders, showing his teeth. The
kelp-beasts had finally found out who was hurting them. Also, now,
Lundy was the only food in sight.
They were ganging up for a rush, wheeling and sideslipping in the spate
of black water. Lundy got two more, and then one blaster charge fizzled
out, and right after it the other one became dull.
Lundy stood alone on his broken tower and watched death sweep in around
him. And the sweet elfin voice spoke out of the net:
_Let me free. Let me free!_
Lundy set his jaw tight and did the only thing he could think of. He
deflated his vac-suit and jumped, plunging down into the black depths
of the ruined building.
The kelp-things folded their leaves back like the wings of a diving
bird and came down after him, using their tails for power.
Fitful flares of light came through broken walls and window openings.
Lundy went down a long way. He didn't have to bother about stairs. The
quakes had knocked most of the floors out.
The kelp-things followed him. Their long sinuous bodies were
maneuverable as a shark's, and they were fast.
And all the time the little voice cried in his mind, asking for freedom.
Lundy hit bottom.
The walls were fairly solid down here, and it was dark, and the place
was choked with rubble. Things got a little confused. Lundy's helmet
light was shot, and he wouldn't have used it anyway because it would
have guided the hunters.
He felt them, swirling and darting around him. He ran, to no place in
particular. The broken stones tripped him. Three times great sinewy
bodies brushed him, knocking him spinning, but they couldn't quite find
him in the darkness, chiefly because they got in each other's way.
Lundy fell through suddenly into a great hall, lying beside whatever
room he had been in and a little below it. It was hardly damaged.
Golden doors stood open to the water, and there was plenty of light.
Plenty of light for Lundy to see some more of the kelp-beasts poking
hopeful faces in, and plenty of light for them to see Lundy.