Part 2 (1/2)

Honath looked at the navigator curiously. Seth's bolt for the sky had distracted him from the realization that the basket, too, was gone, but now that desolate fact hit home. ”You actually plan to stay alive in h.e.l.l, don't you, Alaskon?”

”Certainly,” Alaskon said calmly. ”This is no more h.e.l.l than--up there--is Heaven. It's the surface of the planet, no more, no less. We can stay alive if we don't panic. Were you just going to sit here until the furies came for you, Honath?”

”I hadn't thought much about it,” Honath confessed. ”But if there is any chance that Seth will lose his grip on that rope--before he reaches the top and they stab him--shouldn't we wait and see if we can catch him? He can't weigh more than 35 pounds. Maybe we could contrive some sort of a net--”

”He'd just break our bones along with his,” Charl said. ”I'm for getting out of here as fast as possible.”

”What for? Do you know a better place?”

”No, but whether this is h.e.l.l or not, there are demons down here. We've all seen them from up above. They must know that the Elevator always lands here and empties out free food. This must be a feeding-ground for them--”

He had not quite finished speaking when the branches began to sigh and toss, far above. A gust of stinging droplets poured along the blue air and thunder rumbled. Mathild whimpered.

”It's only a squall coming up,” Honath said. But the words came out in a series of short croaks. As the wind had moved through the trees, Honath had automatically flexed his knees and put his arms out for handholds, awaiting the long wave of response to pa.s.s through the ground beneath him. But nothing happened. The surface under his feet remained stolidly where it was, flexing not a fraction of an inch in any direction. And there was nothing nearby for his hands to grasp.

He staggered, trying to compensate for the failure of the ground to move. At the same moment another gust of wind blew through the aisles, a little stronger than the first, and calling insistently for a new adjustment of his body to the waves which would be pa.s.sing among the treetops. Again the squashy surface beneath him refused to respond. The familiar give-and-take of the vine-web to the winds, a part of his world as accustomed as the winds themselves, was gone.

Honath was forced to sit down, feeling distinctly ill. The damp, cool earth under his furless b.u.t.tocks was unpleasant, but he could not have remained standing any longer without losing his meagre prisoner's breakfast. One grappling hand caught hold of the ridged, gritting stems of a clump of horsetail, but the contact failed to allay the uneasiness.

The others seemed to be bearing it no better than Honath. Mathild in particular was rocking dizzily, her lips compressed, her hands clasped to her delicate ears.

Dizziness. It was unheard of up above, except among those who had suffered grave head injuries or were otherwise very ill. But on the motionless ground of h.e.l.l, it was evidently going to be with them constantly.

Charl squatted, swallowing convulsively. ”I--I can't stand,” he moaned.

”Nonsense!” Alaskon said, though he had remained standing only by clinging to the huge, mud-colored bulb of a cycadella. ”It's just a disturbance of our sense of balance. We'll get used to it.”

”We'd better,” Honath said, relinquis.h.i.+ng his grip on the horsetails by a sheer act of will. ”I think Charl's right about this being a feeding-ground, Alaskon. I hear something moving around in the ferns.

And if this rain lasts long, the water will rise here, too. I've seen silver flashes from down here many a time after heavy rains.”

”That's right,” Mathild said, her voice subdued. ”The base of the fan-palm grove always floods. That's why the treetops are lower there.”

The wind seemed to have let up a little, though the rain was still falling. Alaskon stood up tentatively and looked around.

”Then let's move on,” he said. ”If we try to keep under cover until we get to higher ground--”

A faint crackling sound, high above his head, interrupted him. It got louder. Feeling a sudden spasm of pure fear, Honath looked up.

Nothing could be seen for an instant but the far-away curtain of branches and fern fronds. Then, with shocking suddenness, something plummeted through the blue-green roof and came tumbling toward them. It was a man, twisting and tumbling through the air with grotesque slowness, like a child turning in its sleep. They scattered.

The body hit the ground with a sodden thump, but there were sharp overtones to the sound, like the bursting of a gourd. For a moment n.o.body moved. Then Honath crept forward.

It had been Seth, as Honath had realized the moment the figurine had burst through the branches far above. But it had not been the fall that had killed him. He had been run through by at least a dozen needles--some of them, beyond doubt, tools from his own shop, their points edged hair-fine by his own precious strops of leatherwood-bark.

There would be no reprieve from above. The sentence was one thousand days. This burst and broken huddle of fur was the only alternative.

And the first day had barely begun.

They toiled all the rest of the day to reach higher ground. As they stole cautiously closer to the foothills of the Great Range and the ground became firmer, they were able to take to the air for short stretches, but they were no sooner aloft among the willows than the lizard-birds came squalling down on them by the dozens, fighting among each other for the privilege of nipping these plump and incredibly slow-moving monkeys.