Part 13 (2/2)

The trunk thinned alarmingly at the top and swayed in the stiffening wind. At an elevation of two hundred feet she halted, looking about. There were a number of tall trees, some reaching to two hundred and fifty feet. White pine, when allowed to grow, was one of the tallest trees, comparable to the Douglas fir and young redwood. Veg would know all about that! But now these tall trees interfered with her vision, so that all she could see was more forest. She had wasted her time. No doubt Veg could have told her that, too!

She descended, to find him waiting for her, looking up. How like a man! She hardly needed to make an effort to show off her wares; he knew how to find them for himself. Tree-climbing skirt!

”No good climbing,” he remarked. ”That's boy-scout lore -- useless in a real forest. All you see is -- ”

”More trees,” she finished for him.

”I had a better view from the ground.”

”Thank you.”

”Found something else.”

Now she read the signs in him: He was excited, and not merely by his nether-view of her thighs as she came down the tree. He knew that what he had to tell her would affect her profoundly.

Tamme paused, trying to ascertain what it was before he told her. It was not a threat, not a joke. Not a human settlement. What, then?

”Can't tell, can you!” he said, pleased. ”Come on, then.”

He showed the way to a small forest glade, a clearing made by a fallen giant tree and not yet grown in. The ma.s.sive trunk, eight feet thick, lay rotting on the ground. And near its sundered stump --

”An aperture projector!” she exclaimed, amazed.

”Thought you'd be surprised. Guess we weren't the first here, after all.”

Tamme's mind was racing. There was no way that such a device could be here -- except as a relic of human visitation. Agent visitation, for this was an agent model, similar to hers. But not identical -- not quite.

”Some alternate-world agent has pa.s.sed this way,” she said. ”And not long ago. Within five days.”

”Because the brush has not grown up around it,” Veg said. ”That's what I figured. Can't be yours, can it?”

”No.” The implications were staggering. If an alternate-world agent had come here, then Earth was not alone. There could be millions of highly developed human societies possessing the secret of aperture travel, competing for unspoiled worlds. What would she do, if she encountered one of those foreign agents, as highly trained as she, as dedicated to his world as she was to Earth?

By blind luck she had learned of the other agent first. Before he learned of her.

This was likely to be the mission of her life -- and the fight of Earth's survival.

She had an immediate choice: Return to the surrealist city and commence her survey of alternates, hoping to discover in the process the route home. Or take a more chancy initiative by going after the competing agent and attempting to kill him before he could make his report to his world.

Each alternative was rife with bewildering complexities. She was trained to make quick decisions -- but never had the fate of Earth depended on her snap judgment, even potentially. So she sought an advisory opinion. ”Veg -- if you came across the spoor of a hungry tiger, and you knew it was going to be him or you -- what would you do? Follow the trail, or go home for help?”

Veg squinted at her. ”Depends how close home is, and how I am armed. But probably I'd go home. I don't like killing.”

She had posed the wrong question -- another indication of her need for caution. An agent should not make elementary mistakes! Naturally the vegetarian would avoid a quarrel with an animal. ”Suppose it was the track of a man as strong and as smart as you -- but an enemy who would kill you if you didn't kill him first?”

”Then I'd sure go home! I'm not going out looking for any death match!”

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