Part 9 (1/2)
”No, except the beam is stronger.”
The ranger leaned his head against the rock behind him. ”We cannot make it on foot, even as far as Cartl's holding. And that is the southernmost outpost.” He might have been thinking aloud as he imparted that gloomy information. ”A crawler is slow and heavy, and it is not normally used far from a base camp, where it can be maintained.”
”Those prospectors had a crawler,” Dane broke in.
”They must also have had a camp,” Meshler returned heavily. ”And this one, under the ledge”-he came back to the present problem-”is a temporary one only. Therefore-”
”We head straight back into their hands?” flashed Dane. ”Are you s.p.a.ce-whirly, man?”
”I am ranger trained.” Meshler showed no annoyance at Dane's impatience. ”Those men in hunters' clothing-I do not think they were hunters.”
”We have no weapons,” Tau reminded him. ”Or did you pick some up at the flitter?”
”No. It is my belief they would have been put back on us when we were returned to the scene. These men will be after us, yes, but they will expect us to head north. If we go south and get that crawler-or other transport-we have a chance. Otherwise-” He did not finish that sentence. His eyes closed, and Dane suddenly realized that the trip through the night must have been a double strain on the ranger playing eyes for three men.
”I take first watch?” Tau looked to Dane.
He wanted to say no, but he could not pull that denial out of the weight of fatigue that deadened his body. ”First watch,” he agreed, and as he settled back against the stone, much in Meshler's position, he was already half asleep.
When Tau aroused him for sentry duty, the pale winter sun was high overhead, and there was actually a mild sensation of warmth. By chance or design, Meshler had chosen their pocket stronghold well. It faced northwest-the direction from which they might logically expect their pursuers to come. And the only way anyone could get at them was up a narrow strip of open climb, steep enough so that a couple of well-placed boulders could be rolled down it. Only, such boulders did not exist nearby as Dane discovered when he crawled stiffly out of the half cave and stretched his arms and legs, though keeping in the shadow of the rocks.
Some flying things cruised the air, soaring and dropping on spread wings that flapped only once in a while, but those were clearly native to this land. At ground level nothing moved. Dane longed for a pair of distance lenses-they should have been in the flitter, but now they might as well be in one of the pockets on Trewsworld's well-cratered moon for all the good they did him.
Meshler's proposal to go on into the heart of what might be enemy territory apparently made sense to the ranger, but Dane was dubious. Now as he squatted at the entrance to their shelter, the brach crawled out from between Meshler and Tau, where he had been cradled in their warmth, and came to Dane, sitting up next to the Terran.
”Are there any below?” Dane said to the hood mike.
The long head turned in a slow swing right to left and back again.
”No one comes. Hunter there-” The alien indicated one of the wheeling winged dots. ”It hungers, it waits-but not for us.”
Dane had confidence in the brach's senses, but not enough to lead him to forsake his vantage point and watch on the land below.
”There have been-” the brach continued.
”Been what?” Dane prodded.
”Been men here.”
”Here!” Dane was startled.
”Not in this place, below-there-” Again the brach pointed, downslope to the left.
”How do you know?”
”Machine smell.” It seemed to Dane that long nose raised in a gesture of distaste. ”Not now-but once.”
”Stay here-watch,” Dane told the brach. He could see no tracks of any machine. But if the crawler had pa.s.sed this way, then it would have left some and a trail they could follow. Better than just striking off into the blue with Tau's detect as their only guide.
He took all precautions, working his way downslope, though, he thought with a wry grimace, doubtless to one of Meshler's training he probably made every mistake in the manual. When he reached the point to which the brach had directed him, he discovered the alien was right. There were deep indentations of a crawler's tread-and on a rock a smear of oil, which must have alerted the sensitive nose of the alien.
Allowing for the twists of a pa.s.sage made to take every advantage of any ease on the very rough ground here, the trail did run to the south, not quite in the same direction as Tau's detect, but enough so to suggest that end of trail and radiation had a common source. He traced it only a short distance, having no mind to be spotted by any jack traveler. Dane was not long back in position at the opening of the shelter before Meshler roused. He moved out to join the Terran. Dane reported his discovery, only to see the ranger slink down with caution, returning shortly thereafter.
”Not a regular road,” he said as he reached for the pack to bring out another ration tube. ”The thing only went through there once, and it was in difficulties.”
”The oil smear?” Dane asked.
”That-and one of the treads had a frayed edge. It might well have been heading in for repairs, taking a shortcut.” He again measured off four sections on the tube, being meticulously just.
Having eaten his own portion, he squeezed out one for the brach before handing the tube to Dane. And the Terran, finis.h.i.+ng his share, put the tube near Tau's hand for his awakening.
”Nothing else?” the ranger asked.
”No. He agrees to that.” Dane indicated the brach, licking his muzzle with his long tongue.
”We go on, in the dark.” Meshler lifted his head much as did the brach when sniffing. ”Clear tonight-a fuller moon-”
Not that that would make much difference, thought Dane. Meshler might declare a night to be clear, as it probably was for him, while it remained dark to the Terrans.
It was late afternoon, and Dane had dozed off again when he was roused by Tau. Once more they shared a ration tube, and then Meshler signaled a move. The sun was halfway down behind some sawtoothed mountains, and already shadows were reaching out in dusky advance.
Relying on the brach's warning, Dane carried the alien within his jacket, though having to leave it unsealed to do so meant that some of the warmth was lost. They started out along the track left by the crawler. Before the light had entirely gone, they came across one place where the chewed-up soil suggested the machine had stalled, to be dug loose. The scuffed marks left by boots were too badly blurred to let them guess how many pa.s.sengers the vehicle had carried.
The detect in Tau's hand continued to point in the same general direction. However, the medic reported that the amount of radiation was not mounting. It was the brach who about midnight or thereabouts gave them their warning.
”Things-” Its pipe sounded in Dane's hood mike. ”Danger-”
”Men?” he asked quickly.
”No. Like dragons-”
Dane repeated that to his companions. Meshler was in the van. Again his head went up as Dane could see in the thin light of the half-moon; again he seemed to be sniffing. ”That stink!” The word burst out of him.
Dane turned his head, coughed, and choked. Stink-stench was right! Far worse than the bad odor of the things hatched from the embryo containers, or even the smell of the antline-and so thick that they might be standing on the verge of an offal dump.
”There's a force field there.” Tau held out the detect, and they saw that the needle quivered back and forth. So warned, Dane was able to make out the faint blue haze that formed a wall directly ahead. What faced them now was a dark, tangled ma.s.s of vegetation, but between them and it was the force field, and for that Dane was secretly glad. To plunge into that ma.s.s in the dark was more than he cared to do, whether Meshler could pilot them or not. And the stench plainly came from that direction.
”Crawler tracks turn left.” Meshler followed them. Dane reluctantly did the same, Tau falling into step beside him. The Terran guessed that the medic was no more pleased with this than he was.
By now there was a road of sorts, or at least a way beaten flat by the treads of crawlers. Either one had made this trip many times, or else more than one had gone so. They paralleled the haze, which gave a wan and very ghostly light to the road they followed and the growth behind it. Light enough to- Dane did not utter that gasp. Meshler, for all his familiarity with the wild, had voiced it, stopping short, as if the force field had swung out a sudden arm to restrain him. But Dane was as frozen.
There had been movement behind the haze. Now they looked up at something that, in that very limited light, was enough to send any sane man flying. Only for a second did they see it, and then it was gone. Dane could not be sure now he had really seen it at all. There was no sound, no movement, now. Only it was something so alien that even a star voyager flinched from facing it.
”Was it-?” Was it really there, Dane wanted to ask.
But Meshler was moving on, taking long strides so that the Terrans had to hurry to catch up, slipping and stumbling in the rutted road. It was as if the ranger was denying what he had seen, or might have seen, by that dogged advance. Nor did any of them speak. Even the brach hung quiet, a growing weight.