Nik fought a desire to turn and look back at the island hillock. The humid air was thick about him, though the storm streams had drained away, leaving only the cuts of their passage in the old sea bed. There was no sunrise visible on this cloud-shrouded planet, but the steam mists of the day before were not so thick, most of them confined to the yet lower level where the rain lake lay. He could see ahead and around enough to mark any lizard such as Leeds had fled from or the furred things out of the ruins.
As he went, Nik tried to imagine what Dis had been like before the sun flare had steamed up the seas and rivers and wracked the very bones of the planet with quakes and eruptions. It had always, of course, been a dim world by the standards of his own species. But to its natives, the infrared sun must have been as clear as the yellow-white stars were normal to Nik's kind. And it had been a civilized world, judging by the ruins. The high quality of art shown in the statues of the watchers and their humanoid companion testified to the height of that civilization.
Disians had tried to escape the wrath of their heavens by retreat to the refuge. Had any survivors lingered on in those prepared depths to waver forth again into a ruined outer world? Did any still exist anywhere on Dis? Nik had tried to pry out of Leeds during the early hours of the night some information concerning this planet, knowing that any scrap might mean, by force of circumstances, life or death for him. But the captain had said, "I don't know," to most of his questions.
Dis's first discovery had one of those by-chance things. A Free Trader before the war, threatened by a power leakage, had streaked for the nearest planet recorded on their instruments and set down here. And because it was a Free Trader and not a Survey ship that had made the discovery, there had been no official report, the Traders seeing a profit in their knowledge. Traders formerly dealt with the Guild on occasion when that organization had a quasi-legal standing or when there was no chance of being drawn into trouble by such contact. Thus Dis had become an article of trade.
Leeds' own exploration had brought him knowledge of the refuge and had given the Guild an excellent base hideout—a hideout, Nik gathered, although Leeds was evasive on that point, within cruising distance of several systems in which the Guild had extensive dealings. But once the refuge had been stocked and was in use, the rest of Dis's outer shell was of little or no interest to the outlaws. In fact, they had a kind of horror of it built up by several accidents and encounters with its native fauna, which led them to use it to discipline any rebels. Being set loose on the surface without cin-goggles or weapons was an ultimate punishment.
So—only a small portion of Dis was known to those who used it. Were it not that Vandy was conditioned, they could have taken to the outlands and been safe. Safe from whom, another part of Nik questioned. The Patrol was here to get Vandy, to return him to his people. No, Vandy did not need to hide out in the wilds. That was Nik's portion and Leeds'. Yet the captain was so sure they could strike a bargain for their own benefit.
Nik had been seeing it for several moments before he realized that a bush to his left and ahead was not quite right. Right? Why did he think that? He paused and surveyed the growth closely for a moment or two until he understood what made the difference. It was the color! All the fungoid vegetation he had seen was, to some degree, phosphorescent, with a wan gleam of green or red. This bush had a warmer, yellow tinge.
And—
The color moved!
The yellow had been close to the ground on the left side at first, but it was now halfway up and in the middle, while the first portion had faded to wan glow. Now, the yellow was on the right!
It was not a question of a change in color—Nik was certain of that. But something behind the bush or within its fleshy branches had moved from one position of concealment to another, always keeping well under cover.
Nik tried an experiment. He circled back a little to the left, heading in a direction to take him to the back of the bush. Would the lurker move to face him? Yes! The glow turned with him almost at ground level, keeping pace with him.
Why the presence of that color should be so disturbing, Nik could not have explained. Was it because the source never came into view? Was that thing in ambush aware Nik was able to see it? Perhaps it did now guess because of his own movements.
He looked from the bush in question to others of its kind ahead and saw what he feared and expected. Three of those growths had the betraying glow. To avoid them, he would have to advance to the very edge of the drop to the next level. He could not bring himself to approach any closer to what might be a trap.
There was the blaster. He could here and now burn that nearest bush and its inhabitant into charred powder, but to attack heedlessly was no answer either. He held the weapon ready as he started along the cliff rim.
It was then that Nik heard the whistle, a piping call that was like a throb of pain beginning in his head and running along his nerves to make his flesh tingle. Three times that shattering call came. Now the lights in the bushes were steady; all faced him. Nik knew the menace of a before-attack. Were these the furred hunters? He did not believe so. But what?
To keep on along the edge of the drop now was to expose himself to a rush. But how else dared he advance?
It was coming—now! How Nik knew that, he could not have told. But he leaped into an open space where any attackers would be exposed to blaster fire.
The bushes shook, spilling the lurkers into sight. They came scuttling, at first on hands and knees. Then, from a crouch, they launched themselves at him—or two of them did, while three remained in reserve. Nik had expected animals, but these—these were men!
"No!" He heard his own involuntary cry, but the others ran mute.
And he saw that he was not confronting new refugees from the Guild base or Patrol scouts. These were naked, thin ghostly creatures. The foremost carried a club in the head of which had been set a row of ugly projections. His companion held a stone as big as his own head.
They sped toward the off-worlder, their eyes agleam with a terrible insanity. Nik fired, almost without consciously willing that push of the finger. The club carrier went down, and at the same time that throb of a whistle beat in Nik's brain and made his hands quiver and shake.
The second attacker stopped short when his companion fell. He retreated a step or two to stand over his body. His head swung from side to side, his nostrils expanding visibly as if to soak up some necessary scent.
On his bare body the glowing skin was stretched over a rack of bones. And there was no trace of hair on face, head, or body. The features on the face now swinging back toward Nik were roughly human, though the nose was very wide and flat, the nostrils large pits. The mouth was also wide; the lips were thin, rolled back in a snarl to display large, sharp teeth, while the eyes were sunk back into the skull, difficult to see in their twin caverns.
The stranger dropped his stone weapon, tossing it carelessly aside, where it was speedily pounced upon by one of the smaller lurkers. He wrested the club from the flaccid fingers of the dead one and swung it once or twice, as if testing its balance.
Nik tensed, waiting for a second rush, but the other made no move to renew hostilities. He backed away toward the bushes, keeping a wary eye on Nik, his three companions going to ground more quickly. Then as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone, leaving the dead behind.
Who—or what? Nik knew of the prisoners who had been driven out of the refuge. But surely, humanoid though these creatures appeared, they were not of off-world stock! He marked their going in the bush glow, but they did not retreat far. Those betraying patches of light squatted, each in a hiding place, along the path he must take. Whatever the purpose of that attack, it had not been abandoned as far as the Disians were concerned. But they would not try a second rush into blaster fire.
Should he detour down to the second level of the sea bottom and climb again when he reached the old seaport? There was no reason to fear the outcome, even if all four rushed him; yet Nik shrank from a second battle. Whatever or whoever the strangers were, they were human enough to seem remotely of his kind. And to meet a club and a stone with a blaster was sheer butchery in Nik's mind. At the same time, he did not doubt that the Disians had no parallel qualms. Did they know that a body light revealed them to him, or were they unaware of that disadvantage?
Nik studied the ground ahead. The growth of vegetation that favored the concealment of the strangers did not extend too far. If he could keep on along the cliff edge and so come in to the open, he might avoid another encounter.
He broke into a trot, covering that area of inherent peril with what speed he could. Such exertion in this humidity left him gasping, staggering a little, as he burst into the welcome open. With one hand pressed against his laboring chest, he looked behind. The lights—they were moving again, not directly after him but for the cliff face of the old shoreline. He stood watching those now distant figures break from the brush cover and begin to climb the wall with the agility of those who had performed that particular maneuver before. Had they abandoned the chase?
No goggles on their faces—they must be native to this world! Were they degenerate remnants of the race that had fashioned the refuge, survivors of the catastrophe that had wrecked Dis? Goggles—Nik's hand went up to touch the ones he wore. Those were a very fragile hold on life. Just suppose he were to break or lose the cins—he would be easy prey for even a club man then. He drew a ragged breath and tried to quiet the pounding of his labored heart.
There ahead was where the winged fighters had battled over their prey, and that far the furred hunters had come. Nik examined the ground carefully. There was no cover he could detect large enough to screen one of the furred beasts, but he kept the blaster in his hand. As he turned to set out, he caught a last glimpse of the Disians. The club man was near the top of the cliff, and he, in turn, was looking down at Nik, watching the off-worlder with intent interest. Then his glowing body was up and over that last rise, and he was gone. But Nik had a strong feeling he was not abandoning the chase.
A pile of well-cleaned bones marked the place where the furred hunters had feasted, but there was no other sign of them. Nik forged ahead. He was in comparatively clear territory here, and his next landmark was the reef, though that was yet a good journey beyond. From there the climb into the city ruins—The city ruins! If there ever was a perfect place to lay an ambush, it was there—right there.
Nik tried to remember what he had seen of the ruins, to think whether there was some other way around them to reach the tunnel break of the refuge. But he was afraid that if he avoided the obvious landmarks, he might become hopelessly lost. There was something frightening about launching out into the open sea bottom away from the old shoreline. With those cliffs at hand, the reef ahead, he had a sense of security, of knowing in part what he could expect. He decided that he would retrace the path he and Vandy had taken earlier.
The coarse, gravelly soil slipped and slid under his boots as it had not earlier. He guessed that the moisture had drained out of it, leaving it the texture of sand, making walking just that much harder. His lungs still labored to separate air from the dankness, and he cut his pace.
There was no more commotion in the rain lake below. There were no winged fishers, no signs of turmoil in the waters, which had receded a goodly distance from where they had been at the end of the storm. In the midst of one such dry part, a glint caught Nik's attention, and he wavered to a stop. This was tangled wreckage, not a rock outcrop. It was something fashioned long ago by intelligence—a ship, surface or air transportation of some kind. Metal had gone into its making and gave back now that sullen glint of light.
It was still in sight when Nik knocked over a small creature with a thrown stone. He found himself holding a limp body with rudimentary leather wing flaps stretching between its front and rear legs, and that body was scaled. Trying not to think of its alien form, he skinned and cleaned it. Then he choked down mouthfuls of the rank-tasting flesh. Food was fuel, and fuel his body needed; he could not be dainty in his eating.
On again—the reef was ahead, and in the reef he would shelter by nightfall, preferring it to the ruins. He could not do without sleep forever. It was getting harder to think clearly. Nik halted, his hand going to his head. That throb! It was like something—the whistle call of the Disians!
Slowly, staggering a little, he turned about to view the cliff top to his left. Rock—that was all, just rock. No club wielder was climbing down again. But the muddle in his head—that throb which was more pain than sound—
The reef—he would get to the reef and hole up there. It was darkening; it must be close to the day's end. He could see the reef, a black streak across the dull sea bottom. Nik wavered on, the gritty soil slipping under his feet so that once he fell to one knee and found it difficult to scramble up again.
He feared a return of that throb in his head, shrinking from the very thought of it. His hand shook so that he had to belt hook the blaster. Was he sick from that food he had forced into him as Vandy had been sick the night before? There was something wrong—very wrong—
Once Nik swung around to go back, back to the island hill and Leeds and Vandy. But then he knew that he could not make it. It would be better to reach the reef and rest there. The crevice in which he and Vandy had sheltered beckoned him. Just get there and rest—rest—His hand wiped back and forth across his face. Once that movement pushed aside the goggles, and he cried out in fear as his sight was distorted. He was no longer truly conscious of what was happening to him, only that apprehension was clouding his mind and that the thought of the hiding hole in the reef kept him moving.
The rest of that day was a haze for Nik. But he roused when he lurched up against a rock and looked a little stupidly at a wall of them. He had reached the reef, he thought foggily. The reef—safety—rest—If he could only crawl a little farther!
There were bright glints of light—or eyes, eyes watching—waiting—assessing his fatigue, his bemused mind? Was it that additional prick of fear that pulled Nik farther out of the fog? Something gave him power enough to drag himself up, along the rocks, heading for the pocket he remembered.
He kicked away something that rattled against the stone and saw a claw-tipped bone flip up and away from his stumbling feet—the remains of the crawler he had blasted before their crevice camp. So, he was almost there now.
The glint of eyes—they were still at a distance. His sobbing breaths beat in his own ears, so that he could not hear anything that might be creeping up for the kill.
Just a little farther. Now—hold on to this rock, pull up to the next, an irregular stairway to the crevice. He reeled back against the very boulder where he had kept sentry two days earlier.
Once more he drew blaster fumblingly and laid it on the rock. His hands still shook, but he could use both of them to bring that weapon into play against the eyes—
A small part of Nik's mind was aroused enough now to wonder at his present half collapse. There was no real reason for him to be so exhausted, so dazed. Ever since that whistling when he had encountered the Disians—Nik rubbed his hand across his forehead, pressing the goggles painfully against his skin. No, he must not disturb those! He jerked his fingers away.
He was so tired that he could not keep his feet—yet those waiting eyes—Sobbing a little, Nik wedged himself erect, dimly thinking that any attack would be limited to a narrow front he could defend. But how long could he continue to keep watch?
His head fell forward; he was floating—floating on a shifting mist that enfolded, engulfed him, spun him out and out—
Pain throbbed from his head down into his back and arms. Nik's head snapped up and back and struck against stone with shock enough to bring him out of that mist. The throb—but he was alert enough to see the thing working its way among the rocks, a shadow advancing from deeper shadows. He clutched the blaster and tried to press the firing button.
The ray shot across the top of the barrier dock. It missed the creeper but sent it into retreat. Nik dragged himself forward. He had to meet what was coming in the open. He had to!
His forward effort succeeded. Eyes—yes, there were the eyes again—one pair, two, more—He could not count them now—they spun, danced, jerked about in a crazy pattern when he tried to watch.
Nik cried out as another throb burst in his head. All those eyes—they were uniting into one! No! He was wrong—not eyes but a light! An honest light—not of Dis—He had only to follow that to safety.
He pushed away from the rock and crept around, angry that his body obeyed his will so sluggishly. He must hurry, must run to the light that meant an end to nightmares—only let him reach the light!