The End of the Matter

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Otoids,” said Hasboga curtly, grabbing up her pulsepopper and slipping off the safety. She ran for the gallery window as Flinx was still blinking sleep from his eyes. By the time he was fully awake, September had joined her atop the stone stairway. The two moved back and forth along the wide slit in the temple front, firing frequently at targets below. Dimly one could hear the incessant chatter of the Otoid.

  Flinx joined them atop the stairs. Soon arrows began pinging through the narrow gap with disconcerting frequency. September cursed as fast as he fired. Standing alongside and watching the Mark Twenty cut down trees and leave craters in the earth, Flinx felt comparatively helpless as he snapped off an occasional burst with his own small handbeamer.

  A bolt plunged onto the stone facing, falling almost vertically by September’s right hand. He glanced upward. “They’re atop the temple now,” he muttered, “probably a mob of them. We can’t hold this gallery much longer.”

  “The tunnel,” Isili suggested, “fast!”

  Flinx stayed between them as they ran down the stairway. They raced across the chamber floor. Around a slight bend in the inner chamber wall were five steps which Flinx hadn’t seen before leading downward, Ab joined them and studied the entrance curiously.

  “They’ll open the door we built soon enough,” September grunted. “This chamber has several back entrances, which we blocked up, but you can be sure they’re just waiting for us to stick our heads out one of them.” He indicated the low passageway at the bottom of the steps. Portable lights showed a dry stone floor.

  September was gathering up food packets and shoving them into various pockets in the shirt he had donned on awakening. He pressed an armful on Flinx. “This tunnel is where we’ve done most of our digging. This is the only entrance—and exit, of course.”

  Several arrows pinged off the stone walls. September whirled, raising the muzzle of the Mark Twenty. Blue fire cleared the gallery window and left smoking stone and bodies behind.

  “They might tire of this,” he continued, speaking as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “If they don’t”—he ducked as a fresh bolt shot by overhead—“we’ll have a choice of charging them or starving. But I don’t think they can overpower us down in there.”

  Then Flinx was fighting his load of containers as he followed Hasboga down the steps and through the narrow, winding tunnel. September trailed, covering their retreat.

  In the dim illumination he saw that the tunnel was roughly pyramidal in form, with a narrow strip of flat ceiling overhead. Delicate bas-reliefs ran in a single strip along each wall; a third decorated the small roof. Underfoot were smooth, alternating slabs of blue, green, and pure white stone, the white shining like glazed tile, while the blue and green remained convincingly stonelike. Ab loped along easily behind Flinx, singing querulously.

  Finally they stopped. Panting, Flinx dumped his load of food containers. Hasboga settled her pulsepopper on a mound of recently excavated rubble while September found a resting place for his massive weapon slightly below and to her left.

  Silence soon gave way to a deafening chatter as a horde of Otoid warriors came surging and hopping down the tunnel.

  “Ready,” September whispered expectantly.

  Though the aborigine battle cries were thunderous, they were nothing compared to the roar of the two powerful guns as they fired away at the screaming, attacking natives. Flinx felt like a fly trapped in the landing bay of a cargo shuttle at the moment of touchdown.

  The tunnel became a long, fiery gullet which digested stone and Otoid with equal indifference. With so much firepower concentrated in such a small space, Flinx’s handbeamer would have been superfluous. He conserved it’s modest charge and let Hasboga and September do the incinerating.

  Eventually it dawned on the Otoid that they had reached a point beyond which nothing living could pass. With much howling and cursing, they retreated around the first bend and out of range. A deep swath of charred, smoking corpses constituted a disquieting reminder of their presence. Since the slight breeze blew always inward, the four inhabitants of the tunnel’s end received the full brunt of that noxious barbecue.

  “Now what?” Flinx wondered, glancing from Hasboga to the giant. Despite the apparent solidity of the stone walls, he was nervous. “Could they cave in the tunnel and trap us here? Or smoke us out?”

  “As for the last,” Hasboga told him, “that’s no problem, though we might have to share tanks.” She pointed to a pile of mining equipment in a corner. It included a pair of atmosphere masks for poor-air digging.

  “The original Alaspinians built these temples well,” she went on, indicating the walls around them. “With their primitive tools, I don’t think the Otoid could break through the ancient cement sealing these stones. Even if they could, I doubt that they’d try it.”

  “Why not?”

  “If they did that,” September explained, “they’d never get our eyes.”

  “Eyes again,” Flinx murmured. “What do they do with dead men’s eyes?”

  “Never mind, young feller-me-lad,” was the grim reply. “It doesn’t make pleasant conversation.” Flinx decided not to insist on an explanation. If the subject troubled September, he wasn’t sure he needed to know.

  “Try to starve us out,” the big man announced professionally, eyeing the far bend in the tunnel. “In any case, I don’t think they’ll try another mass rush like that last one for a while. They’ll sit down and talk it over first.” Leaving his rifle resting in place, he turned and slumped down against the wall of protective rubble.

  Flinx took the opportunity to examine the section of tunnel they had retreated to. It wasn’t so much a room or chamber here as it was a slight enlargement of the tunnel proper. Possibly the engravings set into the walls and ceiling were a touch more elaborate, a bit more plentiful. Three meters on, the tunnel assumed its normal dimensions, and a couple of meters beyond that the smooth walls ended in a dam of collapsed stone and rock. Despite Hasboga’s assurances, it was clear that the Alaspinian temple was not invulnerable.

  She noticed the direction of his gaze and said with a certain amount of enthusiasm, “We’ve been drilling and clearing this section, as you can see. We’re trying to find out where this tunnel goes. I’ve studied thousands of temple schematics, and this tunnel has no counterpart in any of them that I’ve been able to discover. Also, those Alaspinian temples that do have passageways or tunnels have them laid out with sharp angles, regular and precise, all heading toward definite destinations. Usually they lead to other structures. This one makes no sense. It just sort of winds off uncertainly to no place. Compared to your usual Alaspinian road or passage, this one’s constructed like somebody’s small intestine.”

  “What do you expect to find at the end of it?” Flinx asked her.

  She shrugged and smiled hopefully. “Storeroom, if we’re lucky. Iridium temple masks, city treasury, anything else valuable the Mimmisompo priests wanted to hide and protect. Maybe even a religious scepter. They usually used crysorillium, and sapphire to decorate those scepters. Might even have some opalized diamonds.”

  “No doubt all of great scientific value,” mused Flinx.

  She threw him a warning look. “Don’t criticize, Flinx, until you’ve had to spend ten years on useless projects presided over by pompous asses with well-connected parents. Remember, I’d rather be doing some worthwhile research on my home planet. For me, this is a means to an end.”

  “Sorry,” Flinx admitted. “I was—”

  September broke in. “Apologies later, lad,” he declared, rolling over to take up the trigger of the Mark Twenty. Angry hoots were drifting up the tunnel toward them. “Here they come again.”

  But the big man’s concern was premature. The hooting came no nearer, though it continued not far from them.

  September peered over the top of the shielding wall. “Probably having a final, violent disagreement over tactics,” he theorized pleasantly. The hooting grew louder, and Flinx thou
ght he heard sounds of fighting.

  “Sounds like they’re plenty angry at one another. Good! A couple of the warrior-primes are squabbling. They might end up fighting each other. Otoids have short tempers. It’s been known to happen.”

  Hasboga nodded confirmation. “A few reports of natives attacking miners and outposts and ending up by massacring each other have been substantiated.” She looked almost excited. “The only thing the Otoids hate worse than themselves are human or thranx interlopers. We might have a chance!”

  “Lopers, mopers, lazy daze,” came a high-pitched verse from behind them. “Moping, moping, eating maize . . . oh say can you see the canticle me.”

  September glanced briefly back at Ab. The alien was amusing himself at the far end of the excavation by juggling rocks with his four hands. Something struck the giant, and he eyed Flinx appraisingly.

  “How about sending out your property as a decoy? It would tell us if they’re too busy with each other to bother us.” He hurried on before Flinx could reply. “There’s a chance the Otoid will be so fascinated by him that they’ll take him for a prize—he’s got four eyes, to our two apiece—and they’ll leave without risking any more dead.”

  “No,” an angry Flinx replied. He said it firmly, so that there would be no mistake about it.

  That did not keep September from arguing. “Why not, lad? You’ve admitted he’s a burden on you. He’s obviously madder than a bloodhyper and no good to anyone, and he might even slip through, depending on how many shafts he can take.”

  “Ab,” Flinx responded very slowly, “is an intelligent creature.”

  September snorted. “It might save our lives.”

  “He’s completely helpless,” Flinx continued tightly, “totally dependent on our judgment. Furthermore, Ab trusts me. I wouldn’t send him out there”—he gestured down the tunnel—“any more than I would a crippled cat.”

  “I was afraid of that.” September sighed, looking over at Hasboga. “Our young lad is an idealist.”

  “Don’t be too sure of yourself, September,” Flinx warned him. “Idealism’s an affliction I can put aside when I have to.”

  “Take it easy, lad,” September cautioned him. “Isili, what say you, woman?”

  Hasboga turned to stare at her associate, then looked across to Flinx. “The creature is the boy’s responsibility and property,” she declared, her gaze never wavering from Flinx’s face. “We still don’t know if the abos are fighting among themselves. Let’s wait and see what they do. I’m not ready to vote for anything drastic until we start running out of food and water. Ab stays, if that’s the way the youth wants it.”

  “Musical, musical, think time contusional,” rhymed Ab, happily ignorant of the state of his fate and unaware that it had just been informally decided.

  “We’ll wait on then,” September agreed, giving in gracefully. “I just don’t like waiting, that’s all.” He returned his attention to the tunnel. At least the cool air would slow the process of putrefaction. If not, the stench of decomposing corpses could force them to use the masks as efficiently as smoke would.

  Quite unexpectedly, the far end of the tunnel seemed to become darker. Flinx squinted, unsure that his eyes were relaying the truth. September leaned over the edge of their wall and tried to see around the first bend. The darkness jumped a little bit nearer.

  “What are they up to?” Flinx inquired anxiously. “Filling up the corridor?”

  “No,” murmured the big man softly, “I don’t think so.”

  It was Hasboga who first realized what the natives were doing. “They’re taking out the lights,” she informed them, even as another several meters of darkness appeared. “Rather than cover up the reflectors, they’re just taking them down and moving them out of the tunnel.”

  “They won’t take out the last three,” September said grimly, hunkering down over the bulky stock of his rifle and shifting a little to his left. Howling and shrieking cut off further conversation as another mass of tightly packed natives came surging around the turn in the tunnel. September kept his weapon aimed near the precious light and shattered one alien after another as they tried to climb up to the unbreakable, self-powered sphere. Hasboga tried to hold back the rest of the screaming wave, and Flinx helped as best he could with his tiny pistol.

  But they were so densely packed and there were so many of them that September was finally forced to bring his own weapon to bear in order to drive them from the corridor. One aborigine in the mob was able to reach the lamp. Triumphantly he wrenched it free from its mounting.

  Shouting their victory, the mob retreated up the tunnel to safety, bearing the precious light with them. Now there were only two spheres left, one halfway down from the just-removed light to their position and the other a couple of meters in front of Hasboga. Beyond that, night had claimed the tunnel.

  “They’ll be regrouping again,” September decided wanly, “for another charge. Buoyed up by their success. Some warrior-prime is in full control now.” He used a hand to indicate the second light, partway to the tunnel bend. “If they get that one we’re going to be in big trouble.”

  That led him to revive the discussion of a few minutes earlier. He gestured back toward the singsonging Ab. “What about it?”

  Hasboga eyed the alien, turned a speculative stare on Flinx, then sighted back down her own weapon. “Not yet. They may not get the next light.”

  September growled softly but did not argue. As the prospect of death grew more real, Flinx noted, the big man’s sense of humor was suffering.

  Several hours passed before the peace and quiet was shattered by a terrible screaming and mewling. Flinx didn’t jump this time, his ears were still numb from the last attack. But although they waited expectantly for the anticipated charge, it did not materialize.

  “Why don’t they come?” muttered Hasboga tightly, trying to see around the distant bend of a now-dark section of tunnel.

  “Trying to rattle us,” suggested September coolly, apparently unaffected by the spine-chilling cacophony. “Ignore it and stay ready. The noise can’t hurt us.”

  “Not physically” was Hasboga’s response. “Primitive or not, that’s mind-tingling stuff.”

  The bloodcurdling concert continued, unendingly. It was beginning to make Flinx twitchy when it started to fade. Once begun, the cessation of the shrieking and moaning accelerated rapidly, until all was quiet again. Almost too quiet.

  “By O’Morion,” ventured September in amazement, “I think they’ve left.”

  “Maybe they did start fighting among themselves,” guessed Hasboga, not daring to believe it.

  “No, someone’s coming,” Flinx informed them, and then instantly cursed himself for saying it.

  September’s eye went back to the sight of his weapon. Several seconds passed before he thought to glance uncertainly over at Flinx.

  “How do you know, young feller-me-lad? I can’t see or hear a cursed thing.”

  “I have unusually good hearing,” Flinx lied.

  He was receiving impressions of some kind of mind up ahead. Beyond that he could sense nothing. His mind had been overloaded with input from emotionally wracked minds since the previous day, minds both advanced and aboriginal. Right now he couldn’t evaluate the ones approaching them any more than he could separate granite from gneiss.

  “I hear something, all right,” Hasboga whispered, cuddling her pulsepopper tight as an infant. In the silence they heard the slight crunch of rock underfoot.

  “Trying to slip a couple of good bowmen close to us, while we’re worn out from the last charge” was September’s decision. “One tactic that won’t work.” He adjusted the focus on his sight slightly and lowered the energy level—no sense wasting power on only a couple of the abos.

  In the silence of the tunnel, only their own soft breathing could be heard. That made the gentle, pedantic voice that abruptly spoke sound louder than it actually was.

  “Please don’t shoot,” it reque
sted, in perfect terranglo but with a slight accent. “I do hope you are all uninjured.”

  “That’s certainly a thranx voice,” a wondering, confused September said firmly. He stood up and peered into the darkness. “Come on ahead, whoever you are!”

  The crunching resumed. Soon a pair of figures emerged into the light. One was a dignified thranx of considerable age, evidently the one who had called out to them. His antennae dropped, and his chiton was turning deep purple. Both wing cases had been treated for the cracking of maturation, but the insect walked with sureness, and the shining compound eyes still held a brightness few young thranx possessed.

  His companion was a tall, slim human of comparable age. His eyes were simple, and there were no ommatidia to throw back rainbows at the stupefied watchers, but they gleamed a little in their own way from beneath slightly slanted brows.

  “As fast as we come, it’s never been fast enough,” the thranx announced tiredly. “None of you are damaged?”

  “No, no,” Isili Hasboga responded. She tried to see past the two figures into the darkness of the tunnel. “What happened to the Otoid?”

  “I’d like to say,” the tall human replied, in oddly stilted Terranglo, “that we landed among them, discussed the situation pleasantly, and convinced them to leave in peace. Unfortunately, they are belligerent far in excess of their intelligence.” He appeared embarrassed. “Our skimmer is just outside the entrance to this temple. We have some heavy weapons in it.”

  “Frankly, it wouldn’t disappoint us if you’d exterminate the little bastards completely,” September declared, rising and brushing rock dust from his hands and clothes.

  “I am sorry,” responded the thranx, with frosty politeness, “we are not in the genocide business.”

  For a thranx to speak such perfect Terrangbo was most unusual, Flinx knew as he moved for a better look at their rescuers. In fact, in his whole life he had only met one thranx who spoke the language of man like a native. That was . . .