Already that exchange seemed a long time ago.
Sherret bit hugely at a sandwich and studied the map. Its lines ran off into the unknown about ten miles northwest of the lake. On the other side of the blank area the contours of Na-Abiza were sketched in. By the look of it, he had only to keep plugging north-northwest until he encountered them.
So long as the blank area didn’t contain any impassable obstacles. He replaced the map, such as it was, in the compass box and picked up another sandwich. At which moment there came, from somewhere in the sky, a terrible scream.
He started, and looked up.
The scream was coming from a black, winged dot. The dot grew bigger. It was hurtling down at him. As it came, the scream rose rapidly in intensity. It was like having skewers pushed into his ears. The short sound waves seemed to pierce his skull like hard radiation.
He flung himself face down on the waterproof, pressing the heel of his palm tightly over each ear. This must be a Tek-bird. The Jackies had cackled about such a species. Its paralyzing attack cry could split the very sutures of the skull, they said, and thought it a highly humorous end.
In experience, it was a long way from being a joke. Sherret found himself screaming with agony. “Stop, stop, stop!” shrieked his voice inside his skull, which indeed felt as if it were splitting apart.
There came a gusty backwash of air. The thing had passed over. The scream was dropping in pitch—the Doppler effect. Then it cut off abruptly. It left his head singing. Slowly, he sat up, feeling bilious. The marshland seemed to be see-sawing around him.
Apprehensively, he looked around the sky. The Tek-bird was climbing after its swoop and beginning to veer. He feared another swoop—and there was no cover for miles. What was the thing seeking? His eyes? His food?
He glanced anxiously over his little scatter of possessions. The food hadn’t been touched. But the compass box was missing and the compass with it. The Tek-bird, sweeping around in a flat loop, was heading back in his direction. He cringed. But it continued to fly level. As it neared he saw it was a huge, leathery creature like a pterodactyl. In its toothed beak the plastic compass box glinted. Sherret found himself on his feet, yelling and waving.
“Drop that, damn you! Drop it, or by—”
He remembered his needle-pistol and grabbed it. His hands were shaking stupidly. He took a pot shot at the bird. The needle sang away far off target. The Tek-bird flapped by unconcernedly a hundred feet above him and headed out over the lake. He shot twice more, ineffectively.
Quite suddenly the bird went into a steep dive. It plunged like a gannet into the lake, taking the compass box with it. There was hardly a splash. The bird was a practiced diver.
Cursing, he waited for it to re-appear. It did not.
He continued to wait, pacing the limits of the small dry area. A tortured hour dragged by. The lake surface remained unbroken. Tek-birds, it seemed, nested under water. He supposed the compass box was tucked away down there together with sundry other shiny objects this sonic menace with the jackdaw instincts had collected.
Eventually he lost hope. The map was small loss. But the compass… Without it, he was disoriented. No stars could ever shine in Amara’s glowing skies. The positions of the Three Suns could offer little reliable guidance; the crazy path of the planet between them was only confusing.
Of course, he could return to the ship—and Maxton.
But Maxton wouldn’t give him another of the valuable compasses. In fact, Maxton might already have relinquished his rank—and the new captain might well deny Sherret his freedom.
To hell with Goffism. At the moment he knew what was roughly the right direction. He would push on and hope. After all, he might meet an occasional Jackie, or even a Paddy, who might deign to indicate the way.
He plodded around the lake to the western side and struck off on a line he remembered from the map.
The Jackie’s queer warning kept going through his mind.
Beware of those who have only two, of those who become three, of that which becomes many.
Those who have only two what?
Who were those who became three? Three what?
As for that which became many… It could be almost anything, from fruit flies to the sorcerer’s broomstick.
The whole rigmarole was as senseless as most of the Jackies’ remarks—and yet seemed somehow different from the usual run. More typical of the usual run was a saying of the Jackies’, “May you live until the slow burn eats its tail.” He’d never been able to get that allusion. A “slow burn” was archaic English slang, but obviously there could be no connection.
Merely a kind of meaningless poetry? Speculation was dulled at last by the sheer muscular fatigue of endless plodding.
CHAPTER TWO
« ^ »
HE WALKED for hours, until his feet were sore, and then he walked some more and the soreness wore off. A pair of Jackies cackled at him, but gave him a wide berth. He saw a high speck which might have been a Tek-bird, and he hid beneath a smooth-barked tree until the speck vanished. When he tried to move, he found his jacket was caught. The smooth bark had put forth a protuberance like the claw of a lobster. The pincers had met neatly through the hem and were as firm as steel. He tore himself away. He felt in no mood to linger and experiment. A presentiment was forming that this journey was going to prove tougher than he’d ever imagined. He was content to leave this specimen for some future, and more leisured explorer to collect for his arboretum.
But he made a mental note not to sleep under any similar trees. Conceivably, that claw could close on a man’s throat.
He slept instead on a small plateau of bare rock.
He awoke to a predominantly yellow sky and to a sense of confusion about direction. From his small perch he surveyed his surroundings. Far away on the world’s verge was something peculiar. If it were a tree, it must be miles high, with a translucent trunk and a great, fuzzy, dark mass of foliage. Weighing things up, he decided that that must be the general direction of Na-Abiza. If he made for the treelike thing, it would at least keep him headed in a straight line. In strange territory, one tended to walk in a large circle. He set off, walking quickly, and covered several miles. He was becoming aware of a distant mutter of thunder, as though a shooting war were in progress just over the horizon.
The peculiar object was even further away than it had seemed. Although it had grown taller and larger, he still couldn’t make out what it was. The tree (to call it that) appeared to have grown from the ground at a windblown angle. The trunk glimmered with light.
Definitely, the thunder was coming from it—and loudly now. Break for lunch. He squatted, chewing, regarding the enigma which remained so obstinately on the horizon. Whee-smack! He rolled away sideways, nearly choking with a mouthful of dry cracker.
Something, arriving with the velocity of a rocket, had smacked into the earth beside him.
Gingerly, he peered at it over his shoulder. It was a rod around eighteen inches long and an inch in diameter sticking vertically in the ground. It was such a pale yellow that he could see its color wasn’t inherent, but reflection. In a white light, the object would be white.
It must have come from directly overhead. He looked up apprehensively. The sky was just an empty yellow desert.
The thing must have dropped from an immense height. Perhaps from space? It could have brained him. Was it intended to do so?
He gathered his courage, reached out and touched the rod gently. He’d anticipated it would be hot from air friction. Actually, it was unduly cold, almost icy. He tapped and felt it. It wasn’t metal; it seemed more like stone. He wrenched it from the ground.
As he handled it, it became warmer and softer. It began to bend in the middle. Suddenly, it fell apart in his hands and the contents ran. He dropped the pieces with a cry of disgust. Bird lime wasn’t anything unusual in itself. Neither was water vapor, which formed the ball-clouds in the sky. What kept fooling you on Amara were the shapes and the
manner of presentation of basically familiar substances. He used much of his drinking water in cleaning up. He’d lost all taste for his meal and left it.
Somewhere near the stratosphere, beyond view, some species of bird, obviously large from its droppings somehow maintained flight. Either there was a layer of dense air up there, formed by some meteorologitary support. He pictured a sort of winged gasbag.
Just another doodle, he told himself, and resumed the journey. For some time he kept discovering himself tending to cower in anticipation of further gifts from heaven.
Then he lost himself in wonder as he drew nearer the immense phenomenon that had looked tree-shaped.
It was no tree. It wasn’t even solid. The fuzzy dark mass surmounting it was the biggest cloud ever—miles in diameter. Roughly globular, its edges were whirling mist. It was condensing on a great scale at the bottom, and the rain was pouring torrentially down at an angle in a concentrated stream, jetting onto the land. Yet the cloud maintained a uniform density. As fast as it lost water it absorbed more invisible moisture from the atmosphere.
Such perpetual clouds did exist on Earth, rare and isolated freaks in the southern hemisphere. But the confined path of the rain squirting from this one was peculiarly an Amaran phenomenon. There was a force at work here probably never before encountered by man.
The yellowy light shone through the jet, straight as a glass pipe, and clusters of air bubbles glinted in their swift, slanting passage.
The thunder was really heavy now, shock waves riding with the sound waves. The ground vibrated.
The cloud hung over the land like a foreshadowing of doomsday, but the brightly shimmering gold shaft sprang from it like a message of hope. A golden mist enfolded its base.
Sherret walked on into the mist. It was fine spray and soon soaked him. The tiny globules danced in the air to the organ roar of the rushing water. Presently he found himself at the lip of a valley. It’s lower slopes plunged into a sea of heavy spray. They were steep; the valley was practically a canyon.
He followed the edge of it for a long way, until the mist thinned enough to give him a general picture. The cloud must have been spouting for an eternity. This deep valley had been worn into shape by hurtling water through innumerable centuries. It was dead straight and, canal-like, ruling a line to the horizon. Sherret paused to consider. He had something more than two hundred and fifty miles yet to cover on the trek to Na-Abiza. This strange river was rushing pretty much in the direction he believed he must follow. If it kept headed that way, he might get a free ride.
If he had a boat… But Captain Maxton hadn’t thought to supply one. He went on his way thoughtfully. A few miles on the valley sides were a bit less precipitous. Down near the water’s edge bushes had begun to make their appearance. Further along, they were bigger and sturdier; some of the branches were as thick as his wrist.
He picked his point, then made a careful way down to it. He slid here and there but didn’t fall. The water glided past very fast over its smooth bed. It was hard to judge its speed, for there were few ripples and no flotsam. About twenty miles an hour, maybe.
He dumped his rucksack on the narrow bank and tested his machete on a nearby bush. It chopped cleanly. The wood was hard and rather sapless. He began to cut reasonably straight lengths.
When he had sufficient planks laid out, he uncoiled the rope he’d brought and began binding them. The raft consumed it all save for a short length he kept for a painter. Yet it was quite a small raft.
He hunted along the bank for a really big bush, hewed off and trimmed its longest branch. It was to be his navigating pole.
After a meal, he prepared for the launching. He strapped his rucksack on his back again; he didn’t want it swept away in any mishap. He pushed an edge of the raft into the water. It was nearly wrenched from him. He’d underestimated the speed of the torrent. It must be well over thirty miles an hour.
He checked the painter by which he’d moored the raft to a firm-rooted bush. He judged it would hold. Then, straining, he shoved the raft wholly into the water. It tugged like a wild dog on a leash. The bush was yanked, groaning, almost horizontal. He clambered onto the raft, balanced himself, and turned to slice through the painter with the machete. The rope parted and the raft shot off down river with an acceleration that laid him flat on his back, feet in the air, his navigating pole across his chest.
He tried to hold on to everything at once—the pole, the machete, and the cordage of the raft. He could see the high walls of the valley sliding rapidly by. The air streamed over him. The yellow sky looked down at him blankly. He laughed rather breathlessly, then squirmed around to bring himself onto his hands and knees. He took stock. It was all right. The raft was riding high, buoyantly, straight along the way, and there were no rocks in sight. Satisfied, he settled himself more comfortably, prepared to accept whatever the mystery tour might bring.
After some hours, it had brought stiffness to his joints and very little variety. A fast, but dull trip. The biggest mystery, to his mind, was that he’d seen no signs of life beyond occasional birds. There had been several grassy shelves and banks wide enough to site a village. They were as deserted as the cliff tops. One would have imagined a fresh body of water like this would have some people dwelling alongside it Admittedly, it couldn’t be compared with, say, the Nile, because Amara was far from being a desert and there were plenty of lakes.
Yet, no single hut, nor even a lone being, in perhaps a hundred and fifty miles along a direct line.
He found himself hoping pretty hard that he was heading for Na-Abiza and human company. Right now he felt so isolated that the sight of even Captain Maxton wouldn’t be unwelcome.
How far did this water course run? Should he regain the shore now or ride on for a few more hours? For all he knew, he could be riding to the brink of a waterfall roaring down into some great pit—the kind of surprise Amara liked to provide. He hoped the river wouldn’t do any such foolish thing. From the signs, it was hardly likely. It was losing its impetuosity. At first, he’d been forced to half close his eyes against the air stream. Now it scarcely ruffled his hair. The valley was steadily widening. Its slopes lost height as the water lost speed. Greenness was stealing into the sky as Amara slowly turned this hemisphere towards Blue. There was still more of Yellow than Blue as yet, though, and the green was pale and cold and seemed to Sherret to emphasize his loneliness. All right, he told himself, I’m a gregarious misanthrope. Not temperamentally a polar explorer nor a solitary mountaineer. Nor yet a chronic party-goer. It’s just that I like to have someone around to exchange ideas with. Without some kind of human relationship I begin to feel lost, that nothing’s really real. The only test of one’s actual existence is the response of another mind. Granted, in the ultimate analysis we’re all only dream fragments. All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
All the same, the company of the crew of Bagshaw’s Pegasus— he knew many of them—was becoming a need. If he were right about its direction, the river would carry him far faster to them than his feet would. He decided to stick with the raft a few hours longer.
In the event, the few hours became many. The river, which had sprung so eagerly from its unusual source, gradually lost spirit after the valley had dwindled away. Sluggishly, it spread itself thin over flat country and began to sink into the earth. Seeing that the trip was coming to an end, Sherret had been trying to pole the raft to the nearer bank. It was exhausting work. The now muddy river bed clung hard to his pole, which finally stuck and snapped off.
The raft drifted and eventually became bogged down in thick ooze. Sherret tried to make an assessment. It was hard to guess with any exactness how far he had come, especially as he’d dozed a couple of times on the raft. Perhaps some two hundred and fifty miles, all told. Which left something around fifty miles yet to go.
And the initial three miles looked like being the worst, for he was all of that distance from the bank. Three miles of dar
k, clinging mud. He poked around with the remnant of the broken branch and ascertained that the ooze was on the average knee deep. He ate, rested, then lowered himself gently from the raft. When he moved, it was as though his legs were bound in wet sheets. His speed was perhaps a yard a minute. At that rate it would take eighty-eight hours to reach the bank—he worked it out during one of his frequent rests. He plugged on grimly. As he progressed, the ooze must become shallower and the going firmer and his speed correspondingly faster. So long as he didn’t step in a hole and be smothered to death.
The sky was bottle-green, and darkening.
An eternity later, a wet, slimy creature wriggled on its stomach from the last reaches of the mud swamp and weakly grasped grass tufts rooted in dry earth. It clung to them as though they symbolized everything that was most precious. Which they did—safety, an anchorage, rest.
The creature, which had once been an erect and confident human being, was now witless, drained of thought and almost of life. But it could still feel, though all it felt was pain. Every single leg muscle felt as though its fibers were torn to shreds by the thousands of fights to free the limb from sucking mud.
The mud had claimed boots and socks—and manhood, too. But a creature had survived.
The sky was turning an ominous purple.
In the deepest indigo light which Amara could produce, a man-creature was slumped, half-sitting, against the bole of a solitary fruit tree to which he had dragged himself. The fruit wasn’t the attraction for he was beyond hunger. He was still following a blind instinct to clutch at firm roots.
The mud had caked hard on his face, though he was unaware of it. In his mind, he was still battling against liquid mud. His brain seemed choked with it. His thoughts moved with the greatest difficulty, too weak to link up. Dully, he became aware of a faint and pale oblong somewhere in the near distance. Presently he began to concentrate on it, simply to establish a mental focal point again.
The Three Suns of Amara Page 2
