The X Factor

by Andre Norton

  Glistening trails of slime oozed down the gray hide and puddled about the fat center portion of the thing. This or its kind must have left the tracks he had found in the outer city.

  Diskan's revulsion was tinged with fear. The thing was huge, twice, maybe three times, his own not inconsiderable bulk. And for all its lack of visible eyes or other sense organs, he believed it was not only aware of them but also able to spot them exactly. Every indication was that it greeted them with hostile intentions.

  He brought up the blaster, leveled it at that swaying head, and then judiciously moved the sights down to the fat roundness of the midbody. After all, there was a good chance that the thing could be better hit in that more stationary part.

  "Wait!" Zimgrald's order came just as Diskan was about to press the firing button, and such was the authority in it that Diskan obeyed.

  The furred one had made one of its quick darts—not ahead at the slug thing but sidewise, against Diskan, carrying him to the right. Now the opening in the weaving pillar puckered into an outward pout and from that spouted a dark stream of liquid—too short, for it splashed against the stone merciful inches away.

  Diskan fired, but his aim was poor, and the ray only clipped the pointed "head" of the creature. It writhed, looping the upheld pillar of its body in a fantastic whip of coiling and uncoiling skin and muscle. Sometimes it twisted back on its bulk in a way to suggest that any bony framework existing under those unwholesome rolls of flesh was not rigid.

  "Wait!" For the second time Zimgrald rapped out that order.

  But this time, Diskan was in no mind to obey. He strove to center the blaster on the middle of the bulk, only the movements of the creature were more frenzied, convulsive in their rapidity and force. Had that slight burn really done all the harm the thing's writhing now suggested?

  There was a sound, as if someone had torn a length of fabric. Across the middle of the frantically threshing bulk, skin and flesh parted in a break that grew wider and wider as the motions of the creature sloughed it apart. The pillar gave a last titanic upthrust and then fell forward limply, to lie full length on the stone, revealing fully what was rising from the bag its actions had broken open, for it was as if the whole slug had been an encasing bag and the prisoner in it was now emerging. What it was was difficult, even in the light, to make out clearly, for it moved jerkily, pressed together, as if trying to hide from the lamp. Legs, yes—for one was flung suddenly aloft. A jointed leg as long as Diskan was tall, covered with a thin red skin that gleamed with shell sleekness. Then, like the slug before it, the creature gave a convulsive wriggle and straightened up.

  Diskan heard a choked cry from Julha, a hiss out of Zimgrald. The thing was fully and fearfully clear, its elongated body poised several feet above the surface of the stone, supported on eight legs, the middle joints of which were taller than its back. There was a head, a round ball with eyes, or at least patches that resembled eyes, and a long tube it kept extending and then snapping back in a roll.

  The slug had been repulsive and had stirred fear in Diskan, but looking at the thing now kicking its feet free of the shriveling skin, he knew this was a deadlier enemy. He fired.

  The tube had snapped forward, a stream of liquid issuing from it. Then the searing blast caught the creature head on, and Diskan might have rayed directly into a cache of explosives, for the thing literally blew up. Scarlet flames scorched out of the midst of a sharp bark of air displacement.

  Diskan staggered, blinded by the glare. He was unconscious of the pressure of a furred body against his own, shepherding him away from the edge of the drop. And the horrible smell set him gagging and choking.

  "Zimgrald!" he managed to get out between gasps. "Do you see it?"

  It must be dead, it had to be. But Diskan could not put aside so easily his fear that that horrible, insectival head might be still pointed at them. Why the impression of danger had been so intense he could not tell, but that they had escaped something far worse than any other danger on Mimir, Diskan was certain.

  "Nothing—there is nothing—" Even the Zacathan sounded badly shaken.

  Diskan rubbed his smarting eyes; he could see a little now. But to believe what his eyes reported—that was something else. Where that menace had been, entangled in the wrinkled folds of slit slug skin, there was, as Zimgrald had reported, nothing. Both slug and what had come out of it might never have been! The stone was bare.

  "Did—did we just imagine it?" Diskan stammered.

  The lamp beam moved. Now a slick smear caught in it, glossy in the light. Where the slug had spat at them, the trace of that remained. No, they had not dreamed it. But the bewildering effect of that last shot dazed Diskan.

  "We did not imagine that—or that!"

  Far back along the road they had come was a short cry.

  The fireworks must have put the Jacks on their trail. The Mimiran animal was already padding on, over the battleground so strangely vacated. Diskan took the rear guard again. Zimgrald switched off the lamp and with Julha trotted after the furred one.

  Diskan shouldered his pack and held the butt of his weapon close to his eyes, striving to read the amount of blaster charge remaining. Zero! He tapped it with an anxious finger, trying to make the indicator shift, but it remained the same. He restored the now useless weapon to his belt and brought out the stunner, though what use that might be against another transforming slug he did not know.

  The knowledge that the hunt was now behind kept them going along that endless ridge of stone. Then the Zacathan called softly, "We are descending!"

  That was true, and they had to watch their footing carefully as the thick patches of slime again splotched their way. But at last they were down, to be fronted by a wall with swamp water and growths all about it. The furred one turned to the right again, leading them to what Diskan could see only as a blank barrier. Then—it disappeared! He did not slack speed as he saw Zimgrald and the girl do likewise. In turn, he reached the slit giving into a passage running between an inner wall and an outer one. Here was no light at all, and he blundered on, knowing their full trust rested on the furred one.

  It was very narrow, that passage. Diskan's shoulders brushed the chill wall on either side, and sometimes did more than brush, so he must turn sidewise to edge through. The warmth of the marsh was gone; the cold he had known outside on Mimir was biting.

  "Another turn here, to the right—" Zimgrald warned him from ahead.

  Diskan's outthrust hand saved him from coming up against a dead end, and he wriggled into that second runway. But there was a faint patch of light ahead, and the outlines of the rest of the party showed against it.

  On they went until that gray brightened into a hint of sunlight, and at last they came out in the open with the crisp air about them. Zimgrald leaned against a block of stone. Both his hands were pressed to his bandaged body, and he breathed in heavy gasps. There was no doubting that the Zacathan was close to the end of his ability to keep going. What they needed now was a hiding place, and surely somewhere in the ruins of the city they could find that!

  But, were they in the city? Diskan looked around, striving to find some landmark. The black bulk of the ruins was there, but now about them—between that and their present perch—was a stretch of blue mud-spotted marsh. Before them a kind of causeway, rough and broken, ran to a ridge. The same ridge that had brought them to Xcothal? Diskan could not be sure of that. They might have gone clear through the city and come out on the other side for all he knew. But the ridge, if they could reach it, promised some form of shelter. And the square of stone on which they stood under the whip of the wind was not a place to linger.

  "We have to keep going—" Diskan moved to Zimgrald's side.

  Julha half supported the Zacathan. She looked at Diskan with hostility. "He cannot!" she retorted. "Do you want to kill him?"

  "I don't," Diskan replied shortly. "But this wind could— or those after us. We have to get up there"—he pointed to the ridge—"and as f
ast as we can."

  The Zacathan nodded. "He speaks the truth, little one. And I am not finished yet!"

  But he was close to it, Diskan knew, and that causeway was no easy path. He put the stunner away to leave both hands free and stepped forward, drawing the alien's arm about his shoulders.

  "Down here." Diskan half carried Zimgrald to what looked the easiest way. "Keep right behind me," he flung at the girl. And those were the last sounds he made, except grunts, during that grueling journey. For once, the body hardened by years of labor did not fail him with awkwardness. He went slowly, but he made no missteps, and he moved Zimgrald along, even when more and more of the alien's weight sagged against him.

  The trick was, Diskan speedily learned, to keep your eyes on the space immediately before you, to shove out of your mind all thought of the length of the track ahead or that at any moment the Jacks might explode onto the platform behind you, with you providing a fine target for a stunner —to freeze you until the enemy could collect you at their leisure. No, Jacks must be pushed totally out of mind, and the world had to narrow to the steps just ahead.

  He was breathing heavily now, Zimgrald a dead weight. Under Diskan's ribs was a band of pain; his legs and back ached— Push that out of mind, too. Now, up the stone—there— Here was smoother walking. Now, up the next one —two strides—up the next step— Steps? Diskan's memory moved sluggishly. For the first time he allowed himself to look farther than the footing immediately ahead.

  Rocks all around, and there was a line of steps before them—two, three—before another smooth stretch. They had reached the ridge!

  XIV

  "In here!"

  Dimly Diskan saw the girl waving vigorously up ahead. He staggered on, the pain under his ribs eating him, Zimgrald's weight almost more than he could support. Once more he made the effort and brought them up and between two rock pillars into a pocket where the wind did not reach and where Julha was brushing out the drifted snow.

  He tried to lower the Zacathan to the ground but stumbled and fell with his burden, the alien sprawling half over him. Then for a time Diskan simply lay until jerks at his arm brought him back to a greater degree of consciousness. Julha leaned over him. Her eyes were fierce, as hating, he thought dully, as they had been at their first meeting.

  "Get up! You must get up and help me! He is worse—help me!" She slapped Diskan's face with force enough to rock his head painfully against the frozen earth. Then her fingers hooked in the hood of the parka as she tried to tug him up.

  Somehow he got his arms under him and braced his body off the ground, but the effort left him panting. He rolled back against the cold rock and blinked stupidly at the frantic girl.

  The Zacathan now lay on his back with a plasta-blanket from one of the packs pulled up about him. His beak-sharp nose jutted out from a face where most of the flesh seemed to have melted away, so that the bone structure was sharply defined. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing through his mouth in small gasps.

  Close beside him was one of the hand-port heat units—and its broadcast, though aimed directly at the Zacathan, also reached to Diskan, so that, half unconsciously, he moved his stiff hands into that welcome warmth. The pack the girl had carried and his own were open, their contents strewn around as if she had plundered both in a hurried attempt to find what she needed. And a medic-aid container was there.

  "I tell you"—her hands were at her mouth, her eyes very large and fixed—"he is worse! I have no more Sustain. And he needs Deep Sleep and build shots. I don't have them!"

  Diskan continued to blink. The warmth and the drugging fatigue, which made every movement an effort almost too great to bear, put a hazy wall between him and Julha. He could hear her words; they made sense in a dim way, but he did not care. He wanted to slip down, to let his leaden eyelids close, to just rest, rest—

  The sharp sting of another slap brought him part way back.

  "Don't you sleep! Don't you dare sleep! I tell you—he'll die unless he has help. We have to find it for him!"

  "Where?" Diskan got out that one word dully.

  "That cache—you said there was a survivor cache. There would be medic supplies there, all kinds. Where's the cache?" Her hands clutched the breast of the parka. She shook Diskan.

  Cache? For a second the mist cleared from Diskan's fogged mind. He remembered the cache. There had been a lot of things there. Yes, there could have been a medic kit; he had not been looking for one when he explored. But the cache —he had no idea where that was now or where they were either.

  He reached out, scraped up snow from a rock hollow, and rubbed it across his face. The chill of that on his skin brought him further awake.

  "Where is the cache?" Her impatience needled him.

  "I don't know. I don't even know whether we are on the right ridge or not."

  "Right ridge?"

  "We may have gone completely under the city and come up on the other side. If that's true—"

  She sat back on her heels, her expression very bleak. "If that is true, he has no chance at all, has he?" Reaching out, she drew the blanket closer about the Zacathan's throat. "But you aren't sure of that?"

  "No."

  "Then make sure! Get up and make sure!"

  Diskan grimaced. "Have you a packet full of miracles to shake out for us? I don't know this territory at all. It could take days of exploring to find out where we are. And, frankly, I can't get on my feet—not right now."

  "Then I will!" She jumped to her feet, only to sway and catch at one of the rocks. She clung there, and her eyes filled, the tears slipping out to make runnels down her face.

  "To collapse when he needs you?" Somehow Diskan summoned sense enough to point out to her what should already have been obvious. "We can do nothing, either of us, until we have rest, food— That may be hard for you to accept, but it is the truth."

  Julha turned her head away and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

  "All right!" But her agreement was delivered like a curse. "All right!"

  On her knees again, she rummaged among the packs until she had found the ration tubes. One she tossed in Diskan's general direction, and he eyed it for several long seconds until he could muster enough strength to reach for it. Then he held it a space longer before he triggered the heat-open button. But once the tube did open and the aroma of its contents reached his nostrils, he found it easy to raise it to his lips.

  It was hot, it tasted good, and it began to do its work against the haze of fatigue. When he had swallowed the last drop, Diskan looked around far more alertly. And it was only then that one thing about their improvised camp registered. One of their company was missing.

  "The animal—where's the animal?" he demanded.

  Julha was attempting to drip bits of the ration into Zimgrald's mouth. She shrugged impatiently.

  "The animal? Oh, that has not been with us since we came across the stones to the ridge."

  "Where did it go?" Why it was important to Diskan he did not know, but to learn that the furred one had left him gave him a curiously naked feeling, as if some support he had come to depend upon had been snatched away.

  "I don't know. I haven't seen it since we came here. Does it matter?"

  "It may, very much—"

  "I don't see how."

  "It brought us out of the city. It might be depended upon to help find the cache—"

  "But I haven't seen it. It never came to the ridge."

  Had it returned underground, Diskan wondered, considering some duty done when it had brought them into the open? And what of the Jacks on the trail behind? Julha might have been reading his thoughts, for now she said:

  "The Jacks—what if they come here? We can't move him—"

  Diskan brought out the stunner.

  "The blaster charge is exhausted, and this is just about gone, too. But it is all we have. Let's see—"

  Somehow he was able to pull to his feet and make a slow inspection of their present hole-up.
He had to admit the girl had chosen well when she had guided him into it. There was only one entrance, a narrow slit that could be defended forever if one had proper weapons. And while the space was open to the sky now graying into dusk, the rocky walls were twice his height.

  He lurched to the entranceway. The rock outside was bare, which stilled his fear of tracks. What snow Julha had brushed from the pocket had been spread away by the wind. They need not have a fire with the porto-heat unit. Yes, there was a good chance that in the night they would escape notice by any trailers.

  "Listen!" He swung around. "I have the device they could have used to track you. What about Zimgrald. Can they now have one on him?"

  "Not unless he wished it. I checked with Zimgrald, and Zacathans broadcast on another beam; their personality pick-ups can be intentionally scrambled, ours cannot. He scrambled his as soon as we knew what was happening."

  Diskan was grateful for that information. The Jacks no longer had the girl's device; they had none tuned to him and none for the Zacathan—which meant they would have to do any tracking on the same level as a primitive hunter. And night was coming fast. Diskan did not believe that the Jacks would risk a scramble through this wilderness of rocks in the dark. He said as much to Julha.

  "So we may be safe from them," she countered, "but the High One must have help!"

  "There is nothing we can do tonight. A fall here could mean broken bones, and injuries for either of us would be fatal. In the morning I'll climb to higher ground and scout. If I can sight any landmarks I know and we are on the ridge land of the cache, than we can make plans."

  She eyed him levelly and then picked up the stunner. "Well enough, or—not well, but what must serve. Do you sleep for a while; then I shall—"

  Diskan wanted to protest, but common sense told him she was right. In his present state, he would fall asleep on watch. So he lay down in the heat of the beam near Zimgrald and was asleep even as his head turned on the ground.