Deyv gasped when the giant object lifted up above Sloosh's head.
"It's no cause for wonder," Sloosh said. "Come here. You can raise it easily."
Fearful but afraid to show that he was, Deyv put his hands by the Archkerri's. Sloosh stepped back, leaving him to support it. Deyv cried out because he expected the cylinder to drop. But he had only a little trouble keeping it propped up against the trees. It surely weighed no more than eighty pounds.
He let it down and said, "What is it? It's not a House."
"Not the kind you're used to, anyway."
Sloosh looked at the ugly beasts. "They're breaking up now. I think we should take refuge in this artifact."
The circle had become an extended line, with the leader in front of it. Instead of an immediate advance, as Deyv anticipated, the line spread out to the sides, then the ends began curving in. The predators were not only going to make a frontal attack but also intended to charge on the flanks as well.
Sloosh buzzed that Deyv and Vana should get at one end of the cylinder and he would take the other.
They obeyed, though they wondered what he was up to. Sloosh, having stationed himself below the conical end, shrilled, "Now, you two! Lift up on it and carry it my way!"
It would have been easy to do so if the wind hadn't pressed it so strongly against the trees. They had to lift it up and slide it along at the same time. The side of the cylinder was like a big sail.
Though occupied with his task, Deyv didn't forget the gray cross-marked beasts. Glances showed him that they had stopped. Their cries were puzzled. The leader had trotted closer to the cylinder, then stopped, his head cocked to one side.
When the one tree had been passed, and the other was halfway along the cylinder, Sloosh said, "Put it down! But hang on to it! Otherwise, one of the ends may swing around, and it could roll away!"
"I think I see what he means to do," Deyv muttered.
Vana asked, "What?"
Sloosh buzzed, "Now, Deyv! Tell your animals to get inside!"
Under other circumstances, Jum and Aejip might have been reluctant to enter the cylinder. The obvious intent of the ugly beasts made them eager to take shelter, however. They dived into the doorway.
Sloosh said, "Now, Vana, you get in! Hang on, Deyv!"
Deyv struggled to keep his end from swinging around under the wind. Vana darted alongside the cylinder and into its doorway.
"Now work your way toward the entrance! I'll be doing the same! If one end swings out, run as fast as you can and get inside!"
Synchronizing their progress step by step, they moved toward each other. Deyv's push against the cylinder wall would not have been as strong as Sloosh's, but the plant-man was trying to push with the same force as Deyv's. Before they were within twenty feet of each other, the cylinder began to swivel out at the end behind Sloosh.
By then the pack leader decided it was time to attack. Though no doubt hesitant because of the strangeness of the cylinder, he couldn't stand seeing his prey get away. He howled wolflike sounds and sped toward the doorway. Those behind him also charged, and the flanks broke into a run.
Deyv got inside first, then turned to pull Sloosh in. The Archkerri fell in just as the leader snapped at his hind legs. Vana stepped into the breach and slammed the edge of her tomahawk down across the top of the brute's head. The beast fell back, stunned. Some of those directly behind it leaped over its body and jammed themselves into the doorway. Others began tearing-at the leader. The door started swinging inward. Sloosh reached up and pressed an inset plate inside the doorway.
All this action had taken place within a few seconds. Then the cylinder, still turning, also began rolling over. The door closed just in time. And they were off, the wind spinning the cylinder across the plain.
Inside, all five were running to keep from being turned over. It didn't help any of them, since the room was square, and they missed their step when they tried to get off the floor to the wall, which became the floor for a few seconds. Then the ceiling became the floor, then the wall, then they were back to the floor again. That it was totally dark inside made the situation worse. Deyv fell through the door into the next room and slammed against a wall so hard that he was stunned.
A moment later, Jum, yelping, rammed into him.
Deyv was beaten, bruised, and shaken up worse than when he had been thrown off the tharakorm.
The nightmare finally ended, as all nightmares do. The cylinder stopped with a crash, and its occupants lay wherever they had fallen. There were groans and moans and whimperings. Deyv got up and groped to the doorway, the bottom of which was at chest-level. He hoisted himself through it into the first room.
At least, he hoped it was the room with the door to the outside. In his confusion, he might have gotten into the room which led to the interior.
From the noise, though, he was sure he was in the right place. He checked everybody out. Nobody was incapable of responding, but all were complaining of numerous pains.
His hands found the doorway, and a moment later he pressed the inset plate. Light flooded in as the door opened. It was at a 45-degree angle to the ground. Righting the cylinder was easy, however, as soon as they shifted their weight properly. Then all got out and were glad to do so.
The cylinder had stopped by the trees at the edge of the plain. Far off was the pack of gray cross-marked brutes. They were heading after some horned animal.
"Something happened there while we were rolling along," Sloosh said. "Did you press any other plates?"
Deyv looked inside. The furniture was gone.
Sloosh went back in but came back out in a few minutes.
"Where the furniture was, there are now a few places almost imperceptibly thicker than the floor," he said. "The furniture just folded up. But what caused it to do that?"
Deyv said he had no idea, which, of course, Sloosh knew. He'd survived the ordeal and wanted nothing more to do with the cause of it. Even if he was as curious as the Archkerri, he didn't have the knowledge to dare experiment.
Sloosh insisted they make a bunch of torches from rushes, which they soaked with flammable sap. After eating, they set out—in, rather—to explore the cylinder's interior. It wasn't easy even to walk around in it. Because of its extreme lightness, it tended to roll when they started up the steps to the upper level.
They retreated, made some crude wooden shovels, and then piled dirt along the bottom. They also lugged in a big pile of heavy stones to place on the bottom floor. Since stones were scarce in the area, a long time was spent in search of them.
By then it was past sleep-time. Despite the plant-man's protests, they bedded down. Whatever else it was good for, the cylinder did make a perfect protection from the rain. The door couldn't be shut entirely because they would soon exhaust the oxygen supply. With the animals stationed just behind the opening, they could sleep in relative safety, especially after they erected a barricade of thorn bushes across it.
When they did begin their investigation, Vana and Deyv held the torches for Sloosh. It was tedious work for them and a little spooky. The lack of good air circulation drove them outside from time to time.
Sloosh was hot on the scent, though, and he wasn't to be stopped by anything.
Most of the rooms were empty. The plant-man pointed out the very thin thickenings, which he said were collapsed furniture or devices. He ran his fingers along the walls and ceilings, tracing thin lines throughout the cylinder.
"These must be strips through which power was applied. So, let's track down the power supply."
They found it in the central portion. It was a cube about six inches wide. From one side of it protruded a long thin rod.
"I think it can be pushed in," Sloosh said. "But I won't do that. No telling what might happen. I wish I knew what fuel is used. There has to be some left, even after this long time. Otherwise, the door wouldn't have opened."
Finally, they entered the nose of the cylinder. This contained two chairs and a number
of square very thin plates on a curve in front of the chairs.
Sloosh studied the room for a while.
"This has to be a vehicle. Probably to fly through the air. It's even possible it traveled through space.
Those plates would be viewscreens of some sort. They indicated flight data and who knows what else?"
Sloosh did some tracing of the strips. Finally, he stopped at a cluster of thumbprint-size plates. He reached out a finger to one, hesitated, then pressed. The humans jumped back, alarmed, as the chairs and the plates before them shrank, then folded up.
"Hmm! All this collapsing!" Sloosh said. "Could it be that..."
He stopped his buzzes and closed his eyes. Deyv looked at Vana and rolled his eyes. She coughed from the dark fumes of the torches.
Sloosh led them out of the room and back to the power cube. He looked at it for a while, then said, "Let's get all the rocks out of here."
"Why?" Deyv asked.
"No time to waste breath now. I'll tell you why later. If I'm right, if it'll be obvious why I want the stones out. By the way, pick up all the torches you dropped and clean the sap off the floors. I don't want anything in here that wasn't here when we entered."
By sleep-time, the rocks were gone, and with them any trace of the travelers. Slosh told Deyv and Vana to stand back from the cylinder, and he went inside. Deyv had expected, for some reason, that Sloosh would go to the upper deck where the cube was. How he was going to do that without tipping the
"vehicle" over, Deyv didrr't know. However, Sloosh went only just past the doorway, reached up above it to press something, and then came out, rather quickly for him.
"Maybe we should get even farther away," he said.
Except for the plant-man, no one knew what to expect. Deyv had some fantasies about it, but what happened wasn't one of them.
Slowly, the cylinder collapsed, then began to fold up. The two sides straightened up, forming a flat oval.
Then a seam appeared along the middle, and it folded, folded, folded.
When this process had ceased, the cylinder had become a cube with a thin rod sticking out by an inch.
The rod was the same one Deyv had seen projecting from the power supply. The cube was almost three feet across.
Though Sloosh's face couldn't show expression, his delight was obvious. He danced around like a drunken elephant, his fingers snapping, his beak buzzing nonsense. When he regained his usual demeanor, he went to the cube and pulled on the rod. They cylinder started to unfold, but after a few seconds he pushed the rod in. It folded once more.
"Of all the ancients' inventions, this must have been the most wondrousl"
"It is indeed a great and awesome magic," Deyv said. "But what will we do with it?"
"For the time being, we'll make straps, a saddle, and a girth so I can carry it on my back," Sloosh said.
"At sleep-time, we'll use it for protection. Ifs also useful as a refuge in times of danger. I shouldn't have to explain that to you."
Deyv reddened. "I know all that. I was just wondering if perhaps ... well, maybe if it's supposed to fly, we could fly it. And then we could easily find the Yawtl."
"A good idea but most impracticable. Perhaps. In the meantime ..."
16
THERE it is," Sloosh said, pointing down. "The Yawtl's impression."
Deyv looked but of course didn't see the tracks. What he did see was a very wide valley through the center of which a river snaked. All five were standing high on the slope of a mountain. The plant-man had insisted that they climb over it so that he could get a view of a large expanse of territory. The labor had been hard but had paid off.
"The thief came around the foot of that mountain," Sloosh said. He indicated one to his left. "Then he made a dugout or a raft and went down the river to that point there." His finger jabbed toward a mountain across the valley to the right. "He abandoned his dugout or raft and went through that pass there."
Vana groaned and said, "I hope he's getting close to his home. Do you realize that we must have traveled over four hundred miles?"
"Five hundred and fifty-six to be exact," Sloosh said. "That is, if you include both horizontal and vertical travel."
Deyv didn't ask him how he could be so certain. Though the plant-man had little sense of time, he seemed to have a inborn sense of distance. Actually, Deyv's own idea of it was rather vague. A
vathakishmikl, a mile, was a measure which depended upon psychical as well as physical factors. If a half-vathakishmikl tired you as much as a full vathakishmikl did, then one length was equal to the other.
Sloosh estimated that the travel from where they were to the place at which the Yawtl had left the river would take four sleep-times. That is, approximately forty miles. But if the terrain slowed them down, then it might be fifty miles. Or even more.
As it turned out, it took them sixty miles. What delayed them was the Athmau.
They went down the mountain, built a raft with a rudder, and floated down to where the thief's trail went ashore. The path he'd taken led them to a village on a tributary of the river. After sneaking around this, they traveled on another much less used path. Two sleep-times later, they came to an open area. Long before they reached it, they heard a hubbub which made them very cautious.
From the jungle they peered out at an interesting but possibly dangerous situation.
In the midst of the clearing was a low broad hill made of a cementlike substance resembling that which the honey beetles excreted. It was dotted with numerous small holes. At the moment hordes of creatures were pouring out of them to defend themselves. These were a strange mixture, purple antlike things about a foot long and six inches high, covered all over with breathing pipes, ten- to twelve-foot-long snakes, and furry bipedal mammals. The latter were about two feet high and gray-colored except for their badgerlike faces, which were white. Their paws were wide and armed with short curving nails.
Their teeth looked like the teeth of humans.
A hundred or so human warriors, all wearing wet bark-cloth filters over their noses and mouths, were battling the hill-things. They had the light skin, thin lips, and kinky yellow hair of Vana's tribe. Deyv thought they must be from three different tribes who had banded together for the onslaught. A third of them wore feathered headdresses; another, fur caps with horns; and the rest, tall conical hats of woven reeds. All carried shields with the different tribal markings, and they fought with spears, axes, and flails.
Some carried nets, but these warriors hung behind the others until a furry biped had been seized. Then they dashed in and threw the net over the captive, tied it up, and dragged it off struggling to the edge of the clearing.
"The Athmau," Deyv said. "I've heard of them, though they live far away from my tribe. My grandfather, however, said he once brought one home."
He became aware of a musky reek and said, "That strange odor's from the Athmau. We'd better move on."
Sloosh was curious, as usual. "Why the face masks?"
"The Athmau exudes a perfume which makes those who breathe it very happy but also very indolent.
That's why the tribes are raiding. They want to bring the Athmau to their villages. They'll put them in cages and then enjoy them. The trouble is, the Athmau don't breed in captivity, and they die too soon."
There were about ten of the little animals in nets, lying together, five warriors standing guard over them.
Their captors had paid for them, however. The poisonous snakes had felled four men; the long mandibles of the antoids had severely wounded six and killed three. And the Athmau's claws had dragged down and ripped apart five.
"Why don't they just stay in the hill?" Vana said.
"If they did, they'd be smoked out. They know that, so they come out and fight. At least, that's what my grandfather said."
By now the men were outnumbered six to one. Though the flails crushed the antoids and the spears stabbed the snakes, there weren't enough men to stop the hill-things. A tall warrior w
earing an orange kilt, the only such color among the raiders, blew a piercing note on a bone whistle. Immediately, the warriors turned and ran for the jungle. The netted Athmau were picked up and carried away.
However, one of the furry bipeds was being pursued by two men. It ran directly toward the hiding place of the travelers.
Deyv said, "Run!"
It was too late. Before they could get back on the path, the Athmau had burst through the foliage and was among them. Behind it came the two warriors. One of them threw his axe, and its blunt side caught the animal on the back of his head. It was an excellent throw, doing just what it was intended to do. It stunned the Athmau, which fell by Deyv's feet.
Aejip leaped for the axe thrower's throat. Jum grabbed the leg of the other, whose spear was raised to drive into the dog's back. Vana forestalled him by hitting him on the head with the sharp edge of her axe.
Then she slammed the tomahawk into the side of the other warrior's head. Aejip finished him off.
Meanwhile, Deyv had sat down with the Athmau in his arms. He cuddled it, rocking it back and forth, and looking pleased and dreamy.
Vana started toward him. Sloosh buzzed, "Stop! He's been caught by the perfume! Don't go near him! I'll do it!"
The Archkerri grabbed hold of the still half-senseless creature. Deyv tightened his embrace on it. Sloosh said, "Let loose!"
He lifted the Athmau up with Deyv clinging to it. At that moment another warrior, bleeding from a dozen wounds, staggered through the bush. Aejip leaped on him, and the man went down screaming.
Sloosh dropped Deyv and the Athmau, and he grabbed Deyv's hands and pulled them outward. The animal fell away, rolled over, then stood up unsteadily, chirruping. Sloosh seized it and threw it at least ten feet. It rolled away behind a bush.
Vana pulled Deyv to his feet. He stood smiling, seeming not to hear her cries to run. By then the cat had stopped the warrior's screams by tearing out his throat. The yells of men on the other side of the bushes showed that they were aware that something was wrong.
DARK IS THE SUN Page 12
