by Chad Oliver
“Charlie! We may not have another hour.”
That did it. Slowly, reluctantly, Charlie Jenike got to his feet, stretched his sore muscles, and turned around. There were shadows under his eyes and his shirt was soaked with sweat. He was controlling his temper with a visible effort.
“Well?”
“Think carefully. Have you seen any men here today?” Charlie gave a sigh of exasperation. “Are you blind? What do you think I’m talking to, a horse?”
“I mean young men—or even middle-aged men. Have you seen any?”
Charlie shook his head, puzzled now. “No, I don’t think I have. But—”
“But nothing. We’ve been idiots. There’s no one here except women and kids and old men!”
Charlie’s face went white. “You don’t think—”
Monte didn’t waste any more time. “Ace,” he snapped. “Walk over and get inside the sphere. Call the camp at once. Hurry, man!”
While Ace started for the sphere, Monte eased his way over to where Tom was holding a group of kids enthralled with his string games. He squatted down beside him. “Tom. Try not to look alarmed, but I think we’re in trouble. There’s not a single solitary man of fighting age in this village. Ace is calling the camp now.”
Tom stared at him, the cord forgotten in his hands.
“Janice,” he whispered. “She’s back there—”
Ace stuck his head out of the sphere and hollered: “I’m sorry, sir. The camp doesn’t answer.”
The three men forgot field technique, forgot everything. As one man, they sprinted for the sphere.
As he ran, Monte’s brain shouted at him with a single word, repeated over and over again:
Fool, fool, fool!
Ace had the sphere airborne almost before they were all inside.
They flew at top speed into the gathering shadows of a night that was suddenly dark with menace.
7
There was no fire; that was the first thing that Monte noticed. The camp clearing was gray and still in the early starlight. Nothing moved. The place was as lifeless as some forgotten jungle ruin, and the tents—there was something wrong with the tents…
Monte kept his voice steady. “Circle the camp, Ace. Let’s have the lights now.”
The sphere went down low and hovered in a slow circle. The battery of landing lights flashed on.
“Oh God,” Tom Stein whispered. “Oh God.”
Monte felt his stomach wrench itself into a tight knot. His mouth opened but no sounds came out. His hands began to tremble violently.
The tents were ripped to pieces; they were little more than sagging frames. The clearing was littered with debris—pots and pans and clothing and chairs and bright cans of food. And there were crumpled, motionless heaps on the ground. They were very dark and very still.
Monte was a man of his time; he had no experience with the sort of thing that had happened down below. But he knew a massacre when he saw one. Slaughter. That was the word. A word out of the past, a word that was no part of life as he had known it.
He wanted to be sick, but there was no time for that. “Land,” he snapped. “Get your rifles ready.”
The sphere dropped like a stone and hit the ground with a dull thud. Ace switched on the overhead lights and grabbed a revolver. The men scrambled out through the hatch.
There was an ugly smell in the warm air. Everything was utterly still, utterly lifeless. It seemed that nothing was moving in all the world.
The men advanced in a tight group, hardly breathing. The first body they saw was one of the wolf-things. His dirty-gray coat was black with blood. His white fangs were bared, snarling even in death, and his yellow eyes were open and staring. Monte shoved at the body with his boot; the muscles were already stiff, though not completely so.
The next body was also one of the beasts. His head had almost been blown off.
The third body, lying on its face, was Helen Jenike. Her back was clawed to shreds. Her fingernails were dug into the ground, as though she had tried to seek shelter in a hole. Charlie rolled her over and caught her up in his arms. He began to sob—dry, terrible, wrenching sobs that were torn from the depths of his soul. Monte stared at her face. Helen had always been such a dainty person; this was the first time he had ever seen her with her lipstick smeared and her hair in her eyes…
Monte and Tom and Ace went on. They found Ralph Gottschalk—or what was left of him—surrounded by four of the dead wolf-things. Ralph—big, gentle, Ralph—still had his rifle in his hands. His bloody face was frozen into an expression of incredible hate and fury. One of the wolf-things still had its teeth fastened in his mangled leg. Monte forced the jaws apart and kicked the thing aside.
They went on, across the scattered logs of the dead fire, toward the tents.
The last body they found was Louise.
She lay in the dirt, a red-stained kitchen knife in her hand. She seemed smaller than Monte remembered—a tiny, crumpled, fragile thing. He had never seen her so still. He picked her up and stroked her black hair. He didn’t even see the blood. He stood there with his wife in his arms and listened to Charlie sobbing from across the clearing. She seemed so light; she didn’t weigh anything at all.
He remembered: it had been a long time ago, on another world. She had turned her ankle in the Colorado mountains and he had carried her to the copter. “God,” he had said, “you weigh a ton!” And she had laughed—she had always been laughing, always happy—and she had said, “You’re getting old, Monte!”
Old? He was old now.
He sat down on the ground, still holding her. He couldn’t think. Somebody’s hand was on his shoulder. Ace’s. He was dimly grateful, grateful for some small touch of warmth in a world that was cold, cold beyond belief. He shivered and wished vaguely that the fire was going. Louise had liked the fire.
“She’s gone! She’s not here!”
A voice. Stupid. Who wasn’t here? She was here…
Tom Stein, pacing around like a crazy man. Why didn’t he sit down? What was the matter with the man?
“Monte! Janice isn’t here! She may still be alive.”
Slowly, with a dreadful effort, Monte pulled himself back to awareness. It was as though he were far underwater, pulling for the light above him. But there was no light, there was no feeling. There was nothing.
“Monte, we’ve got to find her!”
He put Louise down, gently. He stood up, his face pasty white, his eyes wild. He looked around. The world was still there.
“Who else is missing?”
“Don isn’t here. They may have gotten away. We’ve got to find her!”
“Yes. We’ve got to find her.” He turned to Ace. “Call the ship. Tell them to stand by for boarding. Tom. Take your rifle and start firing into the air. One shot every ten seconds. Maybe they’ll hear you.”
Desperate to be doing something, Tom ran off and recovered the rifle he had dropped. He fired. The shot was small and lonely in the darkness.
Monte walked slowly over to Charlie Jenike.
“Let’s build a fire. It’s cold.”
Charlie looked up at him with unseeing eyes.
“Come on, Charlie.”
Charlie got to his feet, stricken and lost. He nodded wordlessly.
Together—closer in their grief than they had ever been in a happier world—they began to build a fire.
At the edge of the clearing, Tom Stein fired his rifle at the sky, once every ten seconds.
There was no warning at all that Don and Janice were near; they simply materialized out of the forest like two shadows. Tom almost shot his own wife before he recognized her.
“Why didn’t you holler?” he asked fretfully. “Why didn’t you shoot and let me know you were alive?” Then she was in his arms, clutching him as though she were drowning and only he could save her. “You’re alive,” Tom said over and over again. “You’re alive. Are you hurt? You’re alive!” He was so overwhelmed that he didn’t even think of t
hanking Don King for saving her life.
Don was a far cry from the neat, handsome man he had been a few long hours before. His clothes were torn and his sandy hair was black with dirt. He was still bleeding from a gash in his left shoulder. He was trembling with the reaction to the ordeal he had been through, but he was probably the calmest man in the clearing. For him, the shock was over.
He sat down before the fire, his head in his hands. He didn’t look at Monte or at Charlie. He said quietly, “I’m sorry. Sorry as hell. I did the best I could. They were already dead when I grabbed Janice and lit out.”
Monte squatted down beside him. “Nobody’s blaming you. We’re just glad you’re alive. What happened, Don?”
Don still did not look at them. He stared into the fire and talked flatly, as though he were describing something that had happened to someone else a long time ago. “It was still light, about the middle of the afternoon. We weren’t doing much of anything, just waiting for you to get back. Ralph and I were kidding around about going back to that tree burial and poking into it a little. We didn’t do it, though—we were afraid we might offend the little tin gods.” He spat into the fire. “All of a sudden a pack of those damned dogs or whatever they are came busting out of the woods. They were on us before we knew what was going on. It was crazy, a nightmare. It all happened so fast we couldn’t put up any kind of a defense. They seemed to be going after the women; I don’t know why. They snarled all the time, like they had gone mad. I saw some of the native men in the trees. They didn’t do anything—just watched. They never tried to help—I got the impression they had sent the dogs, but that doesn’t make sense. We got our guns and did what we could—Ralph went after one of them with his bare hands. There were too damned many of them. I shot two of them that were after Janice and Ralph hollered at me to run. I couldn’t see anything clearly, it was all chaos. I grabbed her and took off into the woods. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. Those bastards in the trees could see me, and they could climb better than I could. I knew those dogs could trail us on the ground, and we’d never have a chance. I remembered that tree burial—I guess it was because Ralph and I had just been talking about it—and I headed for that. It turned out to be a good idea, but I don’t take any credit for it—we were lucky. We climbed up to that damned nest and just sat there. The natives were all around us for a while, but they didn’t do anything—maybe the place is sacred or something. The dogs followed us and I shot a pile of them—ten or twelve, at least. Then I ran out of ammunition; there hadn’t been time to grab any spare clips. After a while the dogs went away, and so did the natives. When we heard you shooting we climbed down and came back. That’s all. My God, what happened over at that village? Did you guys rape the chief’s daughter or something?”
“Nothing happened. Nothing at all.”
Charlie Jenike just shook his head; words were too much trouble.
Monte stood up, keeping his eyes averted from Louise’s body. “You get the ship, Ace?”
“Yes, sir. They’re standing by. Admiral York is about to blow a fuse. He says for you—”
“The hell with Admiral York. Look, Ace—this will take two trips, understand? Janice goes first; we’ve got to get her out of here. Tom will go with her, of course. And Don.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Don said.
Monte ignored him. “When you get them stashed away, come and get us. Charlie and I will get the bodies ready—we’ll use tent flaps to wrap them in. Take your time, Ace—there’s no rush getting back here.”
Ace hesitated. “They may come back again, Monte.”
“Yes. I hope they do.”
Ace looked at him and then headed for the sphere, rounding up the others as he went. The sphere lifted soundlessly into the starlit sky, and was gone.
Monte and Charlie sat by the fire, their rifles in their hands, alone with the dead. The night was utterly silent around them. It was not cold, but both men were shivering.
“Well, Charlie?”
“Yes. Let’s get it over with.”
They got to their feet and cut up what was left of the tents. Then they did what had to be done.
By unspoken assent, they took care of Ralph first, together.
Then each man did what he could for his wife.
When it was over, they built up the fire again. The damp wood hissed and sputtered, but the flames finally took hold and twisted up toward the sky in hot orange columns. Monte honestly didn’t know whether the fire was to keep something away or to lure something in. He was sure that Charlie didn’t know either.
Monte sat with his back to the fire, watching the black line of the trees. His vision seemed preternaturally sharp: he could trace the webbing of branches against the stars. And his hearing was keener than it should have been: he heard each tiny stir of the leaves, every scrape of an insect across the forest floor, each distant night-cry of an invisible bird. He was aware, of course, of the fact that sensory impressions are sometimes heightened at moments of crisis—but that datum was stored in a part of his mind that was not really functioning. He was surprised at his acute awareness, and that was all.
“Why did they do it, Monte? What did we do to them?” Charlie’s voice was hoarse and ugly.
“I don’t know. I thought we were very careful. Hell, maybe there wasn’t any reason.”
“There’s always a reason.”
“Is there? I’m beginning to wonder.”
Charlie didn’t say anything more, and the silence was hard to take. It was better to keep the night filled with words. When he didn’t talk he began to think, and when he began to think…
“I guess we made the prize stupid blunder of all time,” Monte said slowly. “We figured that because we meant them no harm they must necessarily feel the same way about us. We went in among the cannibal tribe with our hymn books and they popped us in the stewpot. We should have been more careful.”
“They seemed so shy, so frightened. Was all that an act? How could we have known, Monte? How could we have known?”
“It won’t help them to blame ourselves.”
“But I do. God, I just went off and left her sitting here—”
“Cut it out, Charlie,” he said harshly. “I can’t take that.”
The silence came between them again, and this time they did not disturb it. They let the heat of the fire bake into their backs and waited for the sphere to return from the orbiting ship. The night around them was vast and filled with strangeness; it was more lonely than the stars that burned in the sky above them, and more filled with mystery…
They both sensed his presence at the same time.
“Monte?”
“Yes. Over there.”
They got to their feet, their rifles in their hands. The light was not good, and at first they didn’t see anything. But they both knew with absolute certainty that there was a native somewhere in the trees, watching them. They knew that there was just one native, and they knew approximately where he was.
Monte was as calm as ice. He squinted his eyes, waiting.
“There he is,” Charlie whispered hoarsely.
Monte saw him now. He was up high, up where the branches began to thin out, up where he was outlined against the stars. A tall man, facing them, his long arms reaching up above his head…
The man seemed detached somehow, aloof and unworried. He was not trying to conceal himself. He was just standing there watching them, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be doing…
Something in Monte snapped—literally snapped. It was as though a taut wire had been suddenly cut. The hate boiled up in him like searing lava; his lips curled back in a snarl.
He did not think, did not want to think. He let himself go. He was surprised at how easy it was, how steady his hands were, how clearly he could see. He even remembered not to hold his breath.
He lifted the rifle; it was as light as a feather. He got the motionless native in his sights. Sitting duck. He squeezed the tr
igger. The rifle bucked against his shoulder and a tongue of fire licked into the night. He was not aware of any sound. The slug caught the native in the belly. Monte smiled. He had wanted a gut shot.
The man doubled up in the tree, grabbing at himself. Then he fell. It took him a long time. He bounced off one branch, screaming, and hit the ground with a soft thud.
Monte and Charlie ran over to him. He was lying on his back, his long arms wrapped around his belly. His sunken eyes were wide with shock and fear. He tried to say something and a gush of blood bubbled out of his mouth.
Monte started for him, but Charlie pushed him aside.
“He’s mine,” he whispered.
Charlie Jenike finished the man off with his rifle butt, and he took his time doing it.
They left the native where he was and went back to their fire. It was blazing brightly. Neither of them spoke.
When the gray sphere drifted down out of the sky, Ace helped them load die bodies of their dead. It didn’t take long.
The sphere lifted again toward the invisible ship high above them in the starlit night. Monte looked down and watched the fire in the clearing until it was lost from view.
Then there was only the great night all around them, the great hollow night and the far cold stars. He closed his eyes. There was a terrible emptiness inside of him, an icy ache that cried out to him of something vanished, something lost…
Something that he had been and something that he could never be again.
8
The funeral was mercifully brief, and even had a certain dignity, but it was still a barbaric thing. Monte sat through it in a daze, his mind wandering. How Louise would have hated it all…
“When I die,” she had told him once, back in those sunlit days when death was only a word and they had both known that they would live forever, “I don’t want any gloomy songs and weeping relatives. I want to be cremated and I want my ashes to be spread in a flower garden, where they’ll do some good. You’ll see to it, won’t you Monte?”
“Afraid I can’t,” he had said. “I’ve already promised you for a sacrifice to the Sun God.”
