It was exhausting, sweaty work, hauling the leaden drums into place against the heavy gravity. After a minute Jason worked by touch through a red haze of hammering blood. He realized the job was done only when the truck suddenly leaped forward and he was thrown to the floor. He lay there, his chest heaving. As the driver hurled the heavy vehicle along, all Jason could do was bounce around in the bottom. He could see well enough, but was still gasping for breath when they braked at the fighting zone.
To Jason, it was a scene of incredible confusion. Guns firing, flames, men and women running on all sides. The napalm drums were unloaded without his help and the truck vanished for more. Jason leaned against a wall of a half-destroyed building and tried to get his bearings. It was impossible. There seemed to be a great number of small animals: he killed two that attacked him. Other than that he couldn’t determine the nature of the battle.
A Pyrran, tan face white with pain and exertion, stumbled up. His right arm, wet with raw flesh and dripping blood, hung limply at his side. It was covered with freshly applied surgical foam. He held his gun in his left hand, a stump of control cable dangling from it. Jason thought the man was looking for medical aid. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Clenching the gun in his teeth, the Pyrran clutched a barrel of napalm with his good hand and hurled it over on its side. Then, with the gun once more in his hand, he began to roll the drum along the ground with his feet. It was slow, cumbersome work, but he was still in the fight.
Jason pushed through the hurrying crowd and bent over the drum. “Let me do it,” he said. “You can cover us both with your gun.”
The man wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his arm and blinked at Jason. He seemed to recognize him. When he smiled it was a grimace of pain, empty of humor. “Do that. I can still shoot. Two half men — maybe we equal one whole.” Jason was laboring too hard to even notice the insult.
***
An explosion had blasted a raw pit in the street ahead. Two people were at the bottom, digging it even deeper with shovels. The whole thing seemed meaningless. Just as Jason and the wounded man rolled up the drum the diggers leaped out of the excavation and began shooting down into its depths. One of them turned, a young girl, barely in her teens.
“Praise Perimeter!” she breathed. “They found the napalm. One of the new horrors is breaking through towards Thirteen, we just found it.” Even as she talked she swiveled the drum around, kicked the easy-off plug, and began dumping the gelid contents into the hole. When half of it had gurgled down, she kicked the drum itself in. Her companion pulled a flare from his belt, lit it, and threw it after the drum.
“Back quick. They don’t like heat,” he said.
This was putting it very mildly. The napalm caught, tongues of flame and roiling, greasy smoke climbed up to the sky. Under Jason’s feet the earth shifted and moved. Something black and long stirred in the heart of the flame, then arched up into the sky over their heads. In the midst of the searing heat it still moved with alien, jolting motions. It was immense, at least two meters thick and with no indication of its length. The flames didn’t stop it at all, just annoyed it.
Jason had some idea of the thing’s length as the street cracked and buckled for fifty meters on each side of the pit. Great loops of the creature began to emerge from the ground. He fired his gun, as did the others. Not that it seemed to have any effect. More and more people were appearing, armed with a variety of weapons. Flame-throwers and grenades seemed to be the most effective.
“ Clear the area… we’re going to saturate it. Fall back. ”
The voice was so loud it jarred Jason’s ear. He turned and recognized Kerk, who had arrived with truckloads of equipment. He had a power speaker on his back, the mike hung in front of his lips. His amplified voice brought an instant reaction from the crowd. They began to move.
There was still doubt in Jason’s mind what to do. Clear the area? But what area? He started towards Kerk, before he realized that the rest of the Pyrrans were going in the opposite direction. Even under two gravities they moved.
Jason had a naked feeling of being alone on the stage. He was in the center of the street, and the others had vanished. No one remained. Except the wounded man Jason had helped. He stumbled towards Jason, waving his good arm. Jason couldn’t understand what he said. Kerk was shouting orders again from one of the trucks. They had started to move too. The urgency struck home and Jason started to run.
It was too late. On all sides the earth was buckling, cracking, as more loops of the underground thing forced its way into the light. Safety lay ahead. Only in front of it rose an arch of dirt-encrusted gray.
***
There are seconds of time that seem to last an eternity. A moment of subjective time that is grabbed and stretched to an infinite distance. This was one of those moments. Jason stood, frozen. Even the smoke in the sky hung unmoving. The high-standing loop of alien life was before him, every detail piercingly clear.
Thick as a man, ribbed and gray as old bark. Tendrils projected from all parts of it, pallid and twisting lengths that writhed slowly with snakelike life. Shaped like a plant, yet with the motions of an animal. And cracking, splitting. This was the worst.
Seams and openings appeared. Splintering, gaping mouths that vomited out a horde of pallid animals. Jason heard their shriekings, shrill yet remote. He saw the needlelike teeth that lined their jaws.
The paralysis of the unknown held him there. He should have died. Kerk was thundering at him through the power speaker, others were firing into the attacking creature. Jason knew nothing.
Then he was shot forward, pushed by a rock-hard shoulder. The wounded man was still there, trying to get Jason clear. Gun clenched in his jaws he dragged Jason along with his good arm. Towards the creature. The others stopped firing. They saw his plan and it was a good one.
A loop of the thing arched into the air, leaving an opening between its body and the ground. The wounded Pyrran planted his feet and tightened his muscles. One-handed, with a single thrust, he picked Jason off the ground and sent him hurtling under the living arch. Moving tendrils brushed fire along his face, then he was through, rolling over and over on the ground. The wounded Pyrran leaped after him.
It was too late. There had been a chance for one person to get out. The Pyrran could have done it easily — instead he had pushed Jason first. The thing was aware of movement when Jason brushed its tendrils. It dropped and caught the wounded man under its weight. He vanished from sight as the tendrils wrapped around him and the animals swarmed over. His trigger must have pulled back to full automatic because the gun kept firing a long time after he should have been dead.
Jason crawled. Some of the fanged animals ran towards him, but were shot. He knew nothing about this. Then rude hands grabbed him up and pulled him forward. He slammed into the side of a truck and Kerk’s face was in front of his, flushed and angry. One of the giant fists closed on the front of Jason’s clothes and he was lifted off his feet, shaken like a limp bag of rags. He offered no protest and could not have even if Kerk had killed him.
When he was thrown to the ground, someone picked him up and slid him into the back of the truck. He did not lose consciousness as the truck bounced away, yet he could not move. In a moment the fatigue would go away and he would sit up. That was all he was, just a little tired. Even as he thought this he passed out.
XIII
“Just like old times,” Jason said when Brucco came into the room with a tray of food. Without a word Brucco served Jason and the wounded men in the other beds, then left. “Thanks,” Jason called after his retreating back.
A joke, a twist of a grin, like it always was. Sure. But even as he grinned and his lips shaped a joke, Jason felt them like a veneer on the outside. Something plastered on with a life of its own. Inside he was numb and immovable. His body was stiff as his eyes still watched that arch of alien flesh descend and smother the one-armed Pyrran with its million burning fingers.
&nbs
p; He could feel himself under the arch. After all, hadn’t the wounded man taken his place? He finished the meal without realizing that he ate.
Ever since that morning, when he had recovered consciousness, it had been like this. He knew that he should have died out there in that battle-torn street. His life should have been snuffed out, for making the mistake of thinking that he could actually help the battling Pyrrans. Instead of being underfoot and in the way. If it hadn’t been for Jason, the man with the wounded arm would have been brought here to the safety of the reorientation buildings. He knew he was lying in the bed that belonged to that man.
The man who had given his life for Jason’s.
The man whose name he didn’t even know.
There were drugs in the food and they made him sleep. The medicated pads soaked the pain and rawness out of the burns where the tentacles had seared his face. When he awoke the second time, his touch with reality had been restored.
A man had died so he could live. Jason faced the fact. He couldn’t restore that life, no matter how much he wanted to. What he could do was make the man’s death worth while. If it can be said that any death was worth while… He forced his thoughts from that track.
Jason knew what he had to do. His work was even more important now. If he could solve the riddle of this deadly world, he could repay in part the debt he owed.
Sitting up made his head spin and he held to the edge of the bed until it slowed down. The others in the room ignored him as he slowly and painfully dragged on his clothes. Brucco came in, saw what he was doing, and left again without a word.
Dressing took a long time, but it was finally done. When Jason finally left the room he found Kerk waiting for him.
“Kerk… I want to tell you…”
“Tell me nothing !” The thunder of Kerk’s voice bounced back from the ceiling and walls. “I’m telling you. I’ll tell you once and that will be the end of it. You’re not wanted on Pyrrus, Jason dinAlt, neither you nor your precious off-world schemes are wanted here. I let you convince me once with your twisted tongue. Helped you at the expense of more important work. I should have known what the result of your ‘logic’ would be. Now I’ve seen. Welf died so you could live. He was twice the man you will ever be.”
“Welf? Was that his name?” Jason asked stumblingly. “I didn’t know — “
“You didn’t even know.” Kerk’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of disgust. “You didn’t even know his name — yet he died that you might continue your miserable existence.” Kerk spat, as if the words gave a vile flavor to his speech, and stamped towards the exit lock. Almost as an afterthought he turned back to Jason.
“You’ll stay here in the sealed buildings until the ship returns in two weeks. Then you will leave this planet and never come back. If you do, I’ll kill you instantly. With pleasure.” He started through the lock.
“Wait,” Jason shouted. “You can’t decide like that. You haven’t even seen the evidence I’ve uncovered. Ask Meta — “ The lock thumped shut and Kerk was gone.
***
The whole thing was just too stupid. Anger began to replace the futile despair of a moment before. He was being treated like an irresponsible child, the importance of his discovery of the log completely ignored.
Jason turned and saw for the first time that Brucco was standing there. “Did you hear that?” Jason asked him.
“Yes. And I quite agree. You can consider yourself lucky.”
“Lucky!” Jason was the angry one now. “Lucky to be treated like a moronic child, with contempt for everything I do — “
“I said lucky,” Brucco snapped. “Welf was Kerk’s only surviving son. Kerk had high hopes for him, was training him to take his place eventually.” He turned to leave but Jason called after him.
“Wait. I’m sorry about Welf. I can’t be any sorrier knowing that he was Kerk’s son. But at least it explains why Kerk is so quick to throw me out — as well as the evidence I have uncovered. The log of the ship — “
“I know, I’ve seen it,” Brucco said. “Meta brought it in. Very interesting historical document.”
“That’s all you can see it as — an historical document? The significance of the planetary change escapes you?”
“It doesn’t escape me,” Brucco answered briefly, “but I cannot see that it has any relevancy today. The past is unchangeable and we must fight in the present. That is enough to occupy all our energies.”
Jason felt too exhausted to argue the point any more. He ran into the same stone wall with all the Pyrrans. Theirs was a logic of the moment. The past and the future unchangeable, unknowable — and uninteresting. “How is the perimeter battle going?” he asked, wanting to change the subject.
“Finished. Or in the last stages at least,” Brucco was almost enthusiastic as he showed Jason some stereos of the attackers. He did not notice Jason’s repressed shudder.
“This was one of the most serious breakthroughs in years, but we caught it in time. I hate to think what would have happened if they hadn’t been detected for a few weeks more.”
“What are those things?” Jason asked. “Giant snakes of some kind?”
“Don’t be absurd,” Brucco snorted. He tapped the stereo with his thumbnail. “Roots. That’s all. Greatly modified, but still roots. They came in under the perimeter barrier, much deeper than anything we’ve had before. Not a real threat in themselves as they have very little mobility. Die soon after being cut. The danger came from their being used as access tunnels. They’re bored through and through with animal runs, and two or three species of beasts live in a sort of symbiosis inside.
“Now we know what they are we can watch for them. The danger was they could have completely undermined the perimeter and come in from all sides at once. Not much we could have done then.”
The edge of destruction. Living on the lip of a volcano. The Pyrrans took satisfaction from any day that passed without total annihilation. There seemed no way to change their attitude. Jason let the conversation die there. He picked up the log of the Pollux Victory from Brucco’s quarters and carried it back to his room. The wounded Pyrrans there ignored him as he dropped onto the bed and opened the book to the first page.
For two days he did not leave his quarters. The wounded men were soon gone and he had the room to himself. Page by page he went through the log, until he knew every detail of the settlement of Pyrrus. His notes and cross-references piled up. He made an accurate map of the original settlement, superimposed over a modern one. They didn’t match at all.
It was a dead end. With one map held over the other, what he had suspected was painfully clear. The descriptions of terrain and physical features in the log were accurate enough. The city had obviously been moved since the first landing. Whatever records had been kept would be in the library — and he had exhausted that source. Anything else would have been left behind and long since destroyed.
Rain lashed against the thick window above his head, lit suddenly by a flare of lightning. The unseen volcanoes were active again, vibrating the floor with their rumblings deep in the earth.
The shadow of defeat pressed heavily down on Jason. Rounding his shoulders and darkening, even more, the overcast day.
XIV
Jason spent one depressed day lying on his bunk counting rivets, forcing himself to accept defeat. Kerk’s order that he was not to leave the sealed building tied his hands completely. He felt himself close to the answer — but he was never going to get it.
One day of defeat was all he could take. Kerk’s attitude was completely emotional, untempered by the slightest touch of logic. This fact kept driving home until Jason could no longer ignore it. Emotional reasoning was something he had learned to mistrust early in life. He couldn’t agree with Kerk in the slightest — which meant he had to utilize the ten remaining days to solve the problem. If it meant disobeying Kerk, it would still have to be done.
He grabbed up his noteplate with a new enthusiasm. His fi
rst sources of information had been used up, but there must be others. Chewing the scriber and needling his brain, he slowly built up a list of other possibilities. Any idea, no matter how wild, was put down. When the plate was filled he wiped the long shots and impossibles — such as consulting off-world historical records. This was a Pyrran problem, and had to be settled on this planet or not at all.
The list worked down to two probables. Either old records, notebooks or diaries that individual Pyrrans might have in their possession, or verbal histories that had been passed down the generations by word of mouth. The first choice seemed to be the most probable and he acted on it at once. After a careful check of his medikit and gun he went to see Brucco.
“What’s new and deadly in the world since I left?” he asked.
Brucco glared at him. “You can’t go out, Kerk has forbidden it.”
“Did he put you in charge of guarding me to see if I obeyed?” Jason’s voice was quiet and cold.
Brucco rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. Finally he just shrugged. “No, I’m not guarding you — nor do I want the job. As far as I know this is between you and Kerk and it can stay that way. Leave whenever you want. And get yourself killed quietly some place so there will be an end to the trouble you cause once and for all.”
“I love you, too,” Jason said. “Now brief me on the wildlife.”
The only new mutation that routine precautions wouldn’t take care of was a slate-colored lizard that spit a fast nerve poison with deadly accuracy. Death took place in seconds if the saliva touched any bare skin. The lizards had to be looked out for, and shot before they came within range. An hour of lizard-blasting in a training chamber made him proficient in the exact procedure.
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