by E. C. Tubb
"Thank you, but I can't." Sime reared upright and rested one arm on the lid of the box. "I know that you mean well but it's a personal matter. Please try to understand."
Dumarest shrugged. "Suit yourself—it's your funeral."
He rose to his feet, half turned and caught a glimpse of movement. He lurched toward it and almost trod on the recumbent body of the old crone who had traveled with Sime. She appeared to be fast asleep.
Melga adjusted the hypogun and held the nozzle close to the furry hide of the small animal which Dyne held writhing in his hands. It was desperate with terror. Its mouth gaped and its eyes bulged but it made no sound aside from the harshness of its breathing. She watched it for a moment then pressed the trigger. Air blasted a charge of anesthetic through the hide and into the bloodstream. Immediately the animal went limp.
"I have changed the dosage and chemical content of the anesthetic," said the physician. She took the animal from the cyber's hands and fastened it to the surface of her dissecting table. "On the next specimen I shall, if necessary, simply sever the sensory nerves to the brain." She sat down, picked up a heavy scalpel and bared the skull with a few, deft strokes. She had had much practice. The dissected remains of half a score of the creatures stood in plastic containers. She had concentrated on the skull.
"Perhaps it would be as well to dissect without undue concern for the creature's pain," suggested Dyne. Like the woman he wore a surgeon's gown and mask. Elbow-length gloves covered his hands. "It could be that any anesthetic used will destroy what we are trying to find."
"Possible," agreed the woman, "but very unlikely." She cut and snipped and discarded. A saw whined briefly as she sliced through the top of the skull. A suction device removed the circle of bone. Blood welled over the surface of the living brain. "While I agree that chemicals may alter the metabolism they can hardly change the physical structure. But I may have to make perfectly sure." The blood vanished into the maw of a sucking tube as she adjusted the instrument. "However pain, in itself, can serve no useful end. The muscles will be tense, the blood cells engorged, the entire glandular system in a state of abnormality." She swung a glass over the wound and selected a delicate probe. "Fear is also an important consideration. It may be as well to gas the next collection of specimens to ensure that they are uncontaminated by the effects of the emotion."
Dyne made no comment. He leaned forward, watching as the woman cut and probed into the mass of living tissue, her expert fingers baring the innermost recesses of the creature's brain. He caught the faint sound of her indrawn breath.
"Something new?"
"No."
She put down the probe and picked up a scalpel. Quickly she stripped the rest of the hide from the now-dead creature. Again she cut and delved, this time with more speed but with no less skill. Finally she put aside her instruments and leaned back in her chair.
"The same," she said flatly. Her voice was heavy with fatigue. "Exactly like the others."
"You regard the evidence as conclusive?"
"There can be no doubt. The random sampling would have shown any divergences if they existed. No divergences were found. We must accept the logical conclusion."
Leaning forward she pressed the release. The disposable topsheet of the dissecting table sprang from the edges into a cup cradling the unwanted remains. She threw it into a disposal unit. A gush of blue flame converted it to ash.
Dyne narrowed his eyes at the brief glare. "You are not preserving the remains?"
"It would be unnecessary duplication—the specimen yielded nothing new."
She leaned back, acutely conscious of the confines of the tent, the clutter of her equipment. She was a tidy woman and such confusion caused mental irritation. Dyne didn't help. He stood, a watchful figure, to one side of the table, the dissecting light casting hollows beneath his eyes. She wished that he would sit down or go away. She always worked better alone.
"We can now be quite certain that these creatures have no functioning auditory system," she said, knowing that he waited for her summation. "They have no outer ear—in itself not too important, but they have no ossicle and no tympanic cavity. They have a membranous labyrinth containing otoliths and similar in structure to that of the gnathosomes. This takes care of their sense of balance but it is not connected to anything which could be a functioning auditory nerve."
"Could it be vestigial?" He was shrewd, she thought before answering.
"No. There is simply no recognizable nerve tissue present which it could be and no connection to the outer hide or to any form of tympanic membrane. The conclusion is inescapable. These creatures are completely devoid of the mechanism of an auditory system."
She closed her eyes, feeling waves of fatigue rolling over her like the waves of a sea, remotely conscious of the dull ache in her hands and wrists. Once it would not have been like this. Once she had been able to sit at her table and work and work and work… She caught herself on the edge of sleep and opened her eyes to the glare of the dissecting light. Age, she thought wryly. It comes to us all.
Something brushed against one of the walls. A soft tread whispered beyond the plastic—one of the ubiquitous guards of the Matriarch on her rounds. Dyne waited until she had moved away.
"So these creatures are completely deaf. Is that your summation?"
"I didn't say that they were deaf." The physician reached out and snapped off the dissecting light. The comparative gloom was restful to her eyes. "I said that they had no auditory system."
The cyber could recognize the difference but he wondered why the woman was being so precise. "Exactly. But with no auditory system they must be completely deaf in the sense that we use the word."
She nodded.
"Then they cannot receive and interpret external vibration." He was insistent. "You are positive as to that?"
She had been positive from the first. Scientific thoroughness had prompted the following dissections and now there could be no doubt. Without an auditory system the animals were stone-deaf. The sonic guns used to trap them? They operated directly on the nervous system and created a condition of panic fear. The victim had no choice but to run from the point of maximum disturbance. Ground vibration? Perhaps they could sense it but in a manner she couldn't yet tell.
But, without the ability to hear, how could they survive? How could they hunt, mate, elude ordinary means of capture?
Chapter Nine
THE PATH veered more to the east so that the upper rim of the sun fell below the horizon and only a dull, red glow shone from beyond the sea. The stars were brighter now, limning the bulk of the mountains which waited ahead, casting a thin, ghost-light on the grass and the boulders to either side. Far below, from the base of the cliffs, the muted roar of the waves sounded like the pounding of a monstrous heart.
Gloria hated the sound. She sat beneath the canopy of her raft and felt her own heart pick up the rhythm and adjust to its tempo. It was too slow. She felt her blood grow turgid, her thoughts dull. Irritably she sniffed at her pomander and concentrated on other things: the line of the column stretching behind; the shorter line reaching ahead. The Prince of Emmened was in the van, no longer whipping his bearers now that he was in the lead. The lights on his rafts looked like miniature stars.
"An unusual sight, My Lady." Dyne sat beside her, his face shielded by his cowl. The scarlet of his robe looked the color of congealed blood in the dim light. He looked at the cavalcade, the combination of pomp and pride and poverty unique to Gath. The Matriarch was unimpressed.
"I have seen better," she snapped. "The installation of a matriarch of Kund is a sight I have yet to see equaled."
"Naturally, My Lady."
"You doubt?"
"No, My Lady. But this spectacle is of nature rather than man." He lifted his face to the heavy air. The tension had increased so that it lay like a hot, crackling blanket over the area. Wisps of electrical energy glowed at the tips of metallic protuberances. The storm was very close. He said so. The Matriarch shrugged.
"We spent much time in camp and killed our early advantage." The time had not been wasted. Gloria looked at the cyber, breathed deeply of the chemicals rising from her pomander, and spoke what was on her mind. "You are sure of your findings?"
"Yes, My Lady."
"And Melga?"
"She too, My Lady."
The Matriarch nodded, her eyes thoughtful at the expected answer. She had seen the physician later than Dyne, sitting slumped in her chair, her face sagging with the weight of fatigue. She had shown her years—a great many years, but they had given her skill as well as experience. Her body shaken with the effects of drugs, she had made her report.
"Our findings are as expected, My Lady. I have verified the prediction and have made some attempt to isolate the relevant factors. I…"
The Matriarch had been kind. She had permitted the physician to sleep. She was still asleep, lying in one of the tented rafts, glucose and saline dripping into her veins, the magic of slow-time adding to her therapy. But her report had vindicated Dyne's answer. They had found one of the secrets of Gath.
"The animals, then, are telepathic?"
"Yes, My Lady—as I predicted." His eyes shone with his sole pleasure. "Once it was clear that they had no auditory system the logical extrapolation was obvious. No creature can be totally devoid of survival characteristics; some breed with incredible fecundity, some can race the wind, or have amazing powers of vision or scent. Others have the power of camouflage. None are wholly deaf."
A basket stood at his feet. He stooped, opened it, took out a small, furry creature—one of those captured by the guards. It struggled for a moment then relaxed as he stroked the featureless head.
"There are historical cases of species being so defenseless that they are now extinct," he continued. "They are rare. This animal has no special powers of scent or vision, hardly any camouflage and a relatively low rate of reproduction. Also it is quite deaf. It should make easy prey." His hand continued its soothing rhythm. "The stranded travelers have done their best to catch the creatures for use as food. They failed. Yet the beasts are numerous and have little defensive equipment. Physical equipment, naturally."
The Matriarch was paying little attention. She concentrated on the animal. "Why isn't it afraid?"
"Because I am concentrating on harmless thoughts," said the cyber. "I mean it no harm. In a short while I shall release it. But if I were to think of other things. Of killing it, for example—"
His hand ceased its soothing motion. The animal tensed then, suddenly, and went wild with terror.
"You see?" Dyne released the creature. It jumped from the raft and was immediately lost in the undergrowth. "It could only have sensed my thoughts. Not actual words, of course, it has no language or means of verbal communication so could not have thought in a verbal sense. It sensed my intention. It must be very sensitive."
Gloria nodded, her forehead creased with thought, her heart beating to a rising excitement. Telepathy was not an unknown talent in the cluster of worlds which had known the foot of Man but it was, at best, an unpredictable thing spawned by sport mutations and wholly unreliable. If these creatures had compensated for their lack of hearing by developing a telepathic ability then they were unique.
Unique because they were of flesh and blood and physiologically akin to the human race.
* * *
On a knoll toward the east of the curving path the Lady Seena stood and watched the slow progress of the column. She had become bored with riding and had chosen to walk. Chosen, too, Dumarest to walk with her but they were not alone. The Matriarch had seen to that. Beyond earshot but very much alert, a circle of guards accompanied the couple.
"It looks like a snake," said the girl. She looked at the light-studded column etched against the dull red glow of the western sky. "Or a centipede. Or an eltross from Vootan. They are composed of seven distinct types of creature united in a common symbiosis."
Dumarest made no comment. His eyes were searching the column. He could see the Brothers Angelo and Benedict, the structure of their portable church twin mounds on their shoulders. The laden figure of Sime, his burden grotesque in the midst of the carnival-like throng, crept steadily along to one side. He could not see the old crone.
"That man!" Seena pointed to Sime. "What does he carry?" Dumarest told her. She stared in amazement. "A coffin containing the dead body of his wife? You must be joking."
"No, My Lady."
"But why?"
"He is probably very attached to her," he said dryly. "I understand that some men do feel that way about their wives."
"Now I know that you are joking." Seena was impatient. "It is hardly a subject for jest."
"I am not joking. My Lady. It is common knowledge among the travelers." He looked thoughtfully at the laden figure. "I will admit that it is unusual to find a man so attached to a woman as is Sime."
"But why?" The question bothered her. "Why did he bring her to Gath?"
"That is the question, My Lady." Dumarest looked at the woman at his side. "I am not sure as to his reason but there is a legend on Earth that, at the very last day, a trumpet will sound and all the dead shall rise to live again. Perhaps he hopes to hear the sound of that trumpet—or that his wife shall hear it."
"But she is dead."
"Yes, My Lady."
"But—" She frowned her irritation. "You fail to make sense," she complained. "I have heard of no such legend."
"The Brothers would enlighten you, My Lady."
"Have they also been to Earth?" She laughed at his expression. "No, how could they? Do you really expect me to believe there is such a place?"
"You should—it is very real." He began walking so as to keep abreast of the Matriarch's retinue of rafts. "I was born there," he said abruptly. "I grew up there. It is not a pleasant place. Most of it is desert, a barren wilderness in which nothing grows. It is scarred with old wounds, littered with the ruins of bygone ages. But there is life, of a kind, and ships come to tend that life."
"And?"
"I stowed away on such a ship. I was young, alone, more than a little desperate. I was more than lucky. The captain should have evicted me but he had a kind heart. He was old and had no son." He paused. "That was a long time ago. I was ten at the time."
He shook himself as if shedding unpleasant memories, been traveling ever since, deeper and deeper into the inhabited worlds. "That's all there is to it, My Lady. Just an ordinary story of a runaway boy who had more luck than he deserved or thought existed. But Earth is very real."
"Then why haven't I heard of it? Why does everyone think of it as a planet that does not exist?" She stooped and picked up a handful of dirt. "Earth! This is earth! Every planet, in a way, is earth."
"But one planet was the original." He saw the look of shocked realization followed immediately by forceful negation. "You do not believe me—I cannot blame you for that, but think about it for a moment. Earth, my Earth, is far from the edge of the inhabited worlds. No one now, aside from a few, has any reason to go there. But assume for a moment that what I claim is true. Men would venture from that planet in which direction? To the stars closest to home, naturally. And from there? To other, close stars. And so on until the center of civilization had moved deeper into the galaxy and Earth became less than a legend." He paused. "No, My Lady, I can't blame you for not knowing of Earth. But I do."
It made a peculiar kind of sense and held the seeds of logic. Add a few thousand years, the trials of colonial enterprise, the distorting effects of time and what was once real becomes legend. And who, in their right senses, believes in legend? The name, of course, didn't help. And how could he identify his sun?
Seena felt a sudden wave of sympathy as she recognized his problem.
"You want to go back there." Her eyes searched his face. "You want to and you can't because no one seems to know where it is. That is why you told Melga of the planet of your origin—you hoped that she would be able to help you."
"I
thought that she, or someone, might know of it," he admitted. "I was wrong."
"A barren place," she murmured. "A desert scarred with the wounds of old wars. And yet there is life there?"
"Of a kind."
"And ships visit?"
"Yes."
"Then you have your clues. Someone must know the coordinates. Tell me of that life, those ships."
"No."
"But why not?" Her eyes lightened. "Dyne could help you. Sometimes I think he knows everything."
"Yes," said Dumarest tightly. "I think you could be right."
The column crawled on at two and a half miles an hour, an easy pace even for weak men loaded with half their weight in supplies. Megan grunted as he threw his weight against the rope, feeling the pull at the cuts on his shoulders, snarling in frustrated hate at the thought of the men who had plied the whip.
He still worked for the same man despite what he had promised Dumarest. There was pride in his decision and something more. The Prince of Emmened had contracted to pay for his services and pay he would. Megan relished the thought of the money, the best salve of all to his scarred back.
He grunted again as a passing guard scowled at him; he heaved on the rope and twisted his face into a sneer. The guard passed on. Ahead lay only darkness relieved by the ghost-light of the stars but Megan needed no light. He had been this way too often in the past. Ahead lay the mountains of Gath.
The Prince of Emmened could see them in fine detail.
He peered through the infrared binoculars clamped to his eyes then grunted with perulant irritation.
"Nothing." He lowered the glasses. "Just an ordinary mountain range, weathered but perfectly natural." He slumped in his throne-like chair, ringed fingers drumming on one of the arms. "Why?" he demanded. "Why the sudden move? I understood that the factor had assured you that there was plenty of time."
"He did, My Lord," said Crowder.
"Then he either lied or that old Bitch of Kund must know something. I doubt that he lied." His face darkened. "What is she likely to gain, Crowder?"
