Travelers of Space - [Adventures in Science Fiction 03]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  At least we’ve got their interest, Donelli thought grimly.

  He began to cough. No mistake this time, there was HF vapor seeping into his suit through some scratch. Fluorine was eating at his lungs. Well, he didn’t have time to feel sick.

  The ivory-colored animals had rigged up a primitive ballista just a few feet from the end of the tunnel and were pegging ax-heads into the cave at fairly respectable velocities. The missiles were easy to side-step; but Donelli’s head was getting heavy and he lost his footing once or twice. As fast as his supersonic would sweep them away from the ballista, they would crowd back again with stubborn determination. A slow, evil fire built itself in Donelli’s chest and spread nibbling fingers along his throat.

  He looked over his shoulder. No more darts were coming in at the rapt group near the cave mouth. Evidently the avians were possessed of more love for one of their number than the bur-rowers. He had just started to turn his head, when a heavy object struck the back of his helmet. He dimly perceived he was falling. It seemed to him that the burrower which he had cap tured leaped over him and rejoined its fellows, and that Susie flew out to a clustered bunch of avians and that they all buzzed and hummed like idiots.

  What a waste of time, he thought as the fire began to consume his brain. Helena let them go.

  It seemed to him that Helena and Dr. Blaine were hurrying to his side through a shimmering mist of yellow agony. It also seemed to him that one of the chest-high balls split up along a pink vein and something came out.

  But he was sure of nothing, but the painful, choking darkness into which his body twisted, nothing but the agony in his chest. . . .

  He woke with a spaceman’s certain knowledge of riding a smooth jet. His body felt deliciously light. He tried to sit up, but he was too weak to do more than turn his head. Two men had their backs to him. After a while he identified them as Dr. Archibald Blaine and Dr. Douglas Ibn Yussuf. Dr. Yussuf was out of his cast and was arguing in an animated fashion with Blaine over a white ax-head imprisoned in a plastic block.

  “Why, I’m in Dr. Yussuf’s bunk,” Donelli muttered stupidly.

  “Welcome back,” Helena told him, moving into range of his watery eyes. “You’ve been pretty far away for a long, long time.”

  “Away?”

  “You ate enough hydrofluoric acid to etch a glass factory out of existence. I made my biological education turn handsprings to save that belligerent life of yours. We used up almost every drug on the ship and Dr. Yussuf’s organic deconverter-and-respirator, which he built and used on you, is going to make him the first physical chemist to win a Solarian Prize in medicine.”

  “When—when did we take off?”

  “Days ago. We should be near a traffic lane now, not to mention the galactic patrol. Our tanks are stuffed with contra-Uranium, our second jet is operating in a clumsy sort of way and our converter is functioning as cheerily as any atomic converter ever did. After the help we gave them with their own lives, the population of Maximilian II was so busy bringing us Q that we ran out of inerted lead containers. From considering us the personifications of death, they’ve come to the point where they believe humans go around destroying death, or at least its fear. And it’s Jake Donelli who did that.”

  “I did, did I?” Donelli was being very cautious.

  “Didn’t you? That business about the threshold of life and death being the caves was what I heard you develop with my own ears. It was the only clue I needed. The caves related not only to the sacredness of birth, but—more important to the primitive mind—to the awful terror of death. A threshold, you called it And so it was, not only between life and death, but between the burrowers and the avians. Once I had that, and with a little scientific guessing, it was simple to figure out why the eggs were laid in apparent reverse order—that of the bur-rowers near the front, and that of the avians at the rear—and why they had never met each other.”

  ~ * ~

  The spaceman thought that over and then nodded slowly.

  “Simple,” Donelli murmured. “Yes, that might be the word. This little shred of scientific guessing you did, just what did it amount to?”

  “Why, that the avians and the burrowers were different forms of the same creature in different stages of the life-process. The winged creatures mate just as their powers start to decline. Before the young hatch, the parents seek out a cave and die there. The young, those white worms, use the parental bodies as food until they have grown claws and can travel down to the tunnels where they become adolescent burrowers.

  “The burrowers, after all, are nothing but larva—despite the timbering of their shafts and their mining techniques which Drs. Blaine and Yussuf consider spectacular. They can be considered sexless. After several years, the burrower will return to the cave. In the belief of its fellows it dies there, since it returns no more. It spins a cocoon—that’s what those large green balls were— and remains a chrysalis until the winged form is fully developed. It then flies out of the cave and into the open air where it is accepted by the so-called avians as their junior. It evidently retains no memory of its pre-chrysalis existence.

  “Thus you have two civilizations unaware of each other, each different and each proceeding from the same organism. So far as the organism was concerned in either stage, it went to the cave only to die, and, from the cave, in some mysterious fashion, its own kind came forth. Therefore, a taboo is built up on both sides of the threshold, a taboo of the most thoroughgoing and binding nature, the mere thought of whose violation results in psychosis. The taboo, of course, has held their development in check for centuries. Interesting?”

  “Yeah!”

  “The clue was what was important, Jake. Once I had it, I could relate their life-cycle to the Goma of Venus, the Lepidoptera of Earth, the Sislinsinsi of Altair VI. And the clincher was that one of the winged forms hatched out of a cocoon just after I’d finished explaining what was up to that moment only my hypothesis.”

  “How did they take it?”

  “Startled at first. But it explained something they were very curious about and swept away an immense weight of ugly fear. Of course, they still die in the caves to all intents and purposes. But they can see their lives as a perfect reproductive circle with the caves as a locus. And what a reciprocity they can work out— they are working out!”

  “Reciprocity?” Donelli had almost moved to a sitting position.

  Helena wiped his face with a soft cloth. “Don’t you see? The burrowers were injuring the avian gardens by nibbling at the roots. They will now use only the roots of old, strong plants which the surface creatures will designate and set aside for them. They will also aid avian horticulture by making certain the roots have plenty of nourishing space in which to grow. In return, the avians will bring them surface plants which are not available to tunnel creatures, while the burrowers provide the surface with the products of their mines and labors underground. To say nothing of the intelligent rearing they can now give their young, though at a distance. And when the fluorescent light system that Dr. Ibn Yussuf worked out for them becomes universal, the avians may travel freely in the tunnels and guide the burrowers on the surface. The instinctual and haphazard may shortly be supplanted by a rich science.”

  “No wonder they broke their backs getting Q. And after working that out for them, all you did was repair the ship, fix me up, take off and set a course for the nearest traffic lane?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Dr. Blaine helped quite a bit with the take-off. This time he remembered the buttons! By the way, as far as the record is concerned, he and I maneuvered the ship off the ground under your direct supervision.”

  “Oh, so?”

  “Just so. Right, Dr. Blaine?”

  The archaeologist looked up impatiently. “Of course. Of course! There has not been one moment, since the disaster aboard the Ionian Pinafore, when I have not been under Mr. Donelli’s orders.”

  There was a pause in which Dr. Blaine muttered to Dr. Yussuf o
ver the ax-head.

  “How old are you, Helena?” Donelli asked.

  “Oh—old enough.”

  “But too clever, eh? Too educated for me?”

  She cocked her head and smiled at him out of a secret corner of her face. “Maybe. We’ll see what happens after we get back to the regular traffic lanes. After we’re rescued. After you get your third mate’s ticket. Here—what are you laughing at?”

  He rumbled the amusement out of his throat. “Oh, I was just thinking how we earned our Q. By teaching a bunch of caterpillars that butterflies bring babies!”

  <>

  ~ * ~

  Trouble on Tantalus

  BY P. SCHUYLER MILLER

  T

  he mutter of the bull drums throbbed through the dripping blackness. Moran pushed his face deeper into the muck of the forest floor and listened.

  VUB, vub, vub, vub. VUB, vub, vub, vub.

  They were on three sides of him now. To east, and south, and north of him the Blueskin shamans were thumping their mocking challenge, dancing their frenzied dances, promising their young men his skull for the village pyramid and his skin for a drum that would outroar, outbluster and outbrag any drum in all the reeking jungles of Tantalus.

  To east and south and north—the road ahead was clear. There lay the great sky-reaching crags of the Mountains of the Night, blanketed in everlasting clouds, cleft by bottomless chasms, drenched by the endless rains that were slishing into the mire in which he lay, rattling on the forest roof above him. There, somewhere, was the mysterious Black Hole that had sucked a score of ether ships into oblivion since men first found this Godforsaken planet. There—

  Somewhere ahead of him another drum began to beat. Tap, tap, tap. A little drum—a shrill drum—a drum headed with human skin. Tap, tap, tap. A drum that jeered and mocked and dared him to come and fight. He knew that drum. He knew the blue-skinned devil who was hammering Pete Davis’ stretched pelt with Pete Davis’ bleached white shinbone, and by the same token, old Wallagash knew him. The withered ear that was nailed to the wall of his shack back in Talus was mate to the one that was out there in the blackness, listening to the tap, tap, tapping of Pete’s shin on Pete’s tanned belly. The evil, slanted eye that was peering through the murk was mate to the one his knuckles had found the night Pete Davis died. North and south, east and west. They had him, and knew it. Well, by Heaven they’d see fighting before he went!

  Six feet six of him reared out of the stinking muck. Black mud matted his red beard and his red mane. Black ooze trickled down the white barrel of his chest. One huge fist closed on the thorn branch that arched over him and ripped it down. He broke it across his knee and hefted it approvingly. With a shillelagh like that in his hand Paddy Moran could bash heads till they cut the guts out of him, and maybe a bit longer if his legs held.

  VUB, vub, vub, vub. VUB, vub, vub, vub.

  They’d make no drum of his skin, by the saints! They’d carve no obscene runes on his boiled shins to make magic against white men of Earth. They’d finish him, like enough, but what they got wouldn’t be cat meat. He shivered. There was a tale told that the Morans had a banshee to wail them into the place of Death when the time came, but like enough she’d lost her way after the first few million miles of empty space. Sirius was not a far star, as stars went, but it was far enough, and Tantalus was by a long way the least pleasant of its many planets.

  He made no attempt to be quiet now. The sooner it was done the better. He plowed his way steadily through the dripping undergrowth toward that mocking tapping in the west. It grew louder as he approached, and he could hear the echo of it rattling against the naked rock of the escarpment beyond. Then suddenly it stopped.

  He stood stock-still, head up like a listening stag. Far to the north a single drum still mumbled; it broke off in mid-beat, and the only sound was the hiss of rain through the branches and the drip of water in liquid mud. His grip on the thorn club tightened until he felt the skin stretch on his knuckles. The short hairs prickled along his spine. What devilry was afoot now?

  And then he heard it.

  Rather, he felt it. Under his spread feet the ground trembled with a slow, rhythmic shock. One—and two—and three—and four. Like a marching army. Like the slow pacing of a giant cat. Like—

  Saints above! The Stalkers!

  Sweat came out on him in trickling beads. Blueskins he could fight. Blueskins were men. But the Stalkers were legend—horrible legend!

  He listened, not breathing. They moved like cats, with a cat’s stealth, with a cat’s cruel sureness. They were black as the pit of hell, invisible in the night. They were ogres, demons, vampires. They were Death!

  Somewhere behind him a Blueskin screamed in terror—the high, mad yammer of a frightened beast. It was too far—there must be more than one. They hunted in pairs, legend said. Up through his legs, from the quaking bog to his prickling brain, thudded the slow rhythm of the approaching footsteps. One—and two—and three—and four—

  Off to the right a tree ripped down through the tangle of vines and branches to crash with echoing thunder in the mud. He wheeled, stared vainly into the blackness. Was it there?

  There was a trickle of light from above. Silver highlights shone on the sprawling roots of a forest giant. Slowly, settling each foot in the mire with infinite care, he moved into their shadow. Squeezed into a crevice in the trunk he stared at the ghostly column of light that filtered down from above. It must cross that to reach him. He would see it, silhouetted against the gleam from that glistening pool. Magnified by the resonant wood on which he stood, the footsteps shook his whole tensed body. Thud! And thud! And thud!

  They stopped. A foul, animal reek stiffled him. Then claws thick as a man’s body closed on him and lifted him struggling into the treetops.

  ~ * ~

  Moran regained consciousness. The reek of musk was still in his nostrils. The air was saturated with it. It made his head swim. He lay still in the dark, trying to gauge his whereabouts. There was a carpet of thick velvet under his spread fingers. It was dry, and hot, and it swayed under him with a slow rhythm that matched the swing of the thudding footsteps.

  He got unsteadily to his feet, stood with spread legs. He put out his hand, and touched naked, wrinkled flesh that shrank away with a shriek. Something went scuttling past him in the darkness. Something whispered behind him. There was a slow, methodical sucking that brought the goose pimples on him. He took one cautious step ahead.

  His foot struck something, spun it aside. He stooped and groped for it, found it. It was his club. Then he remembered the pouch at his waist. There was a white light in it. His fingers fumbled with the flap, opened it, found the little metal cylinder with its crystal bulb. As the tiny flame blazed up his jaw sagged in amazement.

  He was in a narrow, windowless room lined with black velvet. A great scarlet egg twice his height filled all the far end. And cowering against its base was such an assemblage as only the mad, black jungles of Tantalus could have spawned.

  Two little things like naked pink Teddy bears huddled together against the scarlet shell. Their huge, opalescent eyes sparkled with blind terror in the bright light. A creature like a wingless, boat-billed stork, with a bristling bright-blue mustache fringing its horny beak, stood morosely on one leg, regarding him with one oval eye. There was a flat pancake disk of mottled flesh, pegged around the edge with short red legs, that seemed to be trying to burrow under the egg. And almost at his feet a thing like a giant black weasel, with six stubby legs and a tabular snout, was sucking avidly at the throat of a Blueskin woman.

  Some sixth sense warned him. He ducked as an eight-inch glass blade snicked past his ear and shattered against the egg. He spun on bent legs, his club raised. Old Wallagash crouched there against the wall, a snarl on his wrinkled face, red hatred in his single slanted eye. In his withered claw was a thing like a barbed steel skewer, three feet long and needle-sharp. With a cackling screech he leaped, just as Moran’s club came do
wn with a splintering crash.

  The shaman’s arm fell limp, broken at the elbow. Moran’s fist caught him under his receding chin. The second blow smashed into his naked belly; the third crunched full into his grinning black-lipped mouth. Then Moran had him by the scrawny throat, worrying him like a dog with a bone.

  Wallagash went limp. Moran got to his feet and retrieved his light. Ugly old devil! All Blueskins were ugly, with their pointed ears and slant eyes, their grinning, toothy mouths, their bodies made in grotesque imitation of humanity. There was a story that they were the creation of the demented scientist who had first landed on this insane planet that the space hogs call Tantalus. Certainly they resembled nothing in this mud hole so much as man. A filthy tuft of hair hung at the dead sachem’s waist. Blond hair. A woman’s hair! Moran knew those bleached locks—knew them intimately. So that was why Pete Davis had launched his mad crusade against the Blueskins. Moran shrugged. Much good it had done him. You could get other women, but a man had only one skin.