Quickly, Kor adjusted the recording equipment. An automatic camera began to whir and click. The analyzing laboratory gained speed and fled upstream. Fluffy clouds floated just below their level of observation, and occasional patches of high-flung cirrus roofed the blue bowl of the sky. The river branched and branched again, and they followed each time the larger of the branches. They passed over rough, broken country where the river hurled a high, plume-like cataract in a tumultuous fury of boiling spray from the thousand-foot-high lip of a precipice. They had reached the highlands, and ahead a range of mountains toothed the horizon.
Below them were grassy prairies dotted with clumps of leaf-bearing trees, the clumps sometimes assuming the proportions of small forests. Kor again checked his records against planetary latitude and longitude. It was somewhere in this region that the Searchers had originally located the tribes of man-like inhabitants who dwelt in caves and roamed the plains on hunting forays.
“What a beautiful world this is!” Soma cried, looking down. “Kor, I would like to live on a world like this.”
Kor himself was possessed by the scene. Rth must have looked something like this ages ago. A silver thread wound across the prairie, meandered among groves of trees, a sparkling stream sometimes hidden in dense foliage of the forest-clumps, sometimes half-visible when a light breeze momentarily shifted the leafy coverage. To westward, the mountains bulked snow-covered and glistening against the eye-delighting blue of the sky, their great feet hidden in the blue mist of distance.
“We could land here,” Kor said. He took Soma again in his arms and kissed her. “There will be lots of other worlds, you know. We have the Universe to choose from. And wherever you like it best, dearest.”
Soma sighed happily.
“I like it best wherever you are.”
He squeezed her briefly, then turned his attention to landing the bubble. He brought it down in the shelter of a clump of tall trees, a hundred yards or so from the edge of the meandering stream.
The light in the miniature forest suddenly dimmed, became greenish-hued, casting a weird pallor over their skins. Soma gave, Kor a startled glance.
“Kor what’s happening to the sun?”
Kor laughed. “Listen!” he said.
The hull resounded with a musical, rhythmic patter that grew louder and louder until it was a swishing roar. Soma put her hands over her ears.
“What—what is it?”
“Rain, darling!”
“Rain? Is that what rain sounds like?”
“That’s what rain sounds like on Karel VI. I put us down at the edge of shower for your especial benefit! How do you like it?”
Soma ran to the view-port and peered out, but the view was obscured by a cataract of foaming water that gushed across the transparent panel.
“Rain…rain! Kor—let’s go out in it!”
“We’d get wet!”
“I know it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Water falling from the sky! More water than I ever saw before!”
Kor was checking the analyzers, determining the pressure and constituency of the Karelian atmosphere.
“Pressure slightly greater than Rth’s; oxygen, thirty percent by volume, the remainder nitrogen and a few of the trace gases. It’s breathable…and safe to go out, darling. But watch your footing.”
The lock mechanism throbbed, and the door opened with a slight hiss as outside pressure entered the bubble. The door of the lock swung completely open and a wet spray of pure clean air and water vapor gushed inward. The roar of rain falling on leaves overhead and on the streaming skin of the bubble crescendoed to a furious pitch.
“It is like the bottom of that waterfall we saw,” Soma whispered in awe. “Kor have you ever seen so much water before?”
Kor wanted to lie and say that he had, but the awesomeness of the phenomenon overcame his desire to exaggerate. He peered out into the forested gloom of the storm.
“This is the first time I ever saw it rain,” he said. “And I am impressed.”
“Think of all the People on Rth who have never seen rain,” Soma murmured, “or at most, a little sprinkle that barely dewed the ground. Think what it would be like for them to live here. Plenty of water for washing, bathing, for watering crops. How luscious the food must grow here!”
They waited, enthralled by the sight, by the eddying gusts of water-laden air, by the smell of moist freshness that accompanied the storm, until the fall had slackened to a swift pitter-patter of hurrying drops. Together, they dashed from the bubble, thrilling to the clean, wet feel of the drops splashing on their heads and hands. The forest around them smelled of chlorophyllous growing things, of sodden humus, of life-giving moisture. The rain was warm, and it fell now in large, splattering drops. In a moment, both were drenched to the skin, laughing gleefully at the intimate caress of water upon their bodies.
Soma skipped playfully away, blithely dancing in the rain. The flimsy garment she had worn in the bubble clung to her, impeded her movements, until she snatched it off and cast it aside. There was something primitive and wild about her as she danced naked in the rain. Kor cast his jerkin aside and ran after her, water streaming from his bare shoulders and arms. Soma skipped nimbly through the underbrush, over fallen logs, laughing, caroling, enticing him on.
Kor knew what possessed her. It was the slight excess of oxygen in the atmosphere; that and the excitement of the rain and this strange, new world. He called out to her to come back, but she laughed, waved, and skipped on, scrambling through the woods in a pure ecstasy of living, until she reached the verge of the grassy plain. The green blades of grass, thigh-deep, bent under the pelting rain, and the surface was swept with changing hues and tones as the wind scurried ripples in waving patterns across it.
Kor pursued, still calling in vain. Out among the waving grasses, Soma faced the breath of the storm and danced and waved with them, like a sprite of nature, arms uplifted to the saturated heavens as if she would reach up and rip the moist heart from those boiling clouds.
As abruptly as it had begun, the rain stopped. The overcast broke. Clouds scurried like a herd of frightened, woolly sheep toward the horizon. The sun came out yellow-bright and strong. Steam rose from the prairie. Soma collapsed among the suddenly stilled grasses.
Kor carried her back to the bubble. She was utterly exhausted, but she still laughed with an overflow of merriment that softened Kor’s attempt at sternness.
“This isn’t Rth, you know,” he chided her. “You just can’t exert yourself like that until you get used to the place!”
“It was such fun, Kor! More fun than I’ve ever had before.”
“Well,” he said with mock grimness. “I like that.”
She giggled, hid her face against his bare, wet breast. He carried her into the bubble, made her comfortable on their berth and wrapped a blanket around her.
“Just stay there now,” he admonished her. “I’ll prepare something to eat, and then you’d better get some sleep. It’s almost sunset, and you’ve had about enough strange experiences for one day. Tomorrow, we can get to work.”
* * * *
The following days were a heaven of delight for Soma. Kor worked assiduously with the analyzing and recording equipment, but there was still plenty of time left for play, for exploratory walks, for swimming and lying in the sun on the sandy bank of the creek. Many times, while Kor worked in the bubble, Soma went out alone, gathering wild flowers, watching the strange birds that flitted among the trees, and dipping in the creek for an extra measure of fun.
The stream was a source of endless delight to Soma. She loved to sit on its bank, alone in the daytime, in the evenings with Kor, and to listen to the music it made as it riffled gently over the gravel bar. Frequently, heavy-laden boughs came down, caressed the surface, and dropped their leaves one by one to float away
on the current. Too, there was the pool they swam in, cool and clean, with a sandy bottom and not too deep for safety. And there was the unutterable feeling of being alone … that all this beauty belonged to them only. Whatever inhabitants this planet had, they assumed the status of mere animals in her mind, unreal and far away. The world was theirs to enjoy as they pleased.
Kor had spent the day classifying a dozen varieties of stoloniferous prairie grasses and several others that might prove to be cereal or grain-bearing. The latter were carefully filed in the hydroponics section of the bubble for further study under growing conditions. Kor made a last check of the instruments. Air and soil analyses were completed. The tapes held a complete record of plant cellular structure, as well as of a few small rodent creatures that roamed the fields and woods. He had recorded about all that was worth while in this region. They would move on next to the mountains, then see what lay beyond. Kor went out into the living quarters to warn Soma they were about to leave.
The airlock door was open to a sunny afternoon. A small, winged insect hummed busily just at the edge of yellow sunlight. Soma was not around, but Kor saw that she had left a note.
“Darling. Didn’t want to disturb you—I know we’re about to leave, so have gone to the creek for one last bath. Join me? S.”
Kor smiled. Some day, he thought, he would see to it that she had a creek of her very own. Somewhere, they’d find the ideal world and settle down. Perhaps Karel IV was the world and this one was the creek. The thought pleased him. Karel IV was a beautiful world.
He ducked out of the bubble, his thoughts drawing rosy pictures of the future, and strode smartly along the path they had worn to the creek. He could hear Soma splashing in the water, singing melodiously in sheer exuberance of living. How marvelous—this solitude … this freedom on a world where there was no fear!
Kor came out of the underbrush upon the bank of the creek and froze.
He apprehended the entire kaleidoscopic scene with one swift sweep of his mind … the purling, musical water, blue in the open reach of its bend, dull green in the shade of its banks. It mirrored leaves that fluttered on bending boughs, mossy-flanked boulders; and Soma, erect and naked in the act of bathing, her white body reflected in broken arcs upon the rippled pool; and above her a something half-seen, a thing of horror that rippled almost invisibly upon the air as it came down silently, remorselessly, and enveloped the girl.
Trisz!
The hateful thought cut like a knife across Kor’s mind. He stood bemused, watching as if fascinated. What was the Trisz doing? As the invisible vibrations of the Trisz enveloped her, Soma appeared hazy and distorted in outline, her head thrown back, arms out flung, back arched.
What happened then was more than Kor’s memory ever afterward brought back to him. For an instant he struggled within himself. He might have flung the full power of his mind at that alien thing to save the life of his beloved, but a lifetime of training pulled the other way. A monstrous hammer began to beat upon a clanging anvil in his brain, each blow a metallic clangor of word’s that leaped upon him: I do most solemnly vow … the invulnerable Trisz…can’t use your power…don’t…it’s killing her don’t—
Desperately he fought to overthrow the discipline of a lifetime. And failed. The force of habit was too strong for sudden overthrow.
The instant struggle rived his mind, shattered his consciousness. The world was lost to Kor in a howling, mental agony. The instant he might have acted passed too soon, the insoluble dilemma wrecked the delicate balance of his mind. Kor fell senseless; the monster fed, and passed on.
CHAPTER XVI
Night came down across the grassy plain and upon the singing stream. The stars stood out in all their blazing glory. Alien constellations wheeled across the foreign sky, dimmed behind a driving cloud, and vanished. Dawn brought with it a chill drizzle.
Kor awoke. He was barely aware. His senses reacted as if drugged. He knew it rained and knew that it made him uncomfortable. Vaguely, he realized what rain was. He looked at the rain-dimpled creek and saw that it was water, but his comprehension went no further. Mercifully, the withered husk dropped by the Trisz had floated away on the stream.
Kor got unsteadily to his feet and splashed through the shallows, across the gravel bar, to the other bank. The bubble lay behind him, but he had no memory of the laboratory, of its purpose, of whence it had come, nor of the passengers it had carried. He knew he was Kor. He did not know who or what Kor was. His mind held no yesterday, conceived of no tomorrow. He drifted in an eternal present.
One other thought, a dim one, tugged at his mind. He was going to the mountains. The rain curtain had lifted, and he looked up and beheld the jagged horizon. He skirted tree clumps and patches of trailing vegetation, keeping to the open grasslands. His eyes were glazed, sunk deep in their sockets. He looked neither to right nor left. He thought nothing. Only his legs moved up and down, up and down, churning through the thigh-deep grass of the prairie. Ahead of him loomed the mountains, dazzling in the sunlight. What was there in the mountains that called to him? He did not know. He responded to the voiceless urge that welled from his subconscious. Where else was there to go, save to the mountains? There was nothing here but grass, mice squeaking underfoot, shrill-voiced insects that cheeped and whirred on the quiet noonday air.
Sometimes, Kor found himself slogging along with the mountains at his back. Then he would remember that the day had gone dark for a little bit, and somehow he must have gotten turned around. He would correct his course, head again for the bright-gleaming snowfields. When night came, he continued to stagger and flounder through the grass. He dropped suddenly and slept until the sun rose on a new day.
Of how many times the sun rose on his wanderings, Kor had no remembrance. Often day was like night to him, and the night was like day. He tramped on under sweltering sun and frosty stars. It made no difference to him. The planet’s lone, tiny moon rose and passed through its phases swiftly: a tiny, glowing sickle-become-disk in the sky that added little to the cold, silver starlight.
Kor did not pause to eat. A part of his superconsciousness functioned automatically, drawing sustenance from the sub-levels of consciousness, restoring and rebuilding his body as he wore it out in his ceaseless trek. An ordinary human being would have quickly died under the conditions that assailed Kor. Kor was the remnant of a Man sustained by powers beyond the understanding of his riven mind.
Long ago, he had shed the last rags that once had covered him. He strode naked through the grass. It swished about his knees, became tangled and matted about his thighs, so that he had to lean forward and draw his legs up with sharp jerks in order to walk. File-edged steins raked his flesh, streaked him with the red of blood and the green of chlorophyll. There had been other creeks to cross, too or was it always the same one? Kor waded or swam, as the occasion called for…keeping the mountains ahead of him as a goal. He passed through copses, clumps, and forests, fought tangled vines, breasted whipping underbrush, climbed over fallen deadwood.
He was dirty. He was filthy. His body was caked with dried mud. His feet and legs and belly were black and green together, whipped by brush and the tall grass. His beard had begun to grow, matting heavily on his cheeks and jowls.
* * * *
Weeks passed. There was no time for Kor. He had forgotten why he had started upon this journey; if indeed he had ever known. His flesh was red from exposure to the sun, his hair bushy and golden, his beard long, tawny, matted with burrs.
Wherever it was that Kor had to go, he walked as with the purpose of getting there. He scarcely paused to rest. His body grew lean, sinewy. His skin was like leather, dyed red in a vat to provide rich binding for books. Vaguely, Kor became aware that he followed a swale that led gradually upward. The ground was rocky in places and the grass was short and tufted. Conifers whispered in the breeze; ripening cones hung like shut
tered lanterns upon wind-lifted boughs. He had reached the tumbled region of the foothills.
A pair of feral eyes glared lambent yellow upon the Man’s progress. A mind duller than Kor’s own had become calculated with evil ferocity. The kther’s belly griped with a pang of hunger. The creature twitched its long tail, ran a slavering pink tongue over fanged jaws. The beast lifted its horned head over the bulwark of rock behind which it crouched, then slid its cat-like body gracefully over and down the slope. The kther stalked the Man, hiding itself behind rocks and shrubs, running on soft pads, creeping on its furred belly, thinking cold, vicious thoughts of hate and killing.
The swale flattened, widened into a grassy meadow. Deer streamed out of its far end, running for the safety of the forested slope above. They had caught the scent of the creeping kther, intent upon its prey.
The kther rounded a gray outcropping, snarled at the Man’s back, then lifted its hideous, horned muzzle and roared.
Kor did not pause in his stride nor cast a glance behind. The beast blinked yellow eyes and licked its chops. What kind of a creature was this that did not freeze in terror at the frightful noise of the kther? The animal launched itself from the rock, bounded after Kor. At a dozen yards distance, it halted, forepaw uplifted, and yowled hatefully.
Slowly, the Man turned. He saw the beast, behind it a stretch of grassy meadow giving upon the rocks that hemmed this cup-like depression. Kor shook his head slowly from side to side, pondering. He wondered how he had got there. He tried to think, but thoughts would not come to him, only impressions of his immediate surroundings.
The twitching animal caught and held Kor’s attention. His mind stirred with a sluggish curiosity and he took a step toward it.
The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister Page 40
