He wasn’t certain he had actually seen it! The movement had been rapid, and only in the corner of his eye.
Claybourne leaped up, throwing off the safeties on the molasses-gun. He yanked off the inflation patch with stiff fingers, and the foam-rest collapsed back to flatness in his pack.
He took a tentative step, stopped. Had he actually seen something? Had it been hallucination or a trick of the weak air blanket of Selangg? Was the hunt getting to him at last? He paused, wet his lips, took another step.
His scarred, blocky face drew tight. The sharp gray eyes narrowed. Nothing moved but the faint rustling of the blue saw-grass. The world of Selangg was dead and quiet.
He slumped against the rock wall, his nerves leaping.
He wondered how wise it had been to come on this jump. Then the picture of Garden’s fat, florid face slid before his eyes, and he knew he had had to come. This was the ending. As he tracked the fetl, so he tracked Garden.
He quickly reviewed what he knew of the jetrs appearance, matching it with the flash of movement he had seen:
A big, bloody animal—a devilish-looking thing, all teeth and legs. Striped like a Sumatran tiger, six-legged, twelve-inch sabered teeth, a ring of eyes across a massive low brow, giving it nearly one hundred and eighty degrees of unimpaired straight-line eyesight.
Impressive, and mysterious. They knew nothing more about the beast. Except the reason for this hunt; it was telekinetic, could move objects by mind-power alone.
A stupid animal—a beast of the fields—yet it possibly held the key to all future research into the mind of man.
But the mysteries surrounding the fetl were not to concern Claybourne. His job was merely to capture it and put it in the custody of the Institute for study.
However …
It was getting to be a slightly more troublesome hunt now. Three weeks was a week longer than he had thought the tracking would take. He had covered most of the five hundred miles that comprised Selangg’s surface. Had it not been for the lessened gravity and the monstrous desert grasslands, he would still be searching. The fetl had fled before him.
He would have given up had he not found prints occasionally.
It had been all that had kept him going. That, and the other half of his pay, deliverable upon receipt of the fetl at the Institute. It seemed almost uncanny. At almost the very instant he would consider giving up and turning back to the ship, a print would appear in the circle of lamplight, and he would continue. It had happened a dozen times.
Now here he was, at the final step of the trek. At the foot of a gigantic mountain chain, thrusting up into the dead night of Selangg. He stopped, the circle of light sliding like cool mercury up the face of the stone.
He might have been worried, were it not for the molasses-gun. He cradled the weapon closer to his protective suit.
The grapple shot hooked itself well into the jumbled rock pieces piled above the smooth mountain base. Claybourne tested it, and began climbing, bracing his feet against the wall, hanging outward and walking the smooth surface.
Finally, he reached the area where volcanic action had ruptured the stone fantastically. It was a dull, gray rock, vesiculated like scoria, tumbled and tumbled. He unfastened the grapple, returned it to its nest in his pack, and tensing his muscles, began threading up through the rock formations.
It soon became tedious—but boring. Stepping up and over the jumbled rock pieces he turned his thoughts idly to the molasses-gun. This was the first time he had handled one of the new solo machines. Two-man molasses-guns had been the order till now. A solo worked the same way, and was, if anything, deadlier than the more cumbersome two-man job.
He stopped for a moment to rest, sliding down onto a flat stool of rock. He took a closer look at the weapon. The molasses-gun; or as it was technically known, the Stadt-Brenner Webbing Enmesher. He liked molasses-gun better; it seemed to describe the weapon’s function so accurately.
The gun produced a steel-strong webbing, fired under tremendous pressure, which coiled the strongest opponent into a helpless bundle. The more he struggled to free himself, for the webbing was an unstable plastic, the tighter it bound him.
“Very much like the way I’m enmeshing Garden,” Claybourne chuckled to himself.
The analogy was well-founded. The molasses-gun sucked the victim deeper and deeper into its coils, just as Claybourne was sucking Garden deeper and deeper into his death-trap.
Claybourne smiled and licked his lips absently. The moisture remained for an instant, was swept away by the suit’s purifiers.
He started up again. The rocks had fallen in odd formations, almost forming a passage up the summit. He rounded a talus slide, noting even more signs of violent volcanic activity, and headed once more up the inky slope toward the cliffs rising from the face of the mountain.
The jetrs prints had become less and less distinct as it had climbed, disappearing almost altogether on the faceless rocks.
Occasionally a claw-scratch would stand out brightly in the glare of Clayboume’s headlamp beam.
The hours slid by tediously, and though he forced himself to stop twice more to rest, the light gravity caused him little fatigue for all his labors.
Once, as before, he thought he caught a splinter-fast movement of striped body, up on the cliffs, but as before, he could not be certain.
The faint starshine cast odd shadows, little blobs of black and silver, across the mountains. From a distance it had looked as though millions of diamonds were lying on the black surfaces. As though the mountain were riddled with holes, through which a giant sun inside the rock was sending pinpoints of light. It was weird and beautiful.
A fitting place for me to bow off the Periphery, he thought; thoughts returning to Earth—and Garden. He thought of Earth.
His world.
When he skimmed the hood-beam across the rocks twenty feet above him on the cliff wall, Claybourne saw the cave.
A small incline rose up into the deeper blackness of the cave’s mouth. That had to be it. The only place within a mile of the last claw-scratch that the fetl could have used to disappear. The scatches had been clear for a time, leading him up the mountain, but then they had vanished.
His tracking had been quiet—sound didn’t carry far on Selangg. His tracking had been stealthy—it was always dark on Selangg. Now his efforts would pay off. His hunt was over. Back to Earth-to finish that other hunt.
He was banking the other hallucination he had seen was the real thing.
Claybourne stopped under a rock lip overhang and flat-handed the compression chamber of the molasses-gun open, peering inside. His hood light shone down on the steeled-blue plastic of the weapon. It was full, all the little gelatin capsules ranged row on row behind the airtight transparent seal, filling the chamber to the seams. He flipped it shut, and looked once more toward the summit, and the cave.
A star gleamed directly over the ragged peaks, directly above him. He hefted the rifle once more, blew a thin stream of breath through his pursed lips, and started up the incline.
The tiny rock bits tumbled away under his boots, the crunch of pebbles carrying up through the insulated suiting. He kept a wary watch as he climbed, not expecting the beast to appear, but still taking no chances.
He was certain the fetl did not know he had followed it here to its lair. Else it would have turned back in a circle, kept running across the grasslands. His tracking had been subtle and cautious. Claybourne had learned on the Periphery how to be invisible on a hostile world, if the need arose. This hunt would end as all the others had ended: successfully.
The hunt for Garden, too, he mused tightly.
The ragged cave mouth gaped before him.
He surveyed it closely, inclining his beam not directly into the opening, but tilting it onto the rock wall just inside, so light spilled over the rockway and he could check for ledged rises over the entrance, inside. Nothing but a huge pile of rocks wedged tightly in place by some miscue of the volcan
ic action.
He flipped a toggle on the chest-console, and the beam became brighter still, spraying out in a wider, still sharply-defined circle.
He stepped in.
The cave was empty.
No, not empty.
He was three steps into the high-ceilinged cave before he saw the fetl. It was crouched small as its huge bulk would allow into a corner, dim in the back of the cave. Hunched as far as it could go into a niche in the wall.
In as far as its ten-foot hulk permitted, still the beast was huge. Its monstrous ring of weed-green eyes all staring at him malevolently.
Claybourne felt a sudden shock as he stared into those eyes. They so much reminded him of Garden’s eyes at the auction. Hungry.
He shook off the feeling, took a step forward. The fetl was limned clearly in the beam of the helmet torch. It was an impressive animal, tightly coiled at the rear of the cave.
The beast twitched slightly.
Its flanks quivered in the glare of the lamp. Muscles all over its body rippled, and Claybourne drew back a step to the fire. The beast twitched again.
He felt the tiny stones in the pile over the entrance clatter to the cave floor. He could barely hear them tinkle, but the vibrations in the stone came to him.
He turned his head for a moment, to see what was happening. His eyes opened wide in terror as he saw the supporting rubble drop away, leaving the huge rock tottering in its place. The great stone slid gratingly out of its niche and crashed to the floor of the cave, sending clouds of rock-dust roiling, completely blocking off the mouth of the cave. Sealing it permanently.
Claybourne could only stand and watch, horror and a constriction in his throat.
His light remained fixed on the cave-in, reflecting back glints of gold as the dust from the slide swirled itself into small pillars, rising into the thin air.
Then he heard the rumble.
The sound struck him like a million trumpets, all screaming at once. He turned, stumbling, his torch flicking back toward the fetl.
The fetl sat up on its four back legs, contentedly washing a front paw with a long red tongue that flicked in and out between twelve-inch incisors. The lighter black of a small hole behind him gave an odd illusion of depth to the waiting beast.
Claybourne watched transfixed as the animal slowly got to its feet and pad-pad-padded toward him, the tongue slipping quickly in and out, in and out …
Suddenly coming to his senses, Claybourne stepped back a pace and levelled the molasses-gun, pulled the trigger. The stream of webbing emerged with a vibrant hiss, sped toward the monstrous fetl.
A foot short of the beast the speeding webbing lost all drive, fluttered in the still cave for a moment, then fell like a flaccid length of rope. On the floor it quickly contracted itself, wormlike, into a tight, small ball.
The fetl licked its chops, the tongue swirling down and across and up and in again.
Before he could pull the trigger again, Claybourne felt the gun tremble in his hands. At the same moment he saw the beast’s flanks quiver again.
An instant later the gun ripped itself from his grasp and sent itself crashing into the wall. Parts spattered the cave floor as the seams split, and capsules tumbled out. The molasses-gun’s power compartment emitted a sharp, blue spark, and the machine was gone.
He was defenseless.
He heard the roar again. Telekinetic! After he had done what he wished, the animal would leave by the hole in the rear of the cave. Why bother untumbling the rocks!
The fetl began moving again. Claybourne stumbled back, tripped on a jutting rock, fell heavily to the floor.
The man backed away across the floor of the cave, the seat of his suit scraping the rock floor. His back flattened against the wedged rock in the cave mouth. He was backed as far as he could go.
He was screaming, the sound echoing back and forth in his hood, in the cave, in the night.
All he could see, all there was in the universe, was the fetl, advancing on him, slowly, slowly, taking all the time it needed. Savoring every instant.
Then, abruptly, at the precise instant he gazed deep into that ring of hate-filled green eyes coming toward him, he realized that even as he had tracked the fetl, even as he had been tracking Garden—so the fetl had been tracking him! The fetl licked his lips again, slowly. Hs had all the time in the world … His world.
TINY ALLY
When we first saw him, he came stumbling across the snow, almost beneath our feet. For a moment I thought it was a snow-swirl, or a shadow. At 18,000 feet, that often happens.
Deszlow stopped and cupped his hands to his mouth, having pulled up his oxygen mask, and screamed to the rest of us on the line. “For God’s sake! Come here and see this!”
His voice was almost lost beneath the howl of the wind, but we pulled along the rope to see what he had discovered. Rutledge and Ferraday and I slid back down the slope, digging our crampons into the tightly-packed crust, leaving spike-marks in jagged rows. We clustered around Deszlow, the deranged wind of the summit bullying us. We stared with great confusion at the tiny mountain-climber Deszlow had discovered.
Note this: at 500 yards short of the 18,000 foot mark on Annapurna—we were following in the tracks of the French expedition that had defeated the peak—on a geophysical survey, we discovered a minuscule climber. He was no more than three inches high, with a tightly-belted anorak jacket, a pike, tiny crampons, and a face quite red from exertion. I did not realize it then, but there were even more physically startling things about him. But one thing did shock me: He had a knife in the small, small, small of his back. A chill that was deeper and sharper than the chill of the wind-roaring down from the unseen peaks above—touched my spine.
Even as I stood staring at the tiny panting figure, Ferraday’s sudden movement penetrated my frozen consciousness. As it did, I yelled hoarsely through my mask, “No, you fool! Don’t—”
But it was already too late. Ferraday had picked up the tiny man, was holding him tightly by the collar of his jacket, and was reaching for the knife with his free hand. I still cannot tell how I knew, but I was suddenly absolutely certain that it was the worst thing Ferraday could do.
Slipping and staggering on the treacherous surface, I rushed forward. Blindly, I plunged into Ferraday, arms outthrust to stop him.
There was a brilliant, blinding flash that sprayed the snow with bloodred shadows.
I felt myself lifted, hurled, smashed to the ground. From the edge of my vision I saw Ferraday lifted, and thrown down the mountain. I don’t know what snapped the rope … perhaps it was the cutting edge of my pike that ripped it through as Ferraday went past… but I thank God he did not drag the rest of us with him.
Even as Ferraday crashed face-first into the ice, I heard the black-bearded Austrian bellow. Ferraday disappeared down the slope, the rope thrashing behind, the snow billowing out from him in a fine wedge of white. His scream was muffled, quickly buried beneath a ton of ice and snow as he helplessly plunged across a snow-bridge. The bridge collapsed, and he plummeted three thousand feet, vanishing immediately into a rocky fault.
Deszlow and Rutledge stood transfixed, their pikes held at awkward angles, their faces—beneath the beards, glare-glasses and masks—whiter than normal. Their eyes were large, and I was certain their mouths were open in horror.
I dragged myself stiffly to elbows and knees, spat a mouthful of blood and snow across the ice-pack, and tottered to my feet.
The little man was gone.
I sagged back against my pike, leaning, breathing, drawing breath from a suddenly-insufficient supply. “Ferra … Ferraday … he—he’s gone … ?”
Deszlow’s huge square head bobbled confirmation, and Rutledge stared off across the jaggedly split snow-bridge, where a gaping, sliding crevasse still poured snow atop the mangled body of our companion—three thousand feet below.
“We’d-we’d better go,” Deszlow gasped. “The wind is rising. The massif will be hell in an hour.”
>
We started out again, up the face of Annapurna, suddenly frightened of this expedition. We had known that death climbed with us, but not this way … not with this shroud of strangeness that hung over us.
Who … or what … had the little man been?
In the next hour Deszlow’s words came true. The massif. It was a hell; but not of the kind we had imagined.
Unquestionably, it had been the presence of the little man— whose snow-filled tracks we occasionally observed coming down, as we climbed steadily up—that sharpened our senses enough to see it.
We had climbed for the hour, hoping to find a sheltering ledge before the storm broke on the mountain; we were just passing a series of small caves, intaglios in the face of the cliffs, when Rutledge signaled by dragging on the line.
We stopped; he was pointing; we looked.
Wedged in the rocks, shoved into a breach that was little more than a fissure, was a bright, shining sliver of metal, perhaps ten feet long; no question arose in our minds … the shape was totally familiar, from popularizations in newspapers and magazines. It was a spaceship.
There, 18,000 feet up one of the highest mountains on Earth, we had come upon a spaceship. We had no more than a moment to stare, for as we advanced toward it, sliding across the roll of the slope, a port opened, and a group of five figures, identical to the little man we had seen before, emerged.
They carried weapons. The equipment was so small, and so intricate, we had only a brief glimpse of delicate machinework and involved mechanisms before they opened fire on us. Had we been unprepared, had we not been set alert by the presence of the first little man, we would have been dead at once.
But even as the same bloodred shadows illuminated the snow, and the beams of what had to be raw energy sizzled from their rifles, we were leaping aside. I jumped forward and to the right, clawing in the snow with hands and feet for some purchase. I caught the incredible heat of one beam over my left shoulder, and behind me I heard Rutledge scream as it tore through his face.
Then I felt a tug on the line, and knew he was down, he was dead. I was hauling a dead man behind me. There wasn’t time to think about it; with an insane fury born of fear, I struggled to my knees, and brought my pike up over my bead.
Stalking the Nightmare Page 27
