The World That Couldn't Be
Page 3
slowly swiveled, rifle held almost at arm's length, elbowscrooked a little, ready to bring the weapon into play in a fraction ofa second.
Nothing stirred. There was no more than emptiness--the emptiness ofsun and molten sky, of grass and scraggy bush, of a brown-and-yellowland stretching into foreverness.
Step by step, Duncan covered the hillside and finally came back to theplace where the native squatted on its heels and moaned, rocking backand forth, arms locked tightly across its chest, as if it tried tocradle itself in a sort of illusory comfort.
The Earthman walked to the place where the Cytha had fallen and pickedup, one by one, the bits of bleeding flesh. They had been mangled byhis bullet. They were limp and had no shape. And it was queer, hethought. In all his years of hunting, over many planets, he had neverknown a bullet to rip out hunks of flesh.
He dropped the bloody pieces back into the grass and wiped his handupon his thighs. He got up a little stiffly.
He'd found no trail of blood leading through the grass, and surely ananimal with a hole of that size would leave a trail.
And as he stood there upon the hillside, with the bloody fingerprintsstill wet and glistening upon the fabric of his trousers, he felt thefirst cold touch of fear, as if the fingertips of fear mightmomentarily, almost casually, have trailed across his heart.
* * * * *
He turned around and walked back to the native, reached down and shookit.
"Snap out of it," he ordered.
He expected pleading, cowering, terror, but there was none.
Sipar got swiftly to its feet and stood looking at him and there was,he thought, an odd glitter in its eyes.
"Get going," Duncan said. "We still have a little time. Start circlingand pick up the trail. I will cover you."
He glanced at the sun. An hour and a half still left--maybe as much astwo. There might still be time to get this buttoned up before the fallof night.
A half mile beyond the knoll, Sipar picked up the trail again and theywent ahead, but now they traveled more cautiously, for any bush, anyrock, any clump of grass might conceal the wounded beast.
Duncan found himself on edge and cursed himself savagely for it. He'dbeen in tight spots before. This was nothing new to him. There was noreason to get himself tensed up. It was a deadly business, sure, buthe had faced others calmly and walked away from them. It was thosefrontier tales he'd heard about the Cytha--the kind of superstitiouschatter that one always heard on the edge of unknown land.
He gripped the rifle tighter and went on.
No animal, he told himself, was unkillable.
Half an hour before sunset, he called a halt when they reached abrackish waterhole. The light soon would be getting bad for shooting.In the morning, they'd take up the trail again, and by that time theCytha would be at an even greater disadvantage. It would be stiff andslow and weak. It might be even dead.
Duncan gathered wood and built a fire in the lee of a thorn-bushthicket. Sipar waded out with the canteens and thrust them at arm'slength beneath the surface to fill them. The water still was warm andevil-tasting, but it was fairly free of scum and a thirsty man coulddrink it.
The sun went down and darkness fell quickly. They dragged more woodout of the thicket and piled it carefully close at hand.
Duncan reached into his pocket and brought out the little bag ofrockahominy.
"Here," he said to Sipar. "Supper."
The native held one hand cupped and Duncan poured a little mound intoits palm.
"Thank you, mister," Sipar said. "Food-giver."
"Huh?" asked Duncan, then caught what the native meant. "Dive intoit," he said, almost kindly. "It isn't much, but it gives youstrength. We'll need strength tomorrow."
* * * * *
Food-giver, eh? Trying to butter him up, perhaps. In a little while,Sipar would start whining for him to knock off the hunt and head backfor the farm.
Although, come to think of it, he really was the food-giver to thisbunch of sexless wonders. Corn, thank God, grew well on the red andstubborn soil of Layard--good old corn from North America. Fed tohogs, made into corn-pone for breakfast back on Earth, and here, onLayard, the staple food crop for a gang of shiftless varmints whostill regarded, with some good solid skepticism and round-eyed wonder,this unorthodox idea that one should take the trouble to grow plantsto eat rather than go out and scrounge for them.
Corn from North America, he thought, growing side by side with the_vua_ of Layard. And that was the way it went. Something from oneplanet and something from another and still something further from athird and so was built up through the wide social confederacy of spacea truly cosmic culture which in the end, in another ten thousand yearsor so, might spell out some way of life with more sanity andunderstanding than was evident today.
He poured a mound of rockahominy into his own hand and put the bagback into his pocket.
"Sipar."
"Yes, mister?"
"You were not scared today when the donovan threatened to attack us."
"No, mister. The donovan would not hurt me."
"I see. You said the donovan was taboo to you. Could it be that you,likewise, are taboo to the donovan?"
"Yes, mister. The donovan and I grew up together."
"Oh, so that's it," said Duncan.
He put a pinch of the parched and powdered corn into his mouth andtook a sip of brackish water. He chewed reflectively on the resultantmash.
He might go ahead, he knew, and ask why and how and where Sipar andthe donovan had grown up together, but there was no point to it. Thiswas exactly the kind of tangle that Shotwell was forever gettinginto.
Half the time, he told himself, I'm convinced the little stinkers aredoing no more than pulling our legs.
What a fantastic bunch of jerks! Not men, not women, just things. Andwhile there were never babies, there were children, although neverless than eight or nine years old. And if there were no babies, wheredid the eight-and nine-year-olds come from?
* * * * *
"I suppose," he said, "that these other things that are your taboos,the stilt-birds and the screamers and the like, also grew up withyou."
"That is right, mister."
"Some playground that must have been," said Duncan.
He went on chewing, staring out into the darkness beyond the ring offirelight.
"There's something in the thorn bush, mister."
"I didn't hear a thing."
"Little pattering. Something is running there."
Duncan listened closely. What Sipar said was true. A lot of littlethings were running in the thicket.
"More than likely mice," he said.
He finished his rockahominy and took an extra swig of water, gaggingon it slightly.
"Get your rest," he told Sipar. "I'll wake you later so I can catch awink or two."
"Mister," Sipar said, "I will stay with you to the end."
"Well," said Duncan, somewhat startled, "that is decent of you."
"I will stay to the death," Sipar promised earnestly.
"Don't strain yourself," said Duncan.
He picked up the rifle and walked down to the waterhole.
The night was quiet and the land continued to have that empty feeling.Empty except for the fire and the waterhole and the little micelikeanimals running in the thicket.
And Sipar--Sipar lying by the fire, curled up and sound asleepalready. Naked, with not a weapon to its hand--just the naked animal,the basic humanoid, and yet with underlying purpose that at times wasbaffling. Scared and shivering this morning at mere mention of theCytha, yet never faltering on the trail; in pure funk back there onthe knoll where they had lost the Cytha, but now ready to go on to thedeath.
Duncan went back to the fire and prodded Sipar with his toe. Thenative came straight up out of sleep.
"Whose death?" asked Duncan. "Whose death were you talking of?"
"Why, ours, of course," sa
id Sipar, and went back to sleep.
III
Duncan did not see the arrow coming. He heard the swishing whistle andfelt the wind of it on the right side of his throat and then itthunked into a tree behind him.
He leaped aside and dived for the cover of a tumbled mound of bouldersand almost instinctively his thumb pushed the fire control of therifle up to automatic.
He crouched behind the jumbled rocks and peered ahead. There was not athing to see. The hula-trees shimmered in the blaze of sun and thethorn-bush was gray and lifeless and the only things astir were threestilt-birds walking gravely a quarter of a mile away.
"Sipar!" he whispered.
"Here, mister."
"Keep low. It's still out there."
Whatever it might be. Still out there and waiting for another shot.Duncan shivered, remembering the feel of the