3
His head ached dully, of that he was conscious first. As he turned,without opening his eyes, he felt the brush of softness against hischeek, and a pungent odor fill his nostrils.
He opened his eyes, stared up past a rim of broken rock toward thecloudless, blue-green sky. A relay clicked into proper place deep inhis mind.
Of course! He had been trying to lure a strong-jaws out of itstraphole with hooked bait, then his foot had slipped. Rynch Brodie satup, flexed his bare thin arms, and moved his long legs experimentally.No broken bones, anyway. But still he frowned. Odd--that dream whichjarred with the here and now.
Crawling to the side of the creek, he dipped head and shoulders intothe water, letting the chill of the stream flush away some of hiswaking bewilderment. He shook himself, making the drops fly from hisuncovered torso and arms, and then discovered his hunting tackle.
He stood for a moment fingering each piece of his scanty clothing,recalling every piece of labor or battle which had added pouch, belt,strip of fabric to his equipment. Yet--there was still that odd senseof strangeness, as if none of this was really his.
Rynch shook his head, wiped his wet face with his arm. It was all his,that was sure, every bit of it. He'd been lucky, the survival manualon the L-B had furnished him with general directions and this was aworld which was not unfriendly--not if one was prepared for trouble.
He climbed up and loosened the net, coiling its folds into one hand,taking the good spear in his other. A bush stirred ahead, against thepull of the light breeze. Rynch froze, then the haft of his spear slidinto a new hand grip, the coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut overthe purr of water.
The scarlet blot which sprang for his throat was met with the flail ofthe net. Rynch stabbed twice at the creature he had so swept offbalance. A water-cat, this year's cub. Dying, its claws, over-long inproportion to its paws, drew inch deep furrows in the earth andgravel. Its eyes, almost the same shade as its long, burr-entangledbody fur, glared up at him in deathly enmity.
As Rynch watched, that feeling that he was studying something strange,utterly alien, came to him once again. Yet he had hunted water-catsfor many seasons. Fortunately they were solitary, evil-tempered beaststhat marked out a roaming territory to defend it from others of theirkind, and not too many were to be encountered in cross-country travel.
He stooped to pull his net from the now still paws. Some definiteplace he must reach. The compulsion to move on in that sudden flashshook him, raised the dull ache still troubling his temples into apunishing throb. Going down on his knees, Rynch once more turned tothe stream water; this time after splashing it onto his face, he drankfrom his cupped hands.
Rynch swayed, his wet hands over his eyes, digging fingertips into theskin of his forehead to ease that pain bursting in his skull. Sittingin a room, drinking from a cup--it was as if a shadow picture fittedover the reality of the stream, rocks and brush about him. He had satin a room, had drank from a cup--that action had been important!
A sharp, hot pain made him lose contact with that shadow. He lookeddown. From the gravel, from under rocks, gathered an army ofblue-black, hard-shelled things, their clawed forelimbs extended, bluesense organs raised on fleshy stalks well above their heads, allturned towards the dead feline.
Rynch slapped out vigorously, stumbled into the water loosening thehold of two vicious scavengers on the torn skin of his ankle when hewaded out knee-deep. Already that black tongue of small bodies lickedacross the red-haired side of the hunter. Within minutes the corpsewould be only well-cleaned bones.
Retrieving his spear and net, Rynch immersed both in the water toclean off attackers, and hurried on, splashing through the creek untilhe was well away from the vicinity of the kill. A little later heflushed a four-footed creature from between two rocks and killed itwith one blow from his spear haft. He skinned his kill, feeling thesubstance of the skill. Was it exceedingly rough hide, or rudimentaryscales? And knew a return of that puzzlement.
He felt, he thought painfully as he toasted the dry looking, grayishmeat on a sharpened stick, as if a part of him knew very well whatmanner of animal he had killed. And yet, far inside him, anotherperson he could not understand stood aloof watching in amazement.
He was Rynch Brodie, and he had been traveling on the Largo Drift withhis mother.
Memory presented him automatically with a picture of a thin woman witha narrow, rather unhappy face, a twist of elaborately dressed hair inwhich jeweled lights sparkled. There had been something bad--memorywas no longer exact but chaotic. And his head ached as he tried torecall that time with greater clarity. Afterwards the L-B and a manwith him in it--
"Simmons Tait!"
An officer, badly hurt. He had died when the L-B landed here. Rynchhad a clear memory of himself piling rocks over Tait's twisted body.He had been alone then with only the survival manual and some of theL-B supplies. The important thing was that he must never forget he wasRynch Brodie.
He licked grease from his fingers. The ache in his head made himdrowsy. He curled up on a patch of sun-warmed sand and slept.
Or did he? His eyes were open again. Now the sky above him was nolonger a bowl of light, but rather a muted halo of evening. Rynch satup, his heart pounding as if he had been racing to outdistance therising wind now pushing against his half-naked body.
What was he doing here? Where _was_ here?
Panic, carried through from that awakening, dried his mouth, roughenedhis skin, made wet the palms of the hands he dug into the sand oneither side of him. Vaguely, a picture projected into his mind--he hadsat in a room, and watched a man come to him with a cup. Before that,he had been in a place of garish light and evil smells.
But he was Rynch Brodie, he had come here on an L-B when he was a boy,he had buried the ship's officer under a pile of rocks, managed tosurvive by himself because he had applied the aids in the boat tolearn how. This morning he had been hunting a strong-jaw, tempting itout of its hiding by a hook and line and a bait of fresh killedskipper.
Rynch's hands went to his face, he crouched forward on his knees. Thatall was true, he could prove it--he would prove it! There was thestrong-jaw's den back there, somewhere on the rise where he had leftthe snapped haft of the spear he had broken in his fall. If he couldfind the den, then he would be sure of the reality of everything else.
He had only had a very real dream--that was it! Only, why did hecontinue to dream of that room, that man, and the cup? Of the place oflights and smells, which he hated so much that the hate was a sourtaste in his fright-dried mouth? None of it had ever been a part ofRynch Brodie's world.
Through the dusk he started back up the stream bed, towards the narrowlittle valley where he had wakened after that fall. Finally, findingshelter within the heart of a bush, he crouched low, listening to thenoises of another world which awoke at night to take over the stagefrom the day dwellers.
As he plodded back, he fought off panic, realizing that some of thosenoises he could identify with confidence, while others remainedmysteries. He bit down hard on the knuckles of his clenched fist,attempting to bend that discovery into evidence. Why did he know atonce that that thin, eerie wailing was the flock call of aleather-winged, feathered tree dweller, and that a coughing grunt fromdownstream was just a noise?
"Rynch Brodie--Largo Drift--Tait." He tasted the blood his teeth drewfrom his own skin as he recited that formula. Then he scrambled up.His feet tangled in the net, and he went down again, his head crackingon a protruding root.
Nothing tangible reached him in that brush shelter. What did ventureout of hiding to investigate was a substance none of his species couldhave named. It was neither body, nor mind--perhaps it was closest toalien emotion.
Making contact stealthily, but with confidence, it explored after itsown fashion. Then, puzzled, it withdrew to report. And since that towhich it reported was governed by a set pattern which had not beenaltered for eons, its only answer was a basic command reaffirmed.Again it made contact, strove to carry
out that order fruitlessly.Where it should have found easy passage, a clear channel to carryinfluence to the sleeper's brain, it found a jumble of impressions,interwoven until they made a protective barrier.
The invader strove to find some pattern, or meaning--withdrew baffled.But its invasion, as ghostly as that had been, loosened a knot here,cleared a passage there.
Rynch awoke at dawn, slowly, dazedly, sorting out sounds, smells,thoughts. There was a room, a man, trouble and fear, then there washe, Rynch Brodie, who had lived in this wilderness on an unmappedfrontier world for the passage of many seasons. That world was abouthim now, he could feel its winds, hear its sounds, taste, smell. Itwas not a dream--the other was the dream. It had to be!
Prove it. Find the L-B, retrace the trail of yesterday past the pointof the fall which had started all this. Right there was the slope downwhich he must have tumbled. Above, he would find the den he had beenexploring when the accident had occurred.
Only--he did not find it. His mind had produced a detailed picture ofthat rounded depression, at the bottom of which the strong-jaw lurked.But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight themounded earth of the pit's rim. He searched carefully for a goodlength, both north and south. No den--no trace of one. Yet his memorytold him that there had been one here yesterday.
Had he fallen elsewhere and stumbled on, dazed, to fall a second time?
Some disputant inside him said no to that. This was where he hadregained consciousness yesterday and there was no den!
He faced away from the river, breathing fast. No den--was there alsono L-B? If he had passed this way dazed from a former fall, surely hewould have left some trace.
There was a crushed, browned plant flattened by weight. He stooped tofinger the wilted leaves. Something had come in this direction. Hewould back-track. Rynch gave a hunter's attention to the ground.
A half-hour later he found nothing but some odd, almost obliteratedmarks on grass too resilient to hold traces very long. And from themhe could make nothing.
He knew where he was, even if he did not know how he got here. TheL-B--if it did exist--was to the west. He had a vivid mental pictureof the rocket shape, its once silvery sides dulled by exposure, cantedcrookedly amid trees. And he was going to find it!
Beyond the edge of any conscious sense there was a new stir. He wascontacted again, tested. A forest called delicately in its alien way.Rynch had a fleeting thought of trees, was not aware of more than amild desire to see what lay in their shade.
For the present his own problem held him. That which beckoned wasdefeated, repulsed by his indifference. While Rynch started at asteady distance to trot towards the east, far away a process akin to arelay clicked into a second set of impulse orders.
* * * * *
Well above the planet Hume spun a dial to bring in the image of thewide stretches of continents, the small patches of seas. They wouldset down on the western land mass. Its climate, geographical featuresand surface provided the best site. And he had the very importantco-ordinates for their camp already taped in the directo.
"That's Jumala."
He did not glance around to see what effect that screen view had onthe other four men in the control cabin of the safari ship. Just nowhe was striving to master his impatience. The slightest hint couldgive birth to a suspicion which would blast their whole scheme. Wassmight have had a hand in the selection of the three clients, but theywould certainly be far from briefed on the truth of any discovery madeon Jumala--they had to be for the safety of the whole enterprise.
The fourth man, serving as his gearman for this trip, was Wass' owninsurance against any wrong move on Hume's part. And the Out-Hunterrespected him as being man enough to be wary of giving any suspicionof going counter to the agreed plan.
Dawn was touching up the main points of the western continent, and hemust set this spacer down within a day's journey of the abandoned L-B.Exploration in that direction would be the first logical move for hisparty. They could not be openly steered to the find, but there wereways of directing a hunt which would do as well.
Two days ago, according to schedule, their castaway had been depositedhere with a sub-conscious command to remain in the general area. Therehad been a slight element of risk in leaving him alone, armed onlywith the crude weapons he could manipulate, but that was part of thegamble.
They were down--right on the mark. Hume saw to the unpacking andactivating of those machines and appliances which would protect andserve his civ clients. He slapped the last inflate valve on a bubbletent, watched it critically as it billowed from a small roll of fabricinto a weather resistant, one-room, air-conditioned and heatedshelter.
"Ready and waiting for you to move in, Gentlehomo," he reported to thesmall man who stood gazing about him with a child's wondering interestin the new and strange.
"Very ingenious, Hunter. Ah--now just what might that be?" His voicewas also eager as he pointed a finger to the east.