He had felt the change in himself from the start. The Valley, he thought. Was this the Watcher’s doing or simply some marvelous property of the area?
Suppose the latter, he thought. Suppose through some charm of the Valley they were growing ever younger.
Would it stop? Would the process level off?
Or, he wondered, had the Watcher brought them all here solely for the interesting spectacle of observing nine adult beings retrogressing rapidly into childhood?
That “night”—they called the time when the red sun left the sky “night” even though there was no darkness—Thornhill learned three significant things.
He learned he loved Marga Fallis, and she him.
He learned that their love could have no possible consummation within the Valley.
And he learned that La Floquet, whatever had happened to him on the mountain peak, had not yet forgotten how to fight.
Thornhill had asked Marga to walk with him into the secluded wooded area high on the mountain path where they could have some privacy. She seemed oddly reluctant to accept, which surprised and dismayed him, for at all other times since the beginning she had gladly accepted any offers of his company. He urged her again, and finally she agreed.
They walked silently for a while. Gentle-eyed cat creatures peered at them from behind shrubs, and the air was moist and warm. Peaceful white clouds drifted high above them.
Thornhill said, “Why didn’t you want to come with me, Marga?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” she said.
He shied a stone into the underbrush. “Four days, and you’re keeping secrets from me already?” He started to chuckle; then, seeing her expression, he cut short his laughter. “What’s wrong?”
“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t keep secrets from you?” she asked. “I mean, is there some sort of agreement between us?”
He hesitated. “Of course not. But I thought—”
She smiled, reassuring him. “I thought, too. But I might as well be frank. This afternoon La Floquet asked me to be his woman.”
Stunned, Thornhill stammered, “He—why—”
“He figures he’s penned in here for life,” Marga said. “And he’s not interested in Lona. That leaves me, it seems. La Floquet doesn’t like to go without women for long.”
Thornhill moistened his lips but said nothing.
Marga went on. “He told me point-blank I wasn’t to go into the hills with you anymore. That if I did, he’d make trouble. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, he told me.”
“And what answer did you give—if I can ask?”
She smiled warmly; blue highlights danced in her dark eyes as she said, “Well—I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that a good enough answer to him?”
Relief swept over Thornhill like an unchecked tide. He had known of La Floquet’s rivalry from the start, but this was the first time the little man had ever made any open overtures toward Marga. And if those overtures had been refused—
“La Floquet’s interesting,” she said as they stopped to enter a sheltered, sweet-smelling bower of thickly entwined shrubs. They had discovered it the night before. “But I wouldn’t want to be number four hundred eighty-six on his string. He’s a galaxy roamer; I’ve never fallen for that type. And I feel certain he’d never have been interested in me except as something to amuse him while he was penned up in this Valley.”
She was very close to him, and in the bower not even the light of the blue star shone very brightly. I love her, he thought suddenly to himself, and an instant later he found his voice saying out loud, “I love you, Marga. Maybe it took a miracle to put us both in this Valley, but …”
“I know what you mean. And I love you, too. I told La Floquet that.”
He felt an irrational surge of triumph. “What did he say?”
“Not much. He said he’d kill you if he could find some way to do it in the Valley. But I think that’ll wear off soon.”
His arm slipped around hers. They spoke wordlessly with one another for several moments.
It was then that Thornhill discovered that sex was impossible in the Valley. He felt no desire, no tingling of need, nothing.
Absolutely nothing. He enjoyed her nearness, but neither needed nor could take anything more.
“It’s part of the Valley,” he whispered. “Our entire metabolic systems have been changed. We don’t sleep more than an hour a day, we hardly eat (unless you call that fluff food), our wounds heal, the dead rise—and now this. It’s as if the Valley casts a spell that short-circuits all biological processes.”
“And there’s nothing we can do?”
“Nothing,” he said tightly. “We’re pets. Growing ever younger and helpless against the Watcher’s whims.”
He stared silently into the darkness, listening to her quiet sobbing. How long can we go on living this way, he wondered. How long?
We have to get out of this Valley, he thought. Somehow.
But will we remember one another once we do? Or will it all fade away like a child’s dream of fairyland?
He clung tightly to her, cursing his own weakness even though he knew it was hardly his fault. There was nothing they could say to one another.
But the silence was abruptly broken.
A deep, dry voice said, “I know you’re in there. Come on out, Thornhill. And bring the girl with you.”
Thornhill quickly rose to a sitting position. “It’s La Floquet!” he whispered.
“What are you going to do? Can he find us in here?”
“I’m sure of it. I’m going to have to go out there and see what he wants.”
“Be careful, Sam!”
“He can’t hurt me. This is the Valley, remember?” He grinned at her and clambered to his feet, stooping as he passed through the clustered underbrush. He blinked as he made the transition from darkness to pale light.
“Come on out of there, Thornhill!” La Floquet repeated. “I’ll give you another minute, and then I’m coming in!”
“Don’t fret,” Thornhill called. “I’m on my way out.”
He battled past two clinging, enwrapped vines and stepped into the open. “Well, what do you want?” he demanded impatiently.
La Floquet smiled coldly. There was little doubt of what he wanted. His small eyes were bright with anger, and there was murder in his grin. Held tight in one lean, corded hand was a long, triangular sliver of rock whose jagged edge had been painstakingly abraded until it was knife-sharp. The little man waited in a half-crouch, like a tiger or a panther impatient to spring on its prey.
Chapter Five
They circled tentatively around each other, the big man and the small one. La Floquet seemed to have reached a murderous pitch of intensity; muscles quivered in his jaws as he glared at Thornhill.
“Put that knife down,” Thornhill said. “Have you blown your stack, La Floquet? You can’t kill a man in the Valley. It won’t work.”
“Perhaps I can’t kill a man. Still, I can wound him.”
“What have I ever done to you?”
“You came to the Valley. I could have handled the others, but you—! You were the one who taunted me into climbing the mountain. You were the one who took Marga.”
“I didn’t take anyone. You didn’t see me twisting her arm. She picked me over you, and for that I’m genuinely sorry.”
“You’ll be more than sorry, Thornhill!”
Thornhill forced a grin. This little kill dance had gone on too long as it was. He sensed Marga not far behind him watching in horror.
“Why you murderous little paranoid, give me that piece of stone before you slash yourself up!” He took a quick step forward, reaching for La Floquet’s wrist. The little man’s eyes blazed dangerously. He pirouetted
backward, snapping a curse at Thornhill in some alien language, and drove the knife downward with a low, cry of triumph.
Thornhill swerved, but the jagged blade ripped into his arm three inches above the elbow, biting into the soft flesh on the inside of his biceps, and La Floquet sliced quickly downward, cutting a bloody trail for nearly eight inches. Thornhill felt a sudden sharp burst of pain down to the middle of his forearm, and a warm flow of blood gushed past his wrist into the palm of his hand. He heard Marga’s sharp gasp.
Then he moved forward, ignoring the pain, and caught La Floquet’s arm just as the smaller man was lifting it for a second slash. Thornhill twisted; something snapped in La Floquet’s arm, and the little man gave forth a brief moan of pain. The knife dropped from suddenly uncontrollable fingers and landed slightly on an angle, its tip resting on a pebble. Thornhill planted his foot on the dagger and leaned down heavily, shattering it.
Each of them now had only limited use of his right hand. La Floquet charged back toward Thornhill like someone possessed, head down as if to butt, but at the last moment swerved upward, driving his good hand into Thornhill’s jaw. Thornhill rocked backward, pivoted around, smashed down at La Floquet, and heard teeth splinter. He wondered when the Watcher would show up to end the fight—and whether these wounds would heal.
La Floquet’s harsh breathing was the only sound audible. He was shaking his head, clearing it, readying himself for a new assault. Thornhill tried to blank out the searing pain of the gash in his arm.
He stepped forward and hit La Floquet quickly, spinning him half around; bringing his slashed right hand up, Thornhill drove it into La Floquet’s middle. A wall of rocklike muscle stunned his fist. But the breath had been knocked from La Floquet; he weaved uncertainly, gray-faced, wobbly-legged. Thornhill hit him again, and he toppled.
La Floquet crumpled into an awkward heap on the ground and stayed there. Thornhill glanced at his own arm. The cut was deep and wide, though it seemed to have missed any major veins and arteries; blood welled brightly from it, but without the familiar arterial spurt.
There was a curious fascination in watching his own blood flow. He saw Marga’s pale, frightened face beyond the dim haze that surrounded him; he realized he had lost more blood than he thought, perhaps was about to lose consciousness as well. La Floquet still slumbered. There was no sign of the Watcher.
“Sam—”
“Pretty little nick, isn’t it?” He laughed. His face felt warm.
“We ought to bind that some way. Infection—”
“No. There’s no need of that. I’ll be all right. This is the Valley.”
He felt an intense itching in the wounded arm; barely did he fight back the desire to claw at the gash with his fingernails.
“It’s—it’s healing!” Marga said.
Thornhill nodded. The wound was beginning to close.
First the blood ceased flowing as ruptured veins closed their gaping sides and once again began to circulate the blood. The raw edges of the wound strained toward each other, puckering, reaching for one another, finally clasping. A bridge of flesh formed over the gaping slit in his arm. The itching was impossibly intense.
But in a few moments more it was over; a long livid scar remained, nothing more. Experimentally he touched the new flesh; it was warm, yielding, real.
La Floquet was stirring. His right forearm had been bent at an awkward angle; now it straightened out. The little man sat up groggily. Thornhill tensed in case further attack was coming, but there was very little fight left in La Floquet.
“The Watcher has made the necessary repairs,” Thornhill said. “We’re whole again except for a scar here and there. Get up, you idiot.”
He hoisted La Floquet to his feet.
“This is the first time anyone has bested me in a fight,” La Floquet said bitterly. His eyes had lost much of their eager brightness; he seemed demolished by his defeat. “And you were unarmed, and I had a knife.”
“Forget that,” Thornhill said.
“How can I? This filthy Valley—from which there is no escape, not even suicide—and I am not to have a woman. Thornhill, you’re just a businessman. You don’t know what it’s like to set codes of behavior for yourself and then not be able to live by them.” La Floquet shook his head sadly. “There are many in the galaxy who would rejoice to see the way this Valley has humiliated me. And there is not even suicide here! But I’ll leave you with your woman.”
He turned and began to walk away, a small, almost pathetic figure now, the fighting cock with his comb shorn and his tail feathers plucked. Thornhill contrasted him with the ebullient little figure he had first seen coming toward him up the mountain path, and it was a sad contrast indeed. He slouched now, shoulders sloping in defeat.
“Hold it, La Floquet!”
“You have beaten me—and before a woman. What more do you want with me, Thornhill?”
“How badly do you want to get out of this Valley?” Thornhill asked bluntly.
“What—”
“Badly enough to climb that mountain again?”
La Floquet’s face, pale already, turned almost ghostly beneath his tan. In an unsteady voice he said, “I ask you not to taunt me, Thornhill.”
“I’m not. I don’t give a damn what phobia it is that drove you back from the mountain that night. I think that mountains can be climbed. But not by one or two men. If we all went up there—or most of us—”
La Floquet smiled wanly. “You would go, too? And Marga?”
“If it means out, yes. We might have to leave McKay and Lona Hardin behind, but there’d still he seven of us. Possibly there’s a city outside the Valley; we might be able to send word and be rescued.”
Frowning, La Floquet said, “Why the sudden change of heart, Thornhill? I thought you liked it here … you and Miss Fallis both, that is. I thought I was the only one willing to climb that peak.”
Thornhill glanced at Marga and traded secret smiles with her. “I’ll decline to answer that, La Floquet. But I’ll tell you this: The quicker I’m outside the influence of the Valley, the happier I’ll be!”
When they had reached the foot of the hill and called everyone together, Thornhill stepped forward. Sixteen eyes were on him—counting the two stalked objects of the Spican as eyes.
He said, “La Floquet and I have just had a little discussion up in the hill. We’ve reached a few conclusions I want to put forth to the group at large.
“I submit that it’s necessary for the well-being of all of us to make an immediate attempt at getting out of the Valley. Otherwise, we’re condemned to a slow death of the most horrible kind—gradual loss of our faculties.”
McKay broke in, saying, “Now you’ve shifted sides again, Thornhill! I thought maybe—”
“I haven’t been on any side,” he responded quickly. “It’s simply that I’ve begun thinking. Look: We were all brought here within a two-day span, snatched out of our lives no matter where we were, dumped down in a seemingly impassable Valley by some unimaginably alien creature. Item: We’re watched constantly, tended and fed. Item: Our wounds heal almost instantly. Item: We’re growing younger. McKay, you yourself were the first to notice that.
“Okay, now. There’s a mountain up there, and quite probably there’s a way out of the Valley. La Floquet tried to get there, but he and Vellers couldn’t make it; two men can’t climb a twenty-thousand-foot peak alone without provisions, without help. But if we all go—”
McKay shook his head. “I’m happy here, Thornhill. You and La Floquet are jeopardizing that happiness.”
“No,” La Floquet interjected. “Can’t you see that we’re just house pets here? That we’re the subjects of a rather interesting experiment, nothing more? And that if this rejuvenation keeps up, we may all be babies in a matter of weeks or months?”
&
nbsp; “I don’t care,” McKay said stubbornly. “I’ll die if I leave the Valley—my heart can’t take much more. Now you tell me I’ll die if I stay. But at least I’ll pass backward through manhood before I go—and I can’t have those years again outside.”
“All right,” Thornhill said. “Ultimately it’s a matter of whether we all stay here so McKay can enjoy his youth again, or whether we try to leave. La Floquet, Marga, and I are going to make an attempt to cross the mountain. Those of you who want to join us can. Those of you who’d rather spend the rest of their days in the Valley can stay behind and wish us bad luck. Is that clear?”
Seven of them left the following “morning,” right after the breakfast-time manna fall. McKay stayed behind with little Lona Hardin. There was a brief, awkward moment of farewell-saying. Thornhill noticed how the lines were leaving McKay’s face, how the old scholar’s hair had darkened, his body broadened. In a way he could see McKay’s point of view, but there was no way he could accept it.
Lona Hardin, too, was younger looking, and perhaps for the first time in her life she was making an attempt to disguise her plainness. Well, Thornhill thought, these two might find happiness of a sort in the Valley, but it was the mindless happiness of a puppet, and he wanted none of it for himself.
“I don’t know what to say,” McKay declared as the party set out. “I’d wish you good luck—if I could.”
Thornhill grinned. “Maybe we’ll be seeing you two again. I hope not, though.”
Thornhill led the way up the mountain’s side; Marga walked with him, La Floquet and Vellers a few paces behind, the three aliens trailing behind them. The Spican, Thornhill was sure, had only the barest notion of what was taking place; the Aldebaranian had explained things fairly thoroughly to the grave Regulan. One factor seemed common: All of them were determined to leave the Valley.
The morning was warm and pleasant; clouds hid the peak of the mountain. The ascent, Thornhill thought, would be strenuous but not impossible—provided the miraculous field of the Valley continued to protect them when they passed the timberline and provided the Watcher did not interfere with the exodus.