Then, the biggest wolf—a wolf!—McKay had ever seen had gotten caught in the ray, and it had died, cut into four different parts. McKay was lucky. If the beamer had fallen pointing the other way, it would have severed him. Though he was stunned, his shoulder and arm completely numb, he managed to get up and to run, crouching over, to another tree. He was cursing because Callister had made him leave his automatic behind. He sure as hell wasn’t going into the clearing after the beamer. Not when Kickaha could shoot an arrow like that.
Besides, he felt that he was in over his head about fifty fathoms.
There was a hell of a lot of action after that, but McKay didn’t see much of it. He climbed up on a house-sized boulder, using the projections and holes in it, hauling himself up with one hand. Later he wondered why he’d gone up where he could be trapped. But he had been in a complete panic, and it had seemed a logical thing to do. Maybe no one would think of looking for him up there. He could lie down flat and hide until things settled down. If the boss won, he’d come down. He could claim then that he’d gone up there to get a bird’s-eye view of the terrain so he could call out to Callister the location of his enemies.
Meanwhile, his beamer burned itself out, half-melting a large boulder fifty feet from it while doing so.
He saw Callister running toward the couple and another man, and he thought Callister had control of the situation. Then the red-haired Kickaha, who was lying on the ground, had said something to the woman. And she’d lifted a funny-looking trumpet to her lips and started blowing some notes. Callister had suddenly stopped, yelled something, and then he’d run like a striped-ass ape away from them.
And suddenly they were in another world. If things had been bad before, they were now about as bad as they could be. Well, maybe not quite as bad. At least, he was alive. But there had been times when he’s wished he wasn’t.
So here he was, twelve “days” later. Much had been explained to him, mostly by Kickaha. But he still couldn’t believe that Callister, whose real name was Urthona, and Red Orc and Anana were thousands of years old. Nor that they had come from another world, what Kickaha called a pocket universe. That is, an artificial continuum, what the science-fiction movies called the fourth dimension, something like that.
The Lords, as they called themselves, claimed to have made Earth. Not only that, the sun, the other planets, the stars—which weren’t really stars, they just looked like they were—the whole damn universe.
In fact, they claimed to have created the ancestors of all Earth people in laboratories.
Not only that—it made his brain bob up and down like a cork on an ocean wave—there were many artificial pocket universes. They’d been constructed to have different physical laws from those in Earth’s universe.
Apparently, some ten thousand or so years ago, the Lords had split. Each had gone off to his or her own little world to rule it. And they’d become enemies, out to get each other’s ass.
Which explained why Urthona and Orc, Anana’s own uncles, had tried to kill her and each other.
Then there was Kickaha. He’d been born Paul Janus Finnegan in 1918 in some small town in Indiana. After World War II he’d gone to the University of Indiana as a freshman, but before a year was up he was involved with the Lords. He’d first lived on a peculiar world he called the World of Tiers. There he’d gotten the name of Kickaha from a tribe of Indians that lived on one level of the planet, which seemed to be constructed like the tower of Babel or the leaning tower of Pisa. Or whatever.
Indians? Yes, because the Lord of that world, Jadawin, had populated various levels with people he’d abducted from Earth.
It was very confusing. Jadawin hadn’t always lived on the home planet of the Lords or in his own private cosmos. For a while he’d been a citizen of Earth, and he hadn’t even known it because of amnesia. Then … to hell with it. It made McKay’s head ache to think about it. But some day, when there was time enough, if he lived long enough, he’d get it all straightened out. If he wasn’t completely nuts before then.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kickaha said, “I’m a Hoosier appleknocker, Angus. So I’m going to get us some fresh fruit. But I need your help. We can’t get close because of those tentacles. However, the tree has one weak point in its defense. Like a lot of people, it can’t keep its mouth shut.
“So, I’m going to shoot an arrow into its mouth. It may not kill it, but it’s going to hurt it. Maybe the impact will knock it over. This bow packs a hell of a wallop. As soon as the thing’s hit, you run up and throw this axe at a branch. Try to hit a cluster of apples if you can. Then I’ll decoy it away from the apples on the ground.”
He handed Anana’s light throwing axe to McKay.
“What about those?” McKay said, pointing at three trees which were only twenty feet below their intended victim. They were coming slowly but steadily.
“Maybe we can get their apples, too. We need that fruit, Angus. We need the nourishment, and we need the water in them.”
“You don’t have to explain that,” McKay said.
“I’m like the tree. I can’t keep my mouth shut,” Kickaha said, smiling.
He fitted an arrow to the string, aimed, and released it. It shot true, plunging deep into the O-shaped orifice. The plant had just raised the two tentacles to take another step upward and then to fall slightly forward to catch itself on the rubbery extensions. Kickaha had loosed the shaft just as it was off balance. It fell backward, and it lay on its hinder part. The tentacles threshed, but it could not get up by itself. The branches extending from its side prevented its rolling over even if it had been capable, otherwise, of doing so.
Kickaha gave a whoop and put a hand on McKay’s shoulder.
“Never mind throwing the axe. The apples are knocked off. Hot damn!”
The three trees below the fallen one had stopped for a moment. They moved on up. There had not been a sound from their mouths, but to the two men the many rolling eyes seemed to indicate some sort of communication. According to Urthona, however, the creatures were incapable of thought, but they did cooperate on an instinctual level. Now they were evidently coming to assist their fallen mate.
Kickaha ran ahead of McKay, who had hesitated. He looked behind him. The two male Lords were standing about sixty feet above them. Anana, beamer in hand, was watching, her head moving back and forth to keep all within eye-range.
Urthona had, of course, told McKay to kill Anana and Kickaha if he ever got a chance. But if he hit the redhead from behind with the axe, he’d be shot down by Anana. Besides, he was beginning to think that he had a better chance of survival if he joined up with Anana and Kickaha. Anyway, Kickaha was the only one who didn’t treat him as if he was a nigger. Not that the Lords had any feeling for blacks as such. They regarded everybody but Lords as some sort of nigger. And they weren’t friendly with their own kind.
McKay ran forward and stopped just out of reach of a threshing tentacle. He picked up eight apples, stuffing four in the pockets of his levis and holding two in each hand.
When he straightened up, he gasped. That crazy Kickaha had leaped onto the fallen tree and was now pulling the arrow from the hole. As he raised the shaft, its head dripping with a pale sticky fluid, he was enwrapped by a tentacle around his waist. Instead of fighting it, he rammed his right foot deep into the hole. And he twisted sideways.
The next moment he was flying backward toward McKay, flung by a convulsive motion of the tentacle, no doubt caused by intense pain.
McKay, instead of ducking, grabbed Kickaha and they both went down. The catcher suffered more punishment than the caught, but for a minute or more they both lay on the ground, Kickaha on top of McKay. Then the redhead rolled off and got to his feet.
He looked down at McKay. “You okay?”
McKay sat up and said, “I don’t think I broke anything.”
“Thanks. If you hadn’t softened my fall, I might have broken my back. Maybe. I’m pretty agile. Man, there’s real power in tho
se tentacles.”
Anana was with them by then. She cried, “Are you hurt, Kickaha?”
“No. Black Angus here, he seems okay, too.”
McKay said, “Black Angus? Why, you son of a bitch!”
Kickaha laughed. “It’s an inevitable pun. Especially if you’ve been raised on a farm. No offense, McKay.”
Kickaha turned. The three advance scouts were no closer. The swelling hill had steepened its slopes, making it even more difficult for them to maintain their balance. The horde behind them was also stalled.
“We don’t have to retreat up the hill,” Kickaha said. “It’s withdrawing for us.”
However, the slope was becoming so steep that, if its rate of change continued, it would precipitate everybody to the bottom. The forty-five degree angle to the horizontal could become ninety degrees within fifteen minutes.
“We’re in a storm of matter-change,” Kickaha said. “If it blows over quickly, we’re all right, If not …”
The tree’s tentacles were moving feebly. Apparently, Kickaha’s foot had injured it considerably. Pale fluid oozed out of its mouth.
Kickaha picked up the axe that McKay had dropped. He went to the tree and began chopping at its branches. Two strokes per limb sufficed to sever them. He cut at the tentacles, which were tougher. Four chops each amputated these.
He dropped the axe and lifted one end of the trunk and swung it around so that it could be rolled down the slope.
Anana said, “You’re wasting your energy.”
Kickaha said, “Waiting to see what’s going to happen burns up more energy. At this moment, anyway. There’s a time for patience and a time for energy.”
He placed himself at the middle of the trunk and pushed it. It began rolling slowly, picked up speed, and presently, flying off a slight hump, flew into a group of trees. These fell backward, some rolling, breaking their branches, others flying up and out as if shot out of a cannon.
The effect was incremental and geometrical. When it was done, at least five hundred of the things lay in a tangled heap in the ravine at the foot of the slope. Not one could get up by itself. It looked like the results of a combination of avalanche and flood.
“It’s a log jam!” Kickaha said.
No log jam, however, on Earth featured the wavings of innumerable octopus-tentacles. Nor had any forest ever hastened to the aid of its stricken members.
“Birnam Wood on the march,” Kickaha said.
Neither Anana nor McKay understood the reference, but they were too tired and anxious to ask him to explain it.
By now the humans were having a hard time keeping from falling down the slope. They clung to the grass while the three advance guards slid down on their “backs” toward the mess in the hollow at the base.
“I’m getting down,” Kickaha said. He turned and began sliding down on the seat of his pants. The others followed him. When the friction became too great on their buttocks, they dug in their heels to brake. Halfway down they had to halt and turn over so their bottoms could cool off. Their trouser seats were worn away in several spots.
“Did you see that water?” Kickaha said. He pointed to his right.
Anana said, “I thought I did. But I assumed it was a mirage of some sort.”
“No. Just before we started down, I saw a big body of water that way. It must be about fifteen miles away, at least. But you know how deceiving distances are here.”
Directly below them, about two hundred feet away, was the living log jam. The humans resumed their rolling but at an angle across the ever-steepening slope. McKay’s helmet, Kickaha’s bow and quiver, and Anana’s beamer and axe, impeded their movements but they managed. They fell the last ten feet, landing on their feet or on all fours.
The trees paid them no attention. Apparently, the instinct to save their fellows was dominating the need to kill and eat. However, the plants were so closely spaced that there was no room for the five people to get through the ranks.
They looked up the hill. This side was vertical now and beginning to bulge at the top. Hot air radiated from the hill.
“The roots of the grass will keep that overhang from falling right away,” Kickaha said. “But for how long? When it does come down, we’ll be wiped out.”
The plants moved toward the tangle, side by side, the tips of their branches touching. Those nearest the humans moved a little to their right to avoid bumping into them. But the outreaching tentacles made the humans nervous.
After five minutes, the apex of the hill was beginning to look like a mushroom top. It wouldn’t be long before a huge chunk tore loose and fell upon them.
Anana said, “Like it or not, Kickaha, we have to use the beamer.”
“You’re thinking the same thing I am? Maybe we won’t have to cut through every one between us and open ground. Maybe those things burn?”
Urthona said, “Are you crazy? We could get caught in the fire!”
“You got a better suggestion?”
“Yes. I think we should adjust the beamer to cutting and try to slice our way out.”
“I don’t think there’s enough charge left to do that,” Anana said. “We’d find ourselves in the middle of this mess. The plants might attack us then. We’d be helpless.”
“Burn a couple,” Kickaha said. “But not too near us.”
Anana rotated the dial in the inset at the bottom of the grip. She aimed the weapon at the back of a tree five yards to her right. For a few seconds there was no result. Then the bark began smoking. Ten seconds later, it burst into flames. The plant did not seem immediately aware of what was happening. It continued waddling toward the tangle. But those just behind stopped. They must have smelled the smoke, and now their survival instinct—or program—was taking over.
Anana set three others on fire. Abruptly, the nearest ranks behind the flaming plants toppled. Those behind them kept on moving, rammed into them, and knocked a number down.
The ranks behind these were stopped, their tentacles waving. Then, as if they were a military unit obeying a soundless trumpet call to retreat, they turned. And they began going as fast as they could in the opposite direction.
The blazing plants had stopped walking, but their frantically thrashing tentacles showed that they were aware of what was happening. The flames covered their trunks, curled and browned the leaves, shot off from the leaf-covered stems projecting from the tops of the trunks. Their dozen eyes burned, melted, ran like sap down the trunk, hissed away in the smoke.
One fell and lay like a Yule log in a fireplace. A second later, the other two crashed. Their legs moved up and down, the broad round heels striking the ground.
The stink of burning wood-flesh sickened the humans.
But those ahead of the fiery plants had not known what was happening. The wind was carrying both the smoke and the pheromones of panic away from them. They continued to the jam until the press of bodies stopped them. Those in the front ranks were trying to pull up the fallen, but the lack of room prevented them.
“Burn them all!” Red Orc shouted, and he was seconded by his brother, Urthona.
“What good would that do?” Kickaha said, looking disgustedly at them. “Besides, they do feel pain, even if they don’t make a sound. Isn’t that right, Urthona?”
“No more than a grasshopper would,” the Lord said.
“Have you ever been a grasshopper?” Anana said.
Kickaha started trotting, and the others followed him. The passage opened was about twenty feet broad, widening as the retreaters moved slowly away. Suddenly, McKay shouted, “It’s falling!”
They didn’t need to ask what it was. They sprinted as fast as they could. Kickaha, in the lead, was quickly left behind. His legs still hurt, and the pain in his chest increased. Anana took his hand and pulled him along.
A crash sounded behind them. Just in front of them a gigantic ball of greasy earth mixed with rusty grass-blades had slammed into the ground. It was a piece broken off and thrown upward by the impact
. It struck so near that they could not stop. Both plunged into it and for a moment, felt the oily earth and the scratch of the blades. But the mass was soft enough to absorb the energy of their impact, to give way somewhat. It was not like running into a brick wall.
They got up and went around the fragment, which was about the size of a one-car garage. Kickaha spared a glance behind him. The main mass had struck only a few yards behind them. Sticking out of its front were a few branches, tentacles, and kicking feet.
They were safe now. He stopped, and Anana also halted.
The others were forty feet ahead of them, staring at the great pile of dirt that ringed the base of the hill. Even as they watched, more of the mushrooming top broke off and buried the previous fallen mass.
Perhaps a hundred of the trees had survived. They were still waddling away in their slow flight.
Kickaha said, “We’ll snare us some of the trees in their rear ranks. Knock off some more apples. We’re going to need them to sustain us until we can get to that body of water.”
Though they were all shaken, they went after the trees at once. Anana threw her axe and McKay his helmet. Presently they had more fruit than they could carry. Each ate a dozen, filling their bellies with food and moisture.
Then they headed toward the water. They hoped they were going in the right direction. It was so easy to lose their bearings in a world of no sun and constantly changing landscape. A mountain used as a mark could become a valley within one day.
Anana, walking by Kickaha’s side, spoke softly.
“Drop back.”
He slowed down, with no reluctance at all, until the others were forty feet ahead. “What is it?”
She held up the beamer so that he could see the bottom of the grip. The dial in the inset was flashing a red light. She turned the dial, and the light ceased.
“There’s just enough charge left for one cutting beam lasting three seconds at a range of sixty feet. Of course, if I just use mild burning or stun power, the charge will last longer.”