IV
Dane regarded his throbbing feet morosely. Nymani's operations withburning splinters had been hard to take, but he had endured them withoutdisgracing himself before the Khatkans, who appeared to regard such amishap as just another travel incident. Now, with Tau's salve soothingthe worst of the after affects, the Terran was given time to reflectupon his own stupidity and the fact that he might now prove a drag onthe whole party the next morning.
"That's queer...."
Dane was startled out of the contemplation of his misery to see themedic on his knees before their row of canteens, the vial of waterpurifier held to the firelight for a closer inspection.
"What's the matter?"
"We must have hit with a pretty hard thump back there. Some of thesepills are powder! Have to guess about the portion to add." With the tipof his knife blade Tau scraped a tiny amount of pill fragments into eachwaiting canteen. "That should do it. But if the water tastes a littlebitter, don't let it bother you."
Bitter water, Dane thought, trying to flex his still swollen toes, wasgoing to be the least of his worries in the morning. But he determinedthat his boots should go on at daybreak, and he would keep on his feetas long as the others did, no matter how much it cost him.
And when they set out shortly after daybreak, wanting to move as far asthey could before the heat hours when they must rest, the going was nottoo bad. Dane's feet were tender to the touch, but he could shufflealong at the tail of the procession with only Nymani playing rear guardbehind him.
Jungle lay before them and bush knives began to swing, clearing theirpath. Dane took his turn with the rest at that chore, thankful that thebusiness of cutting their way through that mass of greenery slowed themto a pace he could match--if not in comfort, then by willpower.
But the sand worms were not the only troubles one could encounter onKhatka. Within an hour Captain Jellico stood sweating and speaking hismind freely in the native tongues of five different planets while Tauand Nymani worked as a team with skinning knives. They were not flayingthe spaceman, but they came near to that in places as they worried achoice selection of tree thorns out of his arm and shoulder. The captainhad been unfortunate enough to trip and fall into the embrace of a veryunfriendly bush.
Dane inspected a fallen tree for evidence of inimical wild life, andthen rested his blanket between him and it as a protecting cushionbefore he sat down. These trees were not the towering giants of the trueforests, but rather oversized bushes which had been made into walls bytwined vines. Brilliant bursts of flowers were splotches of vivid color,and the attendant insect life was altogether too abundant. Dane tried totally his immunity shots and hoped for the best. At the moment hewondered why anyone would want to visit Khatka, let alone pay someastronomical sum for the privilege. Though he could also guess that theplush safari arranged for a paying client might be run on quitedifferent lines from their own present trek.
How _could_ a tracker find his way through this? With the compassesplaying crazy tricks into the bargain! Jellico knew that the compasseswere off, yet the captain had followed Asaki's lead without question, sohe must trust the Ranger's forest craft. But Dane wished they were clearon the mountain side again.
Time had little meaning in that green gloom. But when they workedthrough to meet rock walls again, the sun said it was well into theafter part of the day. They sheltered for a breather under the droopinglimbs of one of the last trees.
"Amazing!" Jellico, his torn arm in a sling across his chest, camedown-slope from the higher point where he had been using the distancelenses. "We struck straight across and cut off about ten miles by thatjungle jog. Now I believe all that I've heard of your people's abilityto cross wilderness and not lose their built in 'riding beams,' sir.With the compasses out, I'll admit I've been nourishing a healthy set ofdoubts."
Asaki laughed. "Captain, I do not question your ability to flit fromworld to world, or how you have learned to set up trade with strangehumans and non-humans alike. To each his own mystery. On Khatka everyboy before he becomes a man must learn to navigate the jungle, and withno instruments to help him, only what lies in here." He touched histhumb to his forehead. "So through generations we have developed ourhoming instincts. Those who did not, also did not live to father otherswho might have had the same lack. We are hounds who can run on a scent,and we are migrators who have better than a compass within our ownbodies."
"Now we take to climbing again?" Tau surveyed the way before themcritically.
"Not at this hour. That sun on the upward slopes can cook a man's skinwere he to touch any rock. We wait...."
Waiting for the Khatkans was a chance to sleep. They curled up on theirlight blankets. But the three spacemen were restless. Dane would haveliked to have taken off his boots, but feared he could not replace them;and he could tell from the way the captain shifted his position thatJellico was in pain too. Tau sat quietly, staring at nothing Dane couldsee, unless it was a tall rock thrust out of the slope like a fingerpointing skyward.
"What color is that rock?"
Surprised, Dane gave the stony finger closer attention. To him it wasthe same color as most of the other rocks, a weathered black which incertain lights appeared to carry a brownish film.
"Black, or maybe dark brown?"
Tau looked past him to Jellico. The captain nodded.
"I'd agree with that."
Tau cupped his hands over his eyes for a moment and his lips moved as ifhe were counting. Then he took his hands away and stared up-slope. Danewatched the medic's eyelids blink slowly. "Nothing but black or brown?"Tau pressed.
"No." Jellico supported his injured arm upon his knees, leaning forward,as intent upon the designated rock as if he expected it to assume somefar more startling appearance.
"Queer," Tau said to himself, and then added briskly, "You're right, ofcourse. That sun can play tricks with one's eyes."
Dane continued to watch the finger rock. Maybe strong sunlight couldplay tricks, but he could see nothing odd about that rough lump. Andsince the captain asked no questions of Tau, he did not quite want toeither.
It was perhaps a half-hour later, and the medic and Jellico had bothsuccumbed to the quiet, the heat, and their own fatigue, when Dane didsight a movement up-slope. The throbbing in his feet was worse now thathe had nothing to occupy his mind but his own troubles, and he wassitting facing the finger rock.
Was that what Tau had seen earlier? That quick movement around the sideof the rough pillar? But if so, why the question of color? There it wasagain! And now, centering all his attention on that one point, theTerran picked out the outline of a head--a head grotesque enough to besomething conjured out of Lumbrilo's sorcerer's imagination. Had Danenot seen its like among the tri-dee prints in Captain Jellico'scollection, he would have believed that his eyes were playing tricks.
It was a bullet-shaped head, embellished by two out-sized prick ears,the hair-tufted pointed tips of which projected well above the top ofthe skull. Round eyes were set deeply in sunken pits. The mouth was aswinish snout from which lolled a purple tongue, though the rest of thatgargoyle head was very close in color to the rock against which it halfrested.
Dane had no doubts that the rock ape was spying upon the small camp.Having heard tales of those semi-intelligent animals--the mostintelligent native creatures of Khatka--most of which were concernedwith their more malignant characteristics, Dane was alarmed. That lurkercould be an advance scout of some pack. And a pack of rock apes, if ableto surprise their prey, were formidable opponents.
Asaki stirred, sat up. And that round head above turned to follow theChief Ranger's every move.
"Above ... by the finger rock ... to the right...." Dane kept his voiceclose to a whisper. When he saw the sudden constriction of muscle acrossthe Khatkan's bare shoulders, he knew that the other had heard andunderstood.
Only, if Asaki had spotted the rock ape, he did not betray hisknowledge. The Khatkan got lithely to his feet. Then one of those feetstirred Nymani into the
instant wakefulness of the wilderness-trainedman.
Dane slid his hand about the bole of the tree and touched Jellico,watched the captain's gray eyes open with a similar awareness. Asakipicked up his needler. Weapon in hand, he whirled and fired almost inone connected movement. It was the fastest shot Dane had ever seen.
The gargoyle head lifted away from the rock, and then turned to one sideas its body, somehow vaguely obscene in its resemblance to the humanform, fell away, to sprawl limply down-slope.
Though the dead rock ape had not had a chance to give tongue, there camea cry from above, a coughing, deep-throated hawking. Down the steepincline bumped a round white ball, bouncing past the tumbled carcass ofthe ape, sailing up into the air, to strike and burst open a few feetaway.
"Back!" With one arm Asaki sent Jellico, his nearest neighbor, tumblingback into the jungle. Then the Chief Ranger pumped a stream of needlerays into the remains of the ball. A shrill, sweet humming arose as redmotes, vivid as molten copper in the sunlight, climbed on wings beatingtoo fast to be seen.
The debris of the nest smoked into nothing. But no needle ray could hopeto stop all the poisonous army issuing forth from it, fighting mad, toseek any warm-blooded creature within scenting distance. The men threwthemselves into the brush, rolling in the thick mold of the vegetabledecay on the ground, rubbing its moist plaster over their bodies infrantic haste.
Red-hot fire, far worse than any of the splinter torment Dane hadundergone the night before, pierced between his shoulders. He rolled onhis back, shoving himself along, both to kill the fire-wasp and coat thesting with cooling mold. Cries of pain told him that he was not the onlysufferer, as all dug hands into the slimy stuff under them and slappedit over their faces and heads.
"Apes...." That half shout got through to alert the men on the junglefloor. True to their nature, the rock apes, now streaming downhill, werecoughing their challenges, advertising their attack. And it was onlythat peculiarity of their species which saved their intended victims.
The apes came forward, partially erect, at a shambling run. The firsttwo, bulls close to six feet, went down under fire from Asaki's needler.A third somehow escaped, swerving to the left, and came bounding at anangle toward Dane. The Terran jerked free his force blade as that swinesnout split wide to show greenish tusks and the horrible stench of thecreature's body made him gasp.
A taloned paw clawed at him eagerly, slipped from his slime-covered bodyjust as he brought the force blade up. Foul breath coughed in his faceand he stumbled back as the heavy body of the ape crashed against him,cut in half by the weapon. To Dane's sickened horror the paws stillclawed for him, the fangs still gnashed as he rolled free of the mangledbody and somehow got to his feet.
The roar of a blaster, of two blasters, drowned out the clamor of theapes as Dane drew his fire ray, set his shoulders against a tree boleand prepared to fight it out. He fired, saw a smaller and more nimbleenemy go down screeching. Then there were none left on their shaggyfeet, though some on the ground dragged themselves forward, stillstriving to reach the men.
Dane slapped a fire-wasp from his leg. He was glad of the support of thetree at his back as the smell of the ape's blood drenching him fromchest level down, and the mess on the ground, made his stomach churn.
When he could control his retching, he straightened. To his relief hesaw that all the others were on their feet, apparently unharmed. ButTau, catching sight of the younger spaceman, gasped and started for him.
"Dane! What did they do?"
His junior laughed a little hysterically. "Not mine...." He swabbed witha handful of grass at his bloodied breeches and blundered on into thesunlight.
Nymani found them a foam-flecked stream below a miniature falls wherethe swift current prevented the lurking of sand worms. They strippedeagerly, cleaning first themselves and then their fouled clothing whileTau tended the wealth of fire-wasp stings. There was little he could doto relieve the swelling and pain, until Asaki produced a reed-like plantwhich, chopped in sections, yielded a sticky purple liquid that dried onthe skin as a tar gum--the native remedy. So, glued and plastered, theyclimbed away from the water and prepared to spend the night in a hollowbetween two leaning rocks, certainly not as snug as the cave but afortress of sorts.
"And credit-happy space hoppers pay a fortune for an outing like this!"Tau commented bitterly, hunching well forward so that a certain stungportion of his anatomy would not come in contact with the rock beneathhim.
"Hardly for this," Jellico replied, and Dane saw Nymani grinone-sidedly, his other cheek puffed and painted sticky purple.
"We do not always encounter apes and fire-wasps in the same day,"supplied the Chief Ranger. "Also, guests at the preserves wear stassbelts."
Jellico snorted. "I don't think you'd get any repeats from your clientsotherwise! What do we meet tomorrow? A herd of graz on stampede, orsomething even more subtle and deadly?"
Nymani got up and walked a little way from their rock shelter. He turneddown-slope and Dane saw his nostrils expand as they had when he hadinvestigated the cave.
"Something is dead," he said slowly. "A very large something. Or else--"
Asaki strode down to join his men. He gave a curt nod and Nymani skiddedon down the mountain side.
"What is it?" Jellico asked.
"It might be many things. There is one I hope it is not," was the ChiefRanger's somewhat evasive reply. "I will hunt a labbla--there was freshspoor at the stream." He set off along their back trail to return a halfhour later, the body of his kill slung across one shoulder. He wasskinning it when Nymani trotted back.
"Well?"
"Death pit," supplied the Hunter.
"Poachers?" Jellico inquired.
Nymani nodded. Asaki continued his task, but there was a glint in hisdark eyes as he butchered with sure and expert strokes. Then he glancedat the shadow extending beyond the rocks.
"I, too, would see," he told Nymani.
Jellico arose, and Dane, interested, followed. Some five minutes laternone of them needed the native keenness of smell to detect the presenceof some foulness ahead. The odor of corruption was almost tangible inthe sultry air. And it grew worse until they stood on the edge of a pit.Dane retreated hurriedly. This was as bad as the battlefield of the rockapes. But the captain and the two Khatkans stood calmly assessing theslaughter left by the hide poachers.
"Glam, graz, hoodra," Jellico commented. "Tusks and hides--the full lineof trade stuff."
Asaki, his expression bleak, stepped back from the pit. "Day oldcalves, old ones, females--all together. They kill wantonly and leavethose they do not choose to pelt."
"Trail--" Nymani pointed eastward. "Leads to Mygra swamp."
"The swamps!" Asaki was shaken. "They must be mad!"
"Or know more about this country than your men do," Jellico corrected.
"If poachers can enter Mygra, then we can follow!"
But not now, Dane protested silently. Certainly Asaki did not mean that_they_ were to track outlaws into swamps the Khatkan had already labeledunexplored death traps!