V
Sitting up, Dane stared wide-eyed into the dark. A handful of glowingcoals, guarded by rocks, was the center of their camp. He hunched up tothat hardly knowing why he moved. His hands were shaking, his skin dampwith sweat no heat produced. Yet, now that he was conscious of thenight, the Terran could not remember the nightmare from which he hadjust awakened, though he was left with a growing apprehension which hecould not define. What prowled out there in that dark? Walked themountain side? Listened, spied and waited?
Dane half started to his feet as a form did move into the dim light ofthe fire. Tau stood there, regarding him with sober intensity.
"Bad dream?"
The younger man admitted to that with a nod, partly against his will.
"Well, you aren't the only one. Remember any of it?"
With an effort, Dane looked away from the encircling dark. It was as ifthe fear which had shaken him awake, now embodied, lurked right there.
"No." He rubbed sleep-smarting eyes.
"Neither did I," Tau remarked. "But both of 'em must have beenjet-powered."
"I suppose one could expect to have nightmares after yesterday." Daneadvanced the logical explanation, yet at the same time something deepinside him denied every word of it. He had known nightmares before; noneof them had left this aftertaste. And he wanted no return of sleeptonight. Reaching to the pile of wood he fed the fire as Tau settleddown beside him.
"There is something else...." the medic began, and then fell silent.Dane did not press him. The younger man was too busy fighting a growingdesire to whirl and aim the fire ray into that darkness, to catch in itswithering blast that lurking thing he could _feel_ padded there, bidingits time.
Despite his efforts Dane did drowse again before morning, wakingunrefreshed, and, to his secret dismay, with no lessening of his odddislike for the country about them.
Asaki did not suggest that they trail the poachers into the morass ofMygra. Instead the Chief Ranger was eager to press on in the oppositedirection, find a way over the range to the preserve where he couldassemble a punitive force to deal with the outlaws. So they began anupward climb which took them away from the dank heat of the lowlands,into the parched blaze of the sunbaked ledges above.
The sun was bright, far too bright, and there were few shadows left. YetDane, stopping to drink sparingly from his canteen, could not lose thatsense of eyes upon him, of being tracked. Rock apes? Cunning as thosebeasts were, it was against their nature to trail in utter silence, tobe able to carry through a long-term project. Lion, perhaps?
He noted that Nymani and Asaki took turns at rear guard today, and thateach was alert. Yet, oddly enough, none of them mentioned the uneasinessthey must all share.
They had a dry climb, finding no mountain stream to renew their watersupply. All being experienced in wilderness travel, they made a mouthfulof liquid go a long way. When the party halted slightly before midday,canteens were still half full.
"_Haugh!_"
They jerked up, hands on weapons. A rock ape, its hideous body clearlyseen here, capered, coughed, spat. Asaki fired from the hip and thething screeched, clawed at its chest where the dark blood spewed out,and raced for them. Nymani cut the beast down and they waited tenselyfor the attack of the thing's tribe, which should have followed theabortive lunge on the part of their scout. But there wasnothing--neither sound nor movement.
What did follow froze them all momentarily. That mangled body began tomove again, drew itself together, crawled toward them. Dane knew that itwas impossible that the creature could live with such wounds. Yet thebeast advanced, its head lolling on its hunched shoulders so that theeyes were turned blindly up to the full glare of the sun, while itcrawled to reach the man it could not see.
"Demon!" Nymani dropped his needler, shrank back against the rocks.
As the thing advanced, before their eyes the impossible happened. Thosegaping wounds closed, the head straightened on the almost invisibleneck, the eyes glared once more with life, and slaver dripped from theswine snout.
Jellico caught up the needler Nymani had dropped. With a coolness Daneenvied, the captain shot. And for the second time the rock apecollapsed, torn to ribbons.
Nymani screamed, and Dane tried to choke back his own cry of horrifiedprotest. The dead thing put on life for the second time, crawled, gotsomehow to its feet, healed itself, and came on. Asaki, his facegreenish-pale, stepped out stiffly as if each step he took was forced bytorture. He had dropped his needler. Now he caught up a rock as large ashis own head, raised it high with arms on which the muscles stood outlike ropes. He hurled the stone, and Dane heard as well as saw themissile go home. The rock ape fell for the third time.
When one of those taloned paws began to move again, Nymani broke. Heran, his screams echoing thinly in the air, as the thing lurched up, thegory mess of its head weaving about. If his feet would have obeyed him,Dane might have followed the Khatkan. As it was, he drew his ray andaimed it at that shambling thing. Tau struck up the barrel.
The medic's face was livid; there was the same horror in his eyes. Buthe moved out to front that monster.
A spot of shadow coalesced on the ground, deepened in hue, took onsubstance. Crouched low facing the rock ape, its haunches quivering fora deadly spring, narrowed green eyes holding on its prey, was a blackleopard.
The tiny forward and backward movements of its body steadied, and itarched through the air, brought down the ape. A pitting, snarling tanglerolled across the slope--and was gone!
Asaki's hands shook as he drew them down his sweating face. Jellicoreadied a second clip in the needler mechanically. But Tau was swayingso that Dane leaped to take the shock of the other's weight as hecollapsed. Only for a moment did the medic hang so, then he struggled tostand erect.
"Magic?" Jellico's voice, as controlled as ever, broke the silence.
"Mass hallucination," Tau corrected him. "Very strong."
"How!" Asaki swallowed and began again. "How was it done?"
The medic shook his head. "Not by the usual methods, that is certain.And it worked on us--on me--when we weren't conditioned. I don'tunderstand that!"
Dane could hardly believe it yet. He watched Jellico stride to where thetangle of struggling beasts had rolled, saw him examine bare ground onwhich no trace of the fight remained. They must accept Tau'sexplanation; it was the only sane one.
Asaki's features were suddenly convulsed with a rage so stark that Danerealized how much a veneer was the painfully built civilization ofKhatka.
"_Lumbrilo!_" The Chief Ranger made of that name a curse. Then with avisible effort he controlled his emotions and came to Tau, looming overthe slighter medic almost menacingly.
"How?" he demanded for the second time.
"I don't know."
"He will try again?"
"Not the same perhaps--"
But Asaki had already grasped the situation, was looking ahead.
"We shall not know," he breathed, "what is real, what is not."
"There is also this," Tau warned. "The unreal can kill the believer justas quickly as the real!"
"That I know also. It has happened too many times lately. If we couldonly find out how! Here are no drums, no singing--none of the tricks totangle a man's mind that he usually uses to summon his demons. Sowithout Lumbrilo, without his witch tools, how does he make us see whatis not?"
"That we must discover and speedily, sir. Or else we shall be lost amongthe unreal and the real."
"You also have the power. You can save us!" Asaki protested.
Tau drew his arm across his face. Very little of the normal color hadreturned to his thin, mobile features. He still leaned against Dane'ssupporting arm.
"A man can do only so much, sir. To battle Lumbrilo on his own ground isexhausting and I can not fight so very often."
"But will he not also be exhausted?"
"I wonder...." Tau gazed beyond the Khatkan to the barren ground whereleopard and rock ape had ceased to be. "This magic is a tri
cky thing,sir. It builds and feeds upon a man's own imagination and inner fears.Lumbrilo, having triggered ours, need not strive at all, but let usourselves raise that which will attack us."
"Drugs?" demanded Jellico.
Tau gave a start sufficient to take him out of Dane's loose hold. Hishand went to the packet of aid supplies which was his own care, his eyesround with wonder and then shrewdly alert.
"Captain, we disinfected those thorn punctures of yours. Thorson, yourfoot salve.... But, no, I didn't use anything--"
"You forget, Craig, we all had scratches after that fight with theapes."
Tau sat down on the ground. With feverish haste he unsealed his medicalsupplies, laid out some containers. Then delicately he opened each,examined its contents closely by eye, by smell, and two by taste. Whenhe was done he shook his head.
"If these have been in any way meddled with, I would need laboratoryanalysis to detect it. And I don't believe that Lumbrilo could hidetraces of his work so cleverly. Or has he been off-planet? Had much todo with off-worlders?" he asked the Chief Ranger.
"By the nature of his position he is forbidden to space voyage, to haveany close relationship with any off-worlder. I do not think, medic, hewould choose your healing substances for his mischief. There would onlybe chance to aid him then in producing the effects he wants. Thoughthere is often call for first aid in travel, he could not be _certain_you would use any of your drugs on this trip to the preserve."
"And Lumbrilo _was_ certain. He threatened something such as this,"Jellico reminded them.
"So it would be something which we would all use, which we had to dependupon...."
"The water!" Dane had been holding his own canteen ready to drink. Butas that possible explanation dawned in his mind, he smelled instead oftasted the liquid sloshing inside. There was no odor he could detect.But he remembered Tau commenting on the powdered purifier pills at theirfirst camp.
"That's it!" Tau dug further into his kit, brought out the vial of whitepowder with its grainy lumps. Pouring a little into the palm of his handhe smelled it, touched it with the tip of his tongue. "Purifier andsomething else," he reported. "It could be one of half a dozen drugs, orsome native stuff from here which we've never classified."
"True. There are drugs we have found here." Asaki scowled down at thegreen mat of jungle. "So our water is poisoned?"
"Do you always purify it?" Tau asked the Chief Ranger. "Surely duringthe centuries since your ancestors landed on Khatka you must haveadapted to native water. You couldn't have lived otherwise. We must usethe purifier, but must you?"
"There is water and water." Asaki shook his own canteen, his scowlgrowing fiercer as the gurgle from its depths was heard. "From springson the other side of the mountains we drink--yes. But over here, thisclose to the Mygra swamps, we have not done so. We may have to chanceit."
"Do you think we are literally poisoned?" Jellico bored directly to theheart of their private fears.
"None of us have been drinking too heavily," Tau observed thoughtfully."And I don't believe Lumbrilo had outright killing in mind. How long theeffect will last I have no way of telling."
"If we saw one rock ape," Dane wondered, "why didn't we see others? Andwhy here and now?"
"That!" Tau pointed ahead on the trail Asaki had picked for theirascent. For a long moment Dane could see nothing of any interest thereand then he located it--a finger of rock. It did not point directlyskyward this time, in fact it slanted so that its tip indicated theirback trail. Yet in outline the spire was very similar to that outcropfrom which the real rock ape had charged them the day before.
Asaki exclaimed in his own tongue and slapped his hand hard against thestock of the needler.
"We saw that and so again we saw an ape also! Had earlier we beencharged by graz or jumped by a lion in such a place, then again we wouldhave been faced by graz or lion here!"
Captain Jellico gave a bark of laughter colored only by the mostsardonic humor. "Clever enough. He merely leaves it to us to select ourown ghost and then repeat the performance in the next proper setting. Iwonder how many rocks shaped like that one there are in these mountains?And how long will a rock ape continue to pop out from behind each one wedo find?"
"Who knows? But as long as we drink this water we're going to continueto have trouble; I feel safe in promising that," Tau replied. He putthe vial of doctored purifier into a separate pocket of his medical kit."It may be a problem of how long we can go without water."
"Perhaps," Asaki said softly. "Only not all the water on Khatka comesrunning in streams."
"Fruit?" Tau asked.
"No, trees. Lumbrilo is not a hunter, nor could he be certain when andwhere his magic would go to work. Unless the flitter was deliberatelysabotaged, he was planning for us to use our canteens in the preserve.That is lion country and there are long distances between springs. Thisis jungle below us and there is a source there I think we can safelytap. But first I must find Nymani and prove to him that this is trulydeviltry of a sort, but not demon inspired."
He was gone, running lightly down-slope in the direction his hunter hadtaken, and Dane spoke to Captain Jellico.
"What's this about water in trees, sir?"
"There is a species of tree here, not too common, with a thickenedtrunk. It stores water during the rainy season to live on in the hotmonths. Since we are in the transition period between rains, we couldtap it--if we locate one of the trees. How about that, Tau? Dare wedrink that without a purifier?"
"Probably a choice of two evils, sir. But we have had our preventiveshots. Personally, I'd rather battle disease than take a chance on amind-twisting drug. You can go without water just so long...."
"I'd like to have a little talk with Lumbrilo," remarked Jellico, themildness in his voice very deceptive.
"I'm _going_ to have a little talk with Lumbrilo, if and when we see himagain!" promised Tau.
"What are our chances, sir?" Dane asked. He screwed the cap back on hiscanteen, his mouth feeling twice as dry since he knew he dared notdrink.
"Well, we've faced gambles before." Tau sealed the medical kit. "I'dlike to see one of those trees before sundown. And I don't want to faceanother pointed rock today!"
"Why the leopard?" asked Jellico reflectively. "Another case of usingflame to fight fire? But Lumbrilo wasn't among those present to beimpressed."
Tau rubbed his hand across his forehead. "I don't really know, sir.Maybe I could have made the ape vanish without a counter projection, butI don't think so. With these hallucinations it is better to battle onevision against another for the benefit of those involved. And I can'teven tell you why I selected a leopard--it just flashed into mind asabout the fastest and most deadly animal fighter I could recall at thatmoment."
"You'd better work out a good list of such fighters." Jellico's grimhumor showed again. "I can supply a few if you need them. Not that Idon't share your hope we won't see any more trigger rocks. Here comesAsaki with his wandering boy."
The Chief Ranger was half-leading, half-supporting his hunter, andNymani seemed only half-conscious. Tau got to his feet and hurried tomeet them. It would appear that their search for the water tree would bedelayed.