VI
They withdrew to a spot hacked from the edge of the jungle, leaving ascreen of green between them and the traitorous up-slope. But within thefew hours of daylight left them, it was proven that Asaki had beenoverly optimistic in his hopes of discovering a water tree. They werenow in a narrow tongue of land between the range and the swamps, andthis territory was limited. Nymani, still shaken, was of little help,and the spacemen did not dare to strike out into unexplored land alone.
So they mouthed dry concentrates and dared not drink. Dane was temptedto pour out the liquid in his canteen. Water so close to hand was acontinual torment. And, now that they were away from the heights and thepossibility of more finger-shaped rocks, surely the threat in thatmoisture was small in comparison to the needs of his body. Only thatcaution which was drilled into every Free Trader supplied a brake to histhirst.
Jellico drew the back of his hand across cracked lips. "Suppose weshould draw lots--some of us drink, one or two not. Could we manage thatway until we were over the mountains?"
"I wouldn't want to chance it, unless we are left with no other choice.There is no way of telling how long the drug works. Frankly, right nowI'm not even sure I could detect a hallucination for very long underthese conditions," was Tau's discouraging verdict.
If any of them slept that night, they did so only in snatches. Theapprehension which had come with the previous night was back,intensified, and that lurking, indefinable fear rode them hard.
They were shaken out of their private terrors shortly after dawn. Therewere always sounds to be heard in the jungle: the cries of unseen birds,the crash of some tree eaten alive by parasitic sapping. But what brokenow was no bird call, no isolated tree falling. A trumpeting roar, thecrackling smash of vegetation, heralded a real menace. Asaki spun toface northward, though there was nothing to be seen there except theunshaken wall of the jungle.
"Graz! Graz on stampede!" Nymani joined his superior.
Jellico arose swiftly and Dane read on the captain's face theseriousness of this. The off-worlder turned to his own men with a sharporder. "On your feet! We may have to move on the double. Up-mountain?"he demanded of the Chief Ranger.
The other was still listening, not only with his ears but with the wholeof his tense body. Three of the deer-like creatures they had hunted forfood broke out of the green wall, fled past the men as if the latter wasinvisible. And behind them, the hunted now and not the hunter, came alion, its strikingly marked black-and-white hide dramatic in the lightof the morning. It showed fangs in a snarl and then was gone in one hugebound. More deer things, scurrying of other small creatures, moving toofast for clear identification, and behind them the fury of destructionwhich marked the headlong advance of Khatka's largest mammals slammingthrough the jungle.
They had started up-slope when Nymani cried out. A white bulk, hard todistinguish in that light against the gray of the earth, headed afterthem. Dane had a fleeting glimpse of curled tusks, of an open mouth,raw-red and wide enough to engulf his whole head, of shaggy legs drivingat an unbelievable pace. Asaki snapped a beam from the needler. Thewhite monster roared and came on. They dived for the scant cover offeredas the graz bull died, not two yards away from the Chief Ranger, itsheavy body skidding along the earth with the force of its speed as itwent down.
"That did it!" Jellico sighted coolly with his blaster as a second bull,fighting mad, tore from the jungle and pounded at them. Behind it athird tusked head thrust out of the brush, large eyes searched for anenemy. Dane studied the dead bull, but the animal did not come to lifethis time. These were not hallucinations. And the malignancy of the rockapes, the cunning of the native Khatkan lion, were pallid thingscompared to a graz herd on the rampage.
The second bull yelped with an almost canine complaint as Jellico'sblaster caught it head-on. Blinded, the beast blundered ahead, climbingthe mountain side. The third met a ray from Nymani's needler. But theChief Ranger leaped from behind his sheltering rock to the one where thecaptain had taken refuge and pulled him into the open.
"They must not corner us here!"
Jellico agreed to that. "Come on!" he barked to Tau and Dane.
They fled along a rough way, trying to gain altitude, but finding arising cliff wall which could not be easily climbed. Two more graz wentdown, one badly wounded, one safely dead. Behind them more white headscame from the brush. What original cause had started the stampede thefugitives could not guess, but now the fear and anger of the animalswere centering upon them.
And, in spite of their efforts, the party was being herded into a pocketbetween the jungle below, where the main body of graz crashed along, anda steep wall. Given time to find the necessary finger and toe holds, aman might climb that wall, but they could not attempt it now. Theportion of ledge on which they ran, stopped to fire, and then ran onagain, angled to the southeast. And so they came to its end quickly, adrop ending in a plain of yellow-gray mud studded with clumps ofbleached vegetation which led, like steppingstones, toward a tangle ofmatted, sickly looking plants and reeds.
"All right," Tau faced around, "what do we do now? Space lift? And usingwhat for wings or jets?"
As if the graz could sense that they now had their victims safelycornered, what must have been a goodly segment of the herd hooked theirway from the jungle and started up. Puffing, digging in those sturdylegs which had to take the massive weight of their barrel-shaped bodies,they made their way determinedly up-grade. One might almost believe thatthey had intelligently planned this end for their drive.
"We go down!" Asaki yelled, and used his needler on the leader of thatclimbing platoon.
"The brush islands," Nymani amended. "I show you!" He thrust his needlerat Jellico and was over the edge of the ledge, hanging by his hands andswinging his weight back and forth like a pendulum. At the up-swing ofhis body to the right, he let go and plunged out, landing half acrossone of the reed islets. The Khatkan clawed his way to his knees, gainedhis feet, and leaped for the next bit of solid ground.
"You, Thorson!" Jellico jerked his head at Dane and the younger spacemanholstered his fire ray, slipped gingerly over the drop and prepared torepeat Nymani's feat as best he could.
He was not quite as successful with his sidewise swing, landing withonly his forearms across the islet, the rest of his body being swiftlyembedded in what was ooze covered only with a thin crust of driedmatter. The stench of the stuff was sickening, but the fear of beingentrapped in it gave him the necessary impetus to push forward, thoughwhat was meant to be a swift half-dive was more of a worm's progress. Hegrabbed frantically at brittle stems, at coarse grass which cut likeknives at his hands. But some of the material held and he lay face downon a lump which did not give under his weight.
There was no time to linger; he had to get to the next patch, to freethis dubious landing place for the men embattled on the rise above.Stumbling up, Dane judged the distance with a space-trained eye andjumped to a knob Nymani had already quitted. The Khatkan was more thanhalfway along toward that promise of solid ground which the tangled massof leprous vegetation led to, zigzagging expertly from islet to islet.
There was a crash and a roar behind. Dane balanced on the third of theminute islands to look back. He saw the lash of blaster fire on the topof the cliff, Tau on his knees on the first of their chain ofsteppingstones, and a graz sprawled head and forequarters in the suckingmuck where it had dived past the two defenders above. Needler andblaster fired together again, and then Jellico swung over the cliff rim.Tau waved vigorously and Dane took off for the next islet, just makingit by lucky chance.
The rest of the journey he took in a rush, trying not to think ofanything but the necessity of landing on some spot of firm ground. Hislast leap of all was too short, so that he went knee deep in aparticularly evil-smelling pool where yellow scum spattered his breechesand he experienced the insidious pull of the bottomless stuff. A stoutbranch whipped across his shoulder and he caught it. With Nymani's wirystrength on the other end, Dane worked free and sat, wh
ite-faced andshivering, on a mat of brush, while the Khatkan hunter turned hisattention to the safety of Tau, the next arrival.
More fortunate, or more skillful than Dane, the medic made the hop fromthe last tuft without mishap. But he was blowing heavily as he collapsedbeside the other spaceman. Together they watched the progress of theircaptain.
Safe on the second tussock from the shore, Jellico halted, edgedcarefully around and used the needler Nymani had left with him. A shaggyhead tossed and the bull fronting Asaki on the cliff went down. TheChief Ranger dodged quickly to the right and a second beast rushed outand over, to join its mired comrade in the swamp below. As Jellico shotagain, the Khatkan slung his needler and went over to gain the firstislet.
One more graz was wounded but luckily it hunched about, turning itsformidable tusks on those that followed, thus keeping the path clear forits enemies. Jellico was making the journey, sure-footedly, with theChief Ranger only one hillock behind. Tau sighed.
"Someday maybe this will be just another tall tale and we'll all bethought liars when we spout it," he observed. "That is if we survive totell it. So now which way do we go? If I had my choice it would be up!"
When Dane pulled himself to his feet and surveyed their small refuge, hewas ready to agree to that. For the space, packed with dead and dyingvegetable matter until one sank calf deep, was a triangle with a narrowpoint running east into the swamp.
"They don't give up easily, do they?" Jellico looked back to the shoreand the cliff. Though the wounded graz bull still held the heightsagainst its fellows, there were others breaking from the jungle on thelower level, wandering back and forth to paw the earth, rip up soil withtheir tusks, and otherwise threaten anyone who would try to return tothe strip they patrolled.
"They will not," Asaki answered bleakly. "Arouse a graz and it willtrail you for days; kill any of the herd and you have little hope ofescaping them on foot."
It would seem now that the swamp was a deterrent to pursuit. The twobeasts that had fallen in the mire moaned in a pitiful rising note. Theyhad ceased to struggle and several of their kind clustered on the shorenear them, calling entreatingly. Asaki took careful aim with the needlerand put one animal after another out of its misery. But the flash ofthose shots angered those on shore to a higher pitch of rage.
"No going back," he said. "At least not for several days."
Tau slapped a black, four-winged insect which had settled on his arm,its jaws wide open for a sampling bite. "We can't very well perch hereuntil they forget all about us," he pointed out. "Not without water wecan trust, and with the local wild life ready to test us for tastyeating."
Nymani had prowled along the swampward point of their island, and now hemade his report.
"There is more high land to the east. Perhaps it will give us a bridgeacross."
At that moment Dane doubted his ability to make any more leaps fromisland to island. And it would seem Tau shared his discouragement.
"I don't suppose you could discourage our friends on shore there with afew more shots?"
Asaki shook his head. "We do not have clips enough to settle a wholeherd. These might retreat from sight but they would be waiting for us inthe bush, and that would mean certain death. We shall have to take theswamp road."
If Dane had considered their earlier march misery, this was sheertorture. Since footing was never secure, falls were frequent, and withina quarter-hour they were all plastered with evil-smelling slime and mudwhich hardened to rock consistency when exposed to the air. Painful asthis was, it did protect a portion of their bodies from the insects withwhich the swamp was well stocked.
And, in spite of their efforts to find a way out, the only possiblepaths led them deeper into the center of the unexplored morass. At lastAsaki called a halt and a council to consider retreat. To locate anisland from which they could at least watch the shore appealed verystrongly indeed.
"We have to have water." Tau's voice was a harsh croak, issuing out of amask of green mud festooned with trailing weeds.
"This ground is rising." Asaki smacked the stock of his needler againstthe surface on which he crouched. "I think perhaps there may be cleanland soon to come."
Jellico hitched his way up a sapling, now bending under his weight.Through the vision lenses he studied the route ahead.
"You're right about that," he called to the Chief Ranger. "There's ashowing of the right sort of green to the left, about half a mile on.And," he glanced about at the westering sun, "we have about an hour yetof good light in which to make it. I wouldn't try such a run afterdark."
That promise of green bolstered their weary spirits for a lastexhausting effort. Once again they were faced with a series of isletleaps, and now they carried with them brush culled from the biggertussocks to aid in times of need.
When Dane scrambled up the last pull, staggered, and went down to hisknees again, he knew he was done. He did not even move at an excited cryfrom Nymani, echoed a moment later by Asaki. It was not until the latterleaned over him, a canteen open in his hand, that Dane aroused a little.
"Drink!" the Khatkan urged. "We have found a water tree. This is fresh."
The liquid might have been fresh, but it also had a peculiar taste,which Dane did not note until he had gulped down a generous swallow. Atthat moment he was past caring about anything but the fact that he didhave a portion of drinkable stuff in hand.
Here the stunted, unnatural growth of the swamplands had given away tothe more normal vegetation of the jungle-clad lowlands. Had they comeclear across the swamp, Dane wondered dully, or was this only a largeisland in the midst of the stinking boglands?
He drank again and regained strength enough to crawl to where hisshipmates lay. It was some time before he was interested in much besidesthe fact that he could drink when he wished. Then he watched Jellicowaver to his feet, his head turned eastward. Tau, too, sat up as ifalerted by the _Queen's_ alarm buzzer.
The Khatkans were gone, perhaps back to the water tree. But all three ofthe spacemen heard that sound, a far off throbbing rhythm which was avibration as well. Jellico looked to Tau.
"Drums?"
"Could be." The medic screwed the cap back on his canteen. "I'd say wehave company--only I'd like to know what kind!"
They might have been mistaken about the drums, but none of them couldhave been mistaken about the bolt which came out of nowhere to slicethrough a tree trunk as a knife might slash wet clay. Blaster--and aparticular type of blaster!
"Patrol issue!" Tau lay flat, squeezing himself against the earth as ifhe wished he could ooze into it.
Jellico wriggled toward the bush in answer to a low call from Asaki, andthe others made a worm's progress in his wake. Under cover they foundthe Chief Ranger readying his needler.
"Poacher camp here," he explained bleakly. "And they know about us."
"A perfect end to a stinking day," remarked Tau dispassionately. "Wemight have guessed something of this sort was waiting." He tried to rubaway some of the dried clay coating his chin. "But do poachers usedrums?"
The Chief Ranger scowled. "That is what Nymani has gone to find out."