The Quillian Sector Page 14

  "To hell with her." The hunter snarled his impatience. "Save yourself, man. Hurry!"

  He snarled again as Dumarest ignored the instruction and dived in turn. He hit the water like an eel, twisting, body curved, hand and knife extended as, again, the predator attacked. Blood foamed from the creature, to fog the water and dull the gleam of starlight. More blood followed as the girl screamed. Dumarest released her, slashed at an arrowing shape, felt the impact of his blade on skin and flesh.

  "Gale!"

  She drifted to one side, face down, hair spread, cradled in the water as beneath her something rose to tear, to sink again.

  "Earl!" Bochner thrashed at the water, then headed toward the raft. "Quick, man. The girl's dead. Save yourself!"

  Move while the girl provided a distraction. Reach the raft while her body was being torn into shreds. To grip outstretched hands and to climb to safety. To slump, conscious of weakness, of the price exertion needed to be paid.

  "Earl!" Dilys was beside him, her face anxious as she stared at his thigh, the raw patch where the skin had been rasped and which now oozed blood. "You're hurt!"

  "I'll live."

  "Gale-"

  "Is dead." Hadn't she seen? "We can't help her now, but we can help ourselves. Let's get some of those fish!"

  Crazed by the blood, the flesh, the fish were easy prey to the nooses, the lines and hooks, the stabbing blades. Before they dispersed, three of them jerked in one of the caskets adding their blood to the saline in which they died. Food and water for those who survived-the gift Gale Andrei had bought with her life.

  "She was crazed," said Bochner dispassionately. "I guessed she'd be the first to go. I knew she was near the edge, but didn't think she was about to break."

  "You should have stopped her."

  "Going into the sea? How?" The hunter stared at Dilys. "She was gone before I knew it, and once in the water what could I have done?"

  "What Earl did. Gone in after her."

  "And got myself killed as he almost did?" Bochner pointed to the wound. "If I hadn't gone in after him when I did, that leg wouldn't be scraped, it'd be gone. He'd be dead now, if it hadn't been for me."

  A claim Dumarest didn't bother to dispute, but why had the man dived into the sea to help him and not the girl?

  Egulus said, "I think the wind is rising. Look at the sail."

  It billowed from the mast, snapping, suddenly taut, and the captain went to adjust one of the guy ropes. When it was to his satisfaction he stood, looking upwards, starlight limning his face, his eyes. An aged and haggard face. A pair of yearning eyes.

  Dumarest could understand why. Up there, in the vast immensities of space, ships lanced from world to world, eating distance with the power of their drives, while down where the captain stood, they inched along over endless water on a bleak journey to an unknown destination.

  He said quietly, "It won't be long before you're back up there, Captain."

  "As what?" Egulus didn't lower his eyes. "A steward? A handler? What chance have I of ever getting another ship of my own?"

  "The big lines?"

  "Don't want or trust men who've been free traders. We're too independent, and not used to wearing the reins. Once a mans had a ship of his own-" Egulus sighed and looked down and became suddenly brusque. "To hell with it! Let's get busy on these damned fish before the sun rises to bake our bones!"

  The next day they saw land.

  Chapter Ten

  It loomed on the horizon, a smudge against the harsh clarity of the sky, a blur which gradually gained resolution. A high peak, flanked by lesser hills, all joined by a series of slopes which ran down to a shore of black, volcanic sand, toothed with rocks against which the sea lashed in foaming irritation.

  In pools, they found limpets and mollusks which provided a mouthful of moist nourishment-the fish they had caught had been consumed in the three days they had waited to be carried to land. Edging the shore, vegetation rose in a dull, green wall, boles darkly brown against the sand, the leaves spined and serrated like the blades of vicious spears.

  "There could be a break," suggested Egulus. "If we follow the coast, we could find a river or something."

  "We need water, food and shelter," said Dumarest. "We won't find them by hugging the shore."

  "But can we move through that tangle?" Dilys touched a leaf, moved it to one side, looked at the web of branches waiting in the gloom. "We'll be cut to shreds."

  "Not if we take precautions." Dumarest glanced at the raft. It held materials which could be fashioned into forms of protection. "We've got clothing and can use extra padding. Get ready, now. Wear all you can, and make sure you protect face and hands." His voice hardened as only Bochner made a move. "Do it, damn you! If you hope to live, get to work!"

  Bochner had his quilted and protected garb, as Dumarest had his own clothing. With thick gloves, crudely shaped but serviceable, and with heads enclosed in metal cans cut with slits to provide vision, they moved to take the lead. The vegetation was stubborn, falling slowly beneath their knives, the metal edges blunting and showing the stains of acid.

  "We need lasers," grumbled the hunter. "Heavy duty weapons to burn a path through this jungle. With knives alone, we haven't a chance."

  "It should thin further within." Dumarest rasped the side of a stone over his blade. "We'll take turns, me, then you, then me, again. Short spells and halt to sharpen. A narrow passage will do as long as the branches are cut to allow progress. We'll halt to rest when we reach a clearing."

  It took three hours during which they hacked and cut and squeezed past ripping thorns and jagged spines, their padding torn, sweat running down their bodies, the roar of blood loud in their ears as they sagged from exhaustion.

  Dilys collapsed as they reached the clearing, lying to gasp, to pull the fabric from head and face, to sprawl, panting like a dog. Threnond was little better. Egulus leaned back against a mass of branches and looked upwards. The sky was hidden beneath a roof of greenery.

  "Food," he said bitterly. "Water and shelter. Well, I guess we've found that, at least. The shelter of a grave. We could die in here and no one would ever be able to find us."

  "If anyone is bothering to look." Bochner looked up from where he sat. "Any luck with the radio yet?"

  "I've been sending a distress call for days, now." Threnond looked at the radio equipment in his hand. It was a jumble of adapted components, powered by a small energy cell. "If anyone's heard it, they haven't answered."

  "Or you haven't caught it, if they did." Egulus was pessimistic. "What difference does it make? They'll never find us in here."

  "Not here," agreed Dumarest, "but we'd be easy to spot if we were on the summit of that peak we saw."

  "The peak?" Dilys lifted her head. "Earl, that's miles away! We can't-"

  "We can!" He rose and stepped toward her and lifted her upright with an explosion of violence which gave his face the likeness of a savage animal. "We can if we try. If we want to. But we won't if we just sit around moaning that it can't be done. Now, move! On your feet and move!"

  The sun passed zenith and headed toward the horizon. An hour before dusk they found a small stream and bathed, cooling their bodies and filling their stomachs in turn, as others kept watch; a precaution Dumarest insisted on and one which Bochner noted. A trait of his quarry's character-how many would have thought to be so careful at such a time and in such a seemingly harmless place?

  Later, as the shadows closed in, he said, "We need to eat, Earl. Climbing to that peak will take energy the rest haven't got. Of course, we could leave them here and send help later."

  Or forget them. The simplest way, but he didn't hint at that. The bait had been enough. He could learn from the way it was taken.

  "We could," said Dumarest, "if we find help. If that help is willing to do as we ask. If it can find them when it tries."

  "An old man," said Bochner. "A captain without a ship. A woman."

  "People."

  "True,
but there are so many people." Bochner looked into the shadows. "With water there could be game. If so, it would follow trails-need I tell you what is obvious?"

  They set snares made of woven wires and waited and caught small, furred creatures which squeaked and died and were skinned to roast over a fire created by sparks struck from steel. Daylight provided more food from the snares which had been set overnight, and again they began to climb. At dusk, the vegetation had developed into tall trees which soared like the columns of an ancient cathedral, their upper branches plumed to hide the sky. Progress was easier, but slowed by the thick humus which held the damp consistency of mud.

  And there was no more game.

  Its lack puzzled Bochner.

  "There are fruits," he pointed out. "And there should be things to eat them. There are insects and yet no apparent lifeform adapted to prey on them. See?"

  With his boot he scraped back a portion of the dirt, revealing a host of scurrying beetles. The fruits, small, hard-skinned, now rotting, lay where they had fallen.

  Dumarest looked at the trees, the immediate area. Life took many forms, but always it followed certain patterns. The large preyed on the small and where there was food there was something to eat it. The animals they had snared and eaten had been rodents, ratlike things with teeth and jaws adapted to an omnivorous diet. They had been fairly plentiful further down the slopes-why not here?

  Threnond said, "What's the matter? Are we lost?"

  "No."

  "How can you tell?" The dealer in items of death was hungry and irritable and conscious of his overriding fatigue. He set down the radio and moved off into the shadows clustered between the boles. "While you decide, I've something to attend to. A natural function-you understand."

  A delicacy he had demonstrated before, but not with such abruptness. Dumarest took a step after him, halted as Bochner rested a hand on his arm.

  "Let him go, Earl."

  "There could be danger."

  "Always there is the possibility of danger, my friend. In the wine you drink, the food you eat, the bed in which you sleep. We are surrounded by perils, but to guard against them all is beyond the ability of man. We take what precautions we can and, for the rest we trust to luck. If our luck is good, we continue to survive. If it is bad-" he shrugged, "then we cease to have cause to worry."

  And no man should be fool enough to burden himself with the welfare of another-a point Bochner hadn't emphasized but had left in no doubt. A tenet of his philosophy revealed in the tone of his voice, the expression of his eyes, the words chosen to illustrate a meaning. When a man played cards, he betrayed more than he guessed to a skilled observer and Dumarest had assessed his motivation. The cult of self, the way of the feline. The law of the beast who has only one instinct, one drive. To survive at all costs. To live. To continue to exist, for without personal existence there was nothing.

  And yet he had dived into the ocean, risking death to save another.

  "Threnond!" Dumarest raised his voice. "Shan? Shan, where are you?"

  Silence, broken only by the rustle of feet in the humus as the woman and Egulus came to join them. A silence which held a sudden, brooding menace.

  "Shan!"

  "He can't be far," whispered Dilys. "There was no need for him to go far."

  "Shan!" Dumarest looked up and around, feeling the old, familiar prickle of impending danger, the primitive warning which had served him so well before. "Stay together," he said. "Keep watch. Bochner, you light a fire. Hurry!"

  He moved to where a clump of saplings stood between separated trees. As flame rose from the fire the hunter had built, Dumarest cut down four of the slender poles, trimmed them, sharpened their ends to form crude spears.

  As Dilys took hers, she said, "Why this, Earl? Trouble?"

  "Maybe not. Just hold on to it, in case. Use it to lean on if you like."

  "Sure, just like an-"

  She broke off as he lifted a hand, listening. From above and to one side, falling with a gentle rustle through the leaves, came something which twisted and turned to land like a flattened snake.

  "A belt!" Egidus lunged forward. "By God, it's a belt!"

  After it came nightmare.

  It dropped with a thin chatter of castanets, veiled, gems flashing in the firelight, fans and parasols flared and shimmering with a nacreous sheen. A thing which followed the bole, suspended on a thin strand, swinging, touching Egulus, who yelled and sprang back and yelled again as he fell, to roll helpless on loam.

  To stare with horror at the mammoth spider dropping towards him.

  "Earl! My God! What-"

  Dilys spoke to empty air. Dumarest was gone, lunging forward with a speed which, in the firelight, made him seem little more than a blur. To halt, spear upraised, butt on the loam beside the fallen captain, the sharpened point buried deep in the mat of fur covering the spider's thorax, wood shredding beneath the snap of its mandibles, silk pluming from the pulsing spinnerets forming clouds of gossamer which drifted like a mantle to clog his head and arms.

  A silken shroud from which he tore himself with desperate energy.

  "Earl!" Bochner shouted from where he came running, "Above!"

  A hint of movement in the shadows and another monstrous creature plummeted, to strike and seize and lift its prey to the lair it owned high in the topmost branches of the trees. Dumarest sprang aside, steel lifting from his boot, point and edge cutting at the snapping castanets of the mandibles, stabbing at the gems of the eyes. Ichor dripped on his hand, and an acrid stench filled his nostrils as hooked limbs tore shreds from his padding. Limbs which jerked as they were slashed, to lie severed on the loam, twitching as the body of the creature twisted on its suspending filament, to attack with mindless ferocity again, to die as Bochner impaled it with his wooden shaft.

  "Back!" The hunter looked up. "Back, Earl! There could be more!"

  "Get to the girl!" Dumarest stooped, grabbed the captain by the arms and dragged him upright to his feet. Bochner hadn't moved. "Damn it, man! Get to the girl!"

  A fraction of hesitation and the hunter obeyed. Dilys stood beside the fire, eyes wide, spear trembling in her hand as she stared into the shadows. From above, from all sides, came a thin cluttering, a scrape and rustle of chiton, the impact of limbs against branches and leaves as things edged forward through the upper layers of vegetation.

  "A nightmare." Egulus looked ill. "A thing from hell itself. It almost had me. It would have had me but for Earl, Threnond?"

  He hadn't been as lucky. Dumarest held out the belt he had recovered, together with the spears.

  "Is it his?"

  "I don't know. It could have been." Egulus shivered. "What now?"

  "We build up the fire. Gather fuel-go with him, Bochner. Keep guard while he picks up what he can."

  "And me, Earl?"

  "You stay here." He looked at the woman. "Keep the fire as high as you can. Don't move away from it, but don't stay immobile. Move about, look around, keep watch and if you see anything, scream."

  "And that will drive them away?"

  "No." He was blunt. "But it may distract them."

  "For how long?" She stared into the darkness, her voice high, thin, verging on hysteria. "All right? And after that, what? Can we stay awake all the time? Can we hope to beat those things off as we move? Earl! What the hell can we do?"

  "We wait," he said. "We watch and we plan. We keep our heads. Now tend the fire."

  A job which would keep her busy and occupy her mind. Flames rose as she fed scraps of wood to the coals, leaping tongues of red and orange, edged with grayish smoke, the light painting the boles around with shimmers of transient brightness, glows which faded to flare again, to give the impression of movement, of watching eyes.

  "They'll come again," said Bochner. "They've tasted blood and they'll be eager for more easy prey."

  Egulus said, "Threnond-a hell of a way for a man to die. Squatting, thinking, then something swinging down to-" He broke off, swallowing
. "He didn't even have time to scream. And then what? They lifted him up? Carried him? Held him in a web like a fly? Thank God, he knew nothing about it."

  "Maybe," said Dumarest.

  "He was dead," said Bochner quickly. "He had to be dead. Otherwise he would have screamed or struggled. We'd have heard something."

  "We did."

  "His belt falling. What does that mean?"

  Dumarest said, "He wore that belt under his clothing, so to fall, it must have been exposed. Which means he was stripped."

  "So where's the rest of his clothing?"

  "I don't know," admitted Dumarest. "Maybe it was shredded and scattered around. Maybe it's up in the trees and the belt fell by accident."

  "If it hadn't, I'd be dead by now," said Egulus. "We could all be dead." He looked up and around, eyes uneasy, a muscle twitching on one cheek. "For God's sake, can't we get away from here? Move back down the slope? Find a clearing or something?"

  "Tomorrow, yes."

  "Why not now?"

  "We're trapped," said Bochner. "If we move away from the fire, they'll have us. If we try to take it with us, they'll follow. All we can do is to keep it alight and watch. If we're lucky, they won't attack in force."

  "And if not?"

  "We'll be dead." The hunter smiled. "We'll die fighting, but we'll be dead just the same. A brave finish, you agree? To stand with companions battling hopeless odds. Sagas have been written about less. But have hope, friend. Always have hope."

  Dumarest said, "They won't attack in force. If that was their habit, we'd have been overrun long ago. I think it's a matter of territory-game belongs to the spiders under whose trees it strays. At the moment, we're at a junction, as it were, and so present a problem. When the vacancy we made by killing those things is filled, then the newcomers may attack."

  Dilys said, "And if they do?"

  "We fight back. We win."

  "And leave?"

  "Yes," said Dumarest. "After we have found Threnond."

  Bochner stirred, not asleep yet not wholly awake, his mind drifting in a vague region composed of memory and fantasy, constructing regions of what-might-have-been together with those of what-could-be. Dumarest was far more complex than he had at first appeared. There were levels within the man which he was only now beginning to fully appreciate. A sense of function, of fitness, of instinctive reaction which added new dimensions to apparent simplicity. Nothing he did could be simple, always there had to be a complex motivation directed not even on a conscious level but operating on the subconscious need to ensure survival. And yet, there were elements which negated that facile theory. A man driven by the need simply to exist was predictable and so made poor sport. Threaten, and he would respond in one of certain ways; he would beg, run, bribe, plead, bargain, even kill. Dumarest would do all these, if necessary, and yet that was not all. There had to be more. If not, how had he managed to elude the Cyclan for so long?