Breed to Come (16 page)

Toward this building! Furtig hissed again. He hadnot smelled Ratton, seen Ratton, heard Ratton, sincethey had come through that break in the wall intothese corridors. But if the Rattons were towing theircatch into this structure, it was time to be gone.

He crept back to Ku-La, reporting what he hadwitnessed.

"A stick-in trap. They coat the ground with something you cannot see or scent, but it entangles youspeedily," the other said.

"Yet they went to the Barker, handled him withoutgetting stuck—"

"True. We do not know how they are able to dothat. Perhaps they put something on themselves torepel the trap. We only know—to our sorrow—how itworks on us!"

"A Barker in the lairs—" Furtig picked up the bagof tapes, was ready to help Ku-La on. "A scout?"

"Perhaps. Or they may also seek knowledge." Ku-La gave an involuntary cry as he pulled himself up.He was limping very badly, continuing by willalone, Furtig knew.

His admiration for the other's determination andfight against pain had grown. No longer did he wonder why he had endangered his mission to rescueKu-La; he accepted him as a comrade like Foskatt.

"If they bring the Barker here," he began warningly. It seemed cruel to keep urging Ku-La on, but Furtig had lately picked up the homing signal in hismind, knew their goal, and also that they dared wasteno time in these dangerous corridors.

"True. Though Rattons seem to have little liking forgoing aloft," Ku-La commented, drawing small breaths between words. "They keep mainly to thelower ways."

They rounded a curve in the wall. Furtig stayedclose to the inner wall; that long expanse of almost invisible surface on the outer made him uneasy. Todaythat feeling was worse as the wind and rain beat hardin gusts which vibrated in the walls about them.

But—as they rounded that curve, looked out upona new expanse of open, Furtig came to a halt— Light—a moving light!

It rose from the ground, soaring high as if a flyingthing carried a huge hand lamp. Now it danced backand forth erratically in the sky, swooping out andaway. And through the curtain of the rain Furtig could not follow it far.

Ku-La made a sharp sound. "A sky-ship—a skyship of the Demons!"

Furtig did not want to accept that. In fact at thatmoment he discovered he had never really believed inDemon return. But there was such conviction in Ku-La's identification that belief was now forced on him.

The return of the Demons! Even in the caves of thePeople such a foreboding had been used as a horriblewarning for the young. But as one grew older, one nolonger could be frightened so. Only enough remainedof the early chill of such tales to make one's blood runfaster at such a time as this.

One ship—a scout? Just as the People sent one warrior, two, three, ahead to test the strength of theenemy, the lay of the land, how it might be used foroffense or defense before a clan moved into hunt?

Such a scout could be cut off. And, with small clans,the loss of a warrior was warning enough.

They fellback, sought another trail. No tribe was large enoughto take the loss of seasoned warriors as less than amajor calamity.

Only, in the old tales the Demons had been countless. Cutting off a single scout would not discourage amigrating tribe with many warriors. Gammage mighthave an answer; he was the only one among the People now who would.

"We must hurry—" Furtig said, though he stillwatched for that light marking the Demon ship.

Furtig leaped back toward the inner wall. No light,yet something had almost brushed the rain-wet outerwall—something far larger than any flying thing hehad ever seen. Luckily there were no wall lights here,nothing except the wan daylight. Perhaps they werelucky, and the flying thing in its swift passage had notseen them. For Furtig had the dire feeling that itmight possess the power to smash through the transparent wall, scoop them out, were such action desired.

"Move!" He shoved Ku-La with his free hand. Theother needed no urging; he was already hobbling atthe best pace he had shown during their long, painfuljourney. As if the sight of that Demon thing hadspurred him to transcend the wounds he bore.

They reached a second curve in the corridor, andthis time Furtig gave a sigh of relief. For that transparent wall which made him feel so vulnerable vanished, there were solid barriers on either side.

That relief was very short, for they came soon toone of those bridges in the air. Furtig crouched, peering into the outer storm, his hands cupped over hiseyes. What made his disappointment the greater wasthat they were now close to their goal. For he recognized the tower at the other end of the bridge as thebuilding in which he and Foskatt had tested the communication box. They need only cross this span andthey would be in their, or Furtig's, home territory.

Only, to cross, they must go along that narrow andslippery way, under not only the beating of the windand rain, but perhaps also the threat of the flyingthing. He thought he could do it—the People were surefooted. But Ku-La—

The other might be reading his thought. "What liesthere?" His throaty voice was near a growl.

"The lair where my people hold."

"Safety of a kind then. Well, we can do no less thantry to reach it."

"You are willing to try?" Surely the other could seehis danger. But if he chose to go, then Furtig woulddo what he could to aid him.

He pulled out that cord which had served them sowell, was preparing to loop them together belt to belt.But the other pushed his hands aside.

"No! I shall take the way four-footed. And do notlink us—better one fall than both, the second withoutcause."

"Go you first then," Furtig replied. He did notknow what he might be able to do if the other, unlinked, did slip. But he felt that if he could keep Ku-La before his eyes during that crossing he might be able to help in some fashion. And four-footed wassurely the best way for them both.

Not only would it make them more sure-footed, butit would also make them less distinguishable to theflying thing. If they were unlucky enough to havethat return.

The rain hit them like a blow, and Ku-La movedunder its pounding very slowly. While Furtig wantednothing so much as to be free to leap over that creeping shape before him and run with all possible speedto the promised safety of the far doorway. Yet hecrawled behind Ku-La, the bag of record tapes slungabout him, the water soaking his fur and tricklingfrom his whiskers. He did not even raise his head farenough to see the doorway; rather he concentrated onKu-La.

Twice the other halted, went flat as if his laststrength had oozed away with the water pouring on him. But each time, just as Furtig reached forth ahand to try to rouse him, he levered up to struggle on.

They had passed the halfway point, though neitherof them was aware of that in the agony of that slowadvance, when the sound came. It was warningenough to flatten them both to the bridge, striving to give no sign of life as the thing drew closer.

It did not scream as one of the preying flyingthings, nor give voice in any way Furtig recognized.

This sound was a continuous beat-beat. First to theleft as if it hung in open space viewing them, then overhead. Furtig's nerve almost crumbled then. Hecould somehow see in his mind giant claws reaching out—coming closer—ready to sink into his body, bearhim away.So intent was he on that fearful mental picture thathe was not even aware that the beat-beat was growingfainter, not until it had vanished. He lay on thebridge, unharmed, able to move. And the thing wasgone! Had—had it taken Ku-La then, without hisknowing it in the depths of his fear?

But when Furtig raised his head the other wasthere, stirring to life, creeping—

If they had time now before the thing returned—!For somehow Furtig could not believe that it was goingto let them go so easily. There was a menace in it whichhe had sensed. And that sense he trusted, for it wasone of the built-in protections of his kind and hadsaved lives many times over. The flying thing was tobe feared, perhaps as much, if not more, than anything he had ever in his life faced before.

Tan ran a finger approvingly along the edge of the recorder. Got a good taping there. Tan's luck again. Hesmiled. Tan's luck was something which once or twicehad made a real impression on the trainees back onElhorn. He had managed so many times, usuallythrough no reason he was aware of, to be at just theright place at the right moment, or to make the rightmove, even when he had no idea whether it was rightor wrong.

So—with all those faint life-readings he had pickedup in this pile but nothing in the open where he couldget a visual record, it was his luck to catch that thingor things (in that poor visibility they had looked likeblobs as far as he was concerned)—right out in theopen. They might have posed to order so he could geta good tape.

Blobs—certainly they did not look like men. Hehad' sighted them edging out on the bridge and theyhad wriggled along there, almost as if they were crossing on their bellies. Nothing about them to suggestthey were of his species at all. Tan tried to picturemen crawling on hands and knees. Would the blobsresemble those? Could be. Except they were smallerthan men—children?

But what would children be doing out alone in sucha storm as this, crawling from one building to thenext? No, easier to believe that they were somethingelse, not human at all.

Tan was no longer smiling. After all, they hadnever discovered what had sent the First Ship peopleto Elhorn. It had been a very strong motive, not onlyto force them to take the perilous trip across space,but to leave them so intent thereafter on suppressingall they could of the world of their origin and the reason for colonizing another.

Tan had picked up some dim life-readings here, but.not, oddly enough, in the buildings which had shownthe greatest wealth of lights at night. No—they werewidely scattered. And the readings varied.

Enoughthat Ayana ought to be able to make something out ofthe variance. Such would not show up so plainly justbecause the pickup carried over unequal distances. Itwas more as if the life forms themselves varied. Atleast he had a reading and a picture of the blobs toturn in and that would give them a beginning reference.

And—there was not a single one of these life-readings which touched the proper coordinate for manon the measuring scale. That was what had made himbuzz lower and lower, hang between the towers in areckless fashion, trying to pick up as many registrations on the tapes as he could.

Men had built this place. Tan knew enough fromhis race's own fragmented records to recognize theform of architecture of his ancestors. But if there wereno readings for "man" here—what did live within these walls?

The enemy of which they had no records? Only surmises presented by their imaginations? If the former,then the enemy was those blobs, and the quicker theywere identified the better. Tan turned the flitter,swept out and away from the structures, heading forthe ship with the small scraps of knowledge his firstscouting flight had gained.

There was no beat-beat now—none at all. Ku-Lascrambled ahead with a burst of speed Furtig hopedwould not hurl him off that narrow way. But—in thedoorway ahead was movement!

Rattons? Barkers? Furtig had the Demon weapon.The past hours had conditioned him to expect the worst, even in the People's lairs. Then he made out afurred head— They were coming forward to aid Ku-La—his own kind at last!

Gammage was at ease on the wide bed place. His tailcurled across his thighs, and only the tip of it, twitching now and then, betrayed his excitement at Furtig'sreport.

The tapes had been carried off by the In-borntrained to evaluate them. And a picked group, led byFoskatt, had set out to salvage the rest of Furtig'shaul from where he had left it in the ducts.

Ku-La was in the room of healing, and Furtig wasfinding it difficult to keep his eyes open, his mindalert to answer the Ancestor's questions. But he discovered to his amazement that Gammage was notstartled by the flying thing.

That a Demon sky-ship had landed was alreadyknown to the lair People. Its coming had been foretold by certain watchers who were not of flesh andblood, but servants of metal. When those gave the alert, the People had first been baffled, then madeguesses as to the cause for alarm. And, hiding out, scouts had witnessed the actual landing of the ship.

Every device which could be put to defense or usedto gain knowledge of the invaders had been trained onthat ship. Without, it was hoped, having yet arousedthe suspicions of the old masters of the lairs.

"They are indeed Demons," Gammage said. "Drinkthis, clan son, it will warm you. It is made of leavesand is refreshing to our spirits."

He waited while Furtig sipped from the bowl Lilihabrought him. She did not leave, but settled on theother end of Gammage's divan as one who had arightful part in this conference. Furtig was aware she watched him unblinkingly. He wondered if she did soto weigh within her own mind the truth of his tale.

The odor of the hot liquid was enticing, so much sothat just to sniff its vapor raised his spirits, gave himcourage, and renewed his energy. The taste was asgood as the scent. The feeling of warmth that spreadthrough him made him even more drowsy than he hadbeen. But two full swallows were all that he took,holding the cup from him lest his pleasure in its contents cloak his mind to what must be firmly faced.

"We viewed them through those glasses whichbring the far close," Gammage continued. "They brought many things from their ship and put togethera flying thing. By that time it was night, and theywent again into the ship and closed it, as if they believed they might be in danger. Four, of them only,though there may be more inside we did not see.

"With the morning, in spite of the storm, out cameforth and entered the flying thing. He raised it intothe air and flew back and forth, in and out, among thebuildings. He did not try to land, but hovered above.As if the Demon sought something. But we cannotguess what he sought, nor the manner of his seeking.With Demons—who can know?"

"He found us on the bridge," Furtig returned. "Buthe did not attack, only stayed above us for a spaceand then flew away."

"Returning," Liliha said, "to the ship. It could bethat when he hung above you he marked who—or what—you were."