Ecce and Old Earth (9 page)

Cautiously Glawen approached the shore. Syrene was now halfway up the sky and the heat would have been debilitating save for the jungle-suit. A dead hush fell over the swamp, broken only by the whir and buzz of insects. Glawen noted that they seemed to veer away from the crawler, which saved him the necessity of activating the insecticide fogger.

Glawen arrived at the first banks of slime; the crawler churned doggedly forward. He made ready the guns at each side of the crawler, setting the range of response at thirty yards, and setting the mode to 'automatic,' and not a moment too soon. From the slime only twenty feet to the right of the crawler an optic tentacle reared high. Instantly the gun responded, aiming at the motion and destroying the tentacle with a burst of energy. The slime heaved and sucked as the creature below tried to decide what had happened to it. At a distance of a hundred yards the mud-walkers watched in awe, and presently set up a screeching outburst of vituperation, and threw sticks which fell far short and which Glawen ignored.

The crawler slid across the slime and without further incident entered the first fringes of the jungle, and now Glawen was faced with a new problem. The crawler capably negotiated thickets and bushes, tangles of vines, and was even able to push over a small tree. However, when trees with dense and heavy trunks grew so closely as to deny the crawler access, then Glawen was forced to choose a new route, which was often a time-consuming procedure. He discovered, to his discomfiture; that neither the time of torpidity, nor the sharloc stench, nor the automatic gun, nor all three together were enough to protect him from harm. By chance he noted on a branch under which he was about to pass a crouching back creature all maw, fangs, claws, and sinew. It poised immobile and the gun failed to detect its presence. If the crawler had proceeded below, the creature could have dropped directly upon him. Its bulk alone would crush him, even though the automatic gun by that time would have killed it. Glawen destroyed the thing with his handgun and thereafter proceeded in a much more cautious state.

Up the slope of Shattorak went the crawler, occasionally finding an easy avenue for fifty or sixty yards, but more often Glawen was forced to dodge right or left, squeeze through narrow gaps, sidle along declivities, moving far more slowly than he liked.

The afternoon rains came, and thrashed down upon the jungle. Glawen’s visibility was much reduced, as was his margin of safety. At last, toward middle afternoon, he arrived at a gully choked with a growth too dense for the crawler to penetrate. At this point the summit was visible, less than a mile upslope. With resignation Glawen lighted from the crawler, slipped into his backpack, made sure of his weapons, and set off on foot: scrambling through the gully, killing a hissing gray bewhiskered creature which sprang at him from the dank shadows, fogging a nest of slinging insects, and finally arriving breathless at the uphill side of the gully. The slope thereafter became less difficult, with vegetation less fecund and with longer perspectives of visibility.

Glawen climbed across outcrops of decayed black rock, through copses of giant fuzz ball trees, around solitary horsetail ferns sixty feet tall and barrel trees with boles ten to twenty feet in diameter.

As Glawen approached the summit, ledges of the rotten black stone began to appear and presently, halting behind a copse of mitre dendrons, he looked out on a strip of open hillside a hundred yards wide, isolated from the flat summit by a stockade of posts woven with saplings and branches ten feet high. Along the strip a number of rude huts could be seen, either built into the crotch of a barrel tree or on the ground. These were protected by makeshift stockades of their own. Some were in use as habitations; others were dilapidated and rapidly decaying to the onslaughts of rain and sun. A few plots of ground had been brought under desultory cultivation. Here, thought Glawen, was the Shattorak jail; prisoners could escape any time the desire came upon them. Now then: where was Scharde?

Most of the huts were clustered about a gate through the stockade: the more distant from the gate, the more dilapidated their condition.

Glawen moved through the shadows, to station himself as close to the gate as he dared. There were six men within range of his vision. With the afternoon overcast providing relief from the direct rays of Syrene, one man mended the roof of his tree hut. Two worked dispiritedly in their gardens; the others sat with their backs to the boles of the barrel trees, eyes focused upon nothing. Five of the prisoners seemed to be Yips. The man who worked on the roof of his hut was tall, gaunt, black of hair and beard, hollow-cheeked, with a pale ivory complexion which seemed to show a lavender undertone around the eye-sockets.

Scharde was nowhere to be seen. Might he be in one of the huts? Glawen inspected each in turn, but discovered nothing significant.

Rain suddenly struck down on Shattorak, producing a muffled drumming sound that filled all the horizons. The prisoners without haste went to their huts and sat in the doorways with the rain sluicing from the thatch in front of their faces and into collection pots. Glawen took advantage of the rain to slip furtively across the slope to one of the deserted huts, which provided a degree of shelter. Nearby he noted a hut perched thirty feet high in the first crotch of a huge barrel tree; this would provide him an even better vantage point. He darted through the downpour to the ladder and clambered up to the rickety porch of the tree hut. He looked through the door, and finding no one, took refuge within.

The hut afforded good visibility indeed: over the walls of the stockade and across the width of the summit. The rain blurred details but Glawen thought to see a group of ramshackle structures built of posts, branches and thatch, much like the tree huts. The structures were to his right, on the eastern side of the summit. To the left, the ground humped up in a series of rocky ledges. A pond fifty yards wide occupied the center of the area. No living creature could be seen.

Glawen made himself as comfortable as possible and set himself to wait. Two hours passed; the rain stopped; the low sun flashed for a few instants through the clouds. The time of torpidity had ended and no longer deterred the creatures of Ecce; once again they set forth upon their missions: to attack and rend, to sting, kill and devour, or to avoid such an eventuality by whatever desperate tactics served them best. From his perch in the tree Glawen could see far and wide over the jungle, over the bends and loops of the mighty Vertes River and far to the south across the swamps of Ecce. From below came a variety of sounds, some muted, some ominously close at hand: choking, gurgling roars; staccato grunts; ululations and screams; hoots and resonant drumming sounds.

The gaunt dark-haired man descended from his tree hut. With an air of purpose he went to the gate which led into the summit compound. Putting his hand through an aperture he manipulated a latch; the gate opened and he stalked through, crossed the compound to a nearby shed, into which he disappeared. Odd, thought Glawen.

Now that the rain had stopped, his view across the central compound was unhindered, but he saw nothing markedly different than before, except on the highest point of the ground to the left a low structure had been built which, in Glawen’s estimation, would seem to house a radar installation, to provide warning of approaching aircraft. Glawen noted no movement through the windows; the installation would seem to be automatic. Glawen studied the area with care. According to Floreste, five flyers, or perhaps more, were stored here on Shattorak. They were nowhere evident – an eminently reasonable situation, thought Glawen. The shacks, the stockade and the huts of the prisoners would never be noticed by any but the most careful observation; the textures and irregularities would function as camouflage – but where could five flyers be hidden?

Glawen noticed that the terrain at the western edge of the area showed a rather unnatural conformation, and it might well be that storage space had been carefully roofed over with imitation soil and stone. As if to validate his theories, a pair of men came briskly into sight from over the side of the western slope and climbed to the small hut which Glawen assumed to be a radar transceiver. These men seemed not to be Yips, although as he watched, four Yips appeared from the far side of the summit and came to the shed which the black-haired man had entered. These Yips, Glawen noted, wore hand weapons at their waists, though they seemed oblivious to the prisoners out on the strip.

Half an hour passed. The two men remained in the observation station. The four Yips returned the way they had come: across the summit and out of Glawen’s sight. The two occupants of the observation tower now came down to stand beside the pond, looking into the northern sky.

Several minutes passed. Low in the sky to the north a flyer appeared, approached and settled to a landing beside the pond. Two men alighted, a Yip and another: this one slight of physique, dark of complexion, with a scruff of dark beard. The two brought from the flyer a third man with arms shackled behind his back and a loose hood over his head. The three were joined by the two from the observation tower; the entire group of five went to the largest of the sheds, the prisoner hunching disconsolately along, propelled by a man to either side of him.

Half an hour passed. The Yip and the bearded non-Yip emerged from the shed, went to the flyer and departed into the northern sky. The remaining two brought out the prisoner, led him across the summit and out of sight past the rock outcrops.

Another half hour passed. From the near structure, which Glawen now thought to be the cook shed, came the gaunt dark-haired man, whom Glawen identified as the cook. He carried several buckets though the gate and out upon the prison strip. He set the buckets upon a table near the gate, and struck the table three times with a stick, by way of signal. The prisoners approached the table, bringing with them pannikins. The cook served them from the buckets, then returned through the gate to the cook shed.

Five minutes later the cook emerged once more, carrying two smaller buckets. He took these across the summit, in the direction the prisoner had been taken, and disappeared from Glawen’s sight behind the first ledge of rock. Five minutes later, he returned to the cook shed.

The time had progressed to late afternoon. From the far side of the summit came other men in groups of two or three. Glawen thought that the total number might be nine or ten. After consuming their supper in the cook shed, they returned the way they had come.

Syrene sank in the west; Lorca and Sing cast a rosy twilight murk over the swamps and jungles, which abruptly dimmed as clouds again swept over the sky and again rain thundered down upon Ecce. Glawen at once descended from his vantage, ran through the downpour, and climbed to another of the tree huts, there he waited.

Half an hour passed; the rains ceased as suddenly as they had come, leaving a heavy darkness, broken only by a few soft yellow lights within the compound the glow of three bulbs at the top of the stockade which illuminated the prison strip. From the cook house came the gaunt dark haired cook. He crossed the compound, opened the gate, stood for a moment surveying the strip to make sure that it harbored no savage beasts, then closed the gate and walked swiftly to the tree which supported his hut. He climbed the ladder pushed through the opening which gave on the little porch in front of the hut, closed the trap door and secured it against intruders. Turning, he started to enter his hut only to stop short.

Glawen said: “Come into the hut. Make no disturbance."

The cook spoke in a strained reedy voice: “Who are you?" And then, more sharply: “What do you want?”

“Come inside and I will tell you.”

Step by unwilling step the cook came forward, to halt warily just within the open doorway, where the wan illumination of the stockade cast black shadows on his long face. He tried to speak in a firm voice: “Who are you?”

"My name would mean nothing to you, “said Glawen.” I have come for Scharde Clattuc. Where is he?”

The cook stood rigid a moment, then jerked his thumb toward the stockade. “Inside.”

“Why is he inside?"

“Hah!" – a bitter laugh. “When they want to punish someone, he is put down in a doghole.”

“What might that be?”

Lights and shadows shifted along the cooks face as he grimaced. “It is a pit eight feet deep and five feet square, with bars on top, open to both sun and rain. Clattuc has so far survived."

For a moment Glawen was silent. Then he asked: “And who, then, are you?"

"I am not here by my own choice: I assure you!"

"That was not my question.”

"It makes no great difference; nothing is changed. I am a Naturalist from Stroma. My name is Kathcar. Every day it becomes more difficult to remember that other places exist."

“Why are you here at Shattorak?”

Kathcar made a dreary guttural sound. “Why else? I ran afoul of the Oomphaw, and a cruel trick was played upon me. I was brought here and given a choice: working at the cook house or sweltering in a doghole.” Kathcar’s voice rang with bitterness. "Is it not preposterous?”

"Yes, of course. The Oomphaw is preposterous. But for the moment, how best can we rescue Scharde Clattuc from the doghole?"

Kathcar started to blurt out a protest, then reconsidered and fell silent. After a moment he spoke, in a somewhat what different tone of voice and his head tilted to the side. "You are planning, I gather, to free Scharde Clattuc and take him away?"

“That is correct."

"How will you cross the jungle?”

“A flyer is waiting below."

“Kathcar pulled at his beard. “It is a dangerous project: a true doghole affair."

"I expect that it is. First, there will be killing, of anyone who hinders me or raises an alarm."

Kathcar gave a wincing jerk of the head, and turned a nervous glance over his shoulder. He spoke in a cautious voice: “If I help you, you must take me out as well."

“That is reasonable.”

“This is your guarantee?"

“You may count on it. Are the dogholes guarded?”