John Rackham (9 page)

"Nothing
wrong with your nerve, nor your reflexes.
Another eye-wink and that creature would
have had me by the leg at least. I'm in your debt again. I thank you. As for
how many, there's no way of telling, but I do know this, that there will be
other creatures, natural enemies of this one. Else the station would be
overrun. We will just have to keep a sharp lookout. Now what are you up to,
with that knife?"

"My arrow!"
Jack advanced on his kill. "I like not my chances of getting more
shafts here. I will not waste any." It was a messy job but no worse than
he had done before with deer, and rabbits, and as soon as he had rinsed the
shaft, and his arms to the elbows, they tramped on.

"I
could have killed that thing with my beamer," Jasar said, "but not
before it had managed a chew at me. And I'd just as soon not use energy anyway,
not yet. They don't seem to know that we're here, and the longer we can keep it
that way, the better."

After
several long minutes of steady plodding Jack felt impelled to make the point
that they were no longer heading in the direction of the tower, but he had
hardly said it when the water-lane, diverted into two, offered them a tack in
the other direction and they strode on once more.

"We
are all right for a while," Jasar declared. "This is the easy bit,
the hydroponic fringe. It won't be nearly as soft as this when we get in closer
to the workshops and power-plant." They trod on steadily until all at once
Jasar said, "Ah! This could be something useful!" With a hand up for
caution he led the way into a bigger space, roughly circular, the middle of
which was taken up by a curious circular slab of metal, smoothly glossy, about
ten feet or so high. The sound of gurgling water was everywhere. They circled
the metal block very cautiously until they were back where they began. It stood
on a low base of a stony substance, and just above that base were the open ends
of pipes, six of them, equally spaced around, and each yielding a steady rush
of water into other lanes that spread out like the spokes of a giant wheel.

Jasar
looked at it, tapped it, stood back, and frowned at it. "About ten feet
high, would you say? And three times that much across? Lend me your shoulder
again, would you? I'd like to see the top of it. I think I know
...
but I'd rather be sure. It won't take
but one look."

Jack
set his back to the metal, cupped his hand, and sent Jasar up with a hearty
boost, turned to see the little man alight and perch on the edge for a brief
moment. Then, astonishingly, he vanished, letting out a fierce yell that seemed
somehow to fade away over a long while and then stop.

"Jasarl"
he shouted. "Jasarl
What
happened? Where are
you?" But there was no answer except the quick-dying echo of
his own
voice. Jack looked around uneasily. The sense of
danger that had never been very far away
came
suddenly
very close, seemed to stand over him. He called Jasar once more.
Still no answer.
He wasted several angry moments in a futile
attempt to stand on a stump of pipe and reach that edge up there but the bulk
of his chest and knees got in his way, so that he fell helplessly back each
time. Then he stood away and back, and eyed the strange harness about his
waist, wondering if he dared experiment with it, and perhaps lessen his weight
to the point where he would be able to spring up and catch that edge. And be
trapped by whatever had trapped Jasar? The thought ran into that corner by itself.
But what else was he to do7 Turn back to the ship? That thought came and went
without being entertained. Then he recalled the stud on his helmet that would
let him talk to Jasar, and he pressed it. His ears were instantly filled with a
gentle hum, but nothing else. He listened, pronounced Jasar's name a time or
two. Nothing!

So
intently was he listening that a low, growling, rumbling sound grew loud to
him before he was properly aware of it. It seemed to come from everywhere at
once. The sponginess under his feet moved to a regular quiet tread. He stared
around in sudden apprehension and saw it . . . almost on top of him
...
a vast clawed paw descending, beyond
it an enormous yellow-eyed head. He flung himself wildly aside and down,
stumbling to his knees, scrambling up and running frantically off and around
the metal block. The cavernous rumbling stopped, became a snarl that moved the
air against his face. He flattened to the metal wall, panting, and looked back
and up. And he knew, in the same moment that his common sense rejected it, that
he was being hunted by an enormous catlike thing. It was the color of rich
honey, as big as Castle Dudley in that moment, and it growled, baring its
teeth, half extending a paw at him as it cocked its head on one side to peer
at him. Sweat ran into his eyes as he watched it. He had seen a cat at play
with a mouse many times, and knew only too well how murderous that play was.
That paw dabbed down at him and he sprang back and away, hearing the metal
object boom at the glancing impact.

The cat-creature flattened its ears and
snarled, moving around to get another aim. Jack unhooked his bow, readied an
arrow,
leaned
back against the cool metal. He dreaded
another crushing swipe of a paw but realized that he had to hit this thing in
some vital spot. To wound it, to prick a paw for instance, would merely serve
to make it more savage. It drew back its head, eyed him, seemed to be puzzling
about something; then, so fast that it almost caught him, it made a little rushing
dash and dab, and he hurled himself aside, felt the wind of the claws passing,
the solid thump of the paw on the resilient ground. Then he loosed a shaft with
all the power he could summon, straight into its yowling mouth. In the next
instant it reared up, a side-swiping paw battering him into a rolling tumble as
it thrust right up onto its hind legs, screeching, pawing crazily at its head.
It fell over heavily, thrashed among the weed violently. He got up, breathless
but wary, nocked another arrow and watched, his heart high in his throat.
The wounded beast arched and tore at the weed; screeching to hurt
his eardrums.
Here it came now, insanely, its head hard down, and
rubbing on the ground savagely, driving straight at him. He backed tensely,
waited until the tormented mask and bared fangs were almost on him,
then
loosed a second shaft. Again he aimed for an eye. The
spurt and gush of fluid was hot and acrid-smelling to
retch
his stomach, but he leaped aside and readied another arrow doggedly. It wasn't
needed. The cat took longer to die, but die it did, just like the rat. It
arched and shivered and fought with itself, but then it sagged inertly and was
quite still.

Jack
sat down, just where he was, and leaned forward, hugging his knees, trying not
to shake himself to pieces. Through the chaos in his mind came the crazy
thought that never would he be able to recount this valiant deed to an agape
audience, even if he lived to have the chance. Who would believe a cat so big?
Little by little he caught up on his breathing. Sweat began to dry and chill on
his back, against the cool metal. He climbed to his feet, putting away the
unwanted arrow. He drew his knife and managed to retrieve the shaft that had
struck the fatal blow, but when he had managed to climb up on that giant head,
and tried his knife against fur and bone, he abandoned all hope of that arrow.
From that vantage point, however, he saw that he now had access to the metal
block. The cat-snout was jammed hard against it, offering him lift enough to
reach and take hold of the edge.

He stared at it He thought about it He tried
the talk

to-Jasar
stud again, and got only that meaningless
hum. There was no way out. He hitched his bow into security and went scrambling
along the line of the skull and jaw until he could stretch up, and grip, and
heave
himself up. And look. And he saw not a thing except
the far edge. Between
...
he
strained higher to be sure . . . the metal sloped swiftly away like a giant
funnel.
To a dark round hole.

FIVE

Jack hung there a long while, until his arms
protested at the effort, and he had to let go and drop down again. And think.
The thinking was a waste of time and he knew it before he began on it, but his
brain insisted on trying to find an alternative. And there was none. Without
Jasar he was useless, helpless, and pointless.
And if Jasar
had gone down that hole, then he, Jack, had to follow.
Somehow.
He took a deep breath, braced himself, reached up
and grabbed and heaved, and this time struggled to get a foot to the edge, and
a knee, and then to sit, precariously, with his feet down the slope.

He
knew now how Jasar had been lost. The rim was keen enough to bite into his rump
uncomfortably, and the sloping metal was glossy smooth. It was, he estimated,
about six feet from the rim to the edge of the central hole. And the
hole
itself was about eighteen feet or so across. From where
he sat he heard a distant murmuring, and felt a gentle, regular updraft of warm
air, like some giant breath. The sides of the hole, what he could see from
where he was, were as glossy smooth as the funnel slope. He was desperately
aware that it was up to him to do all his thinking and scheming now. Once he
started on the way down that hole, it would be too late to think. But what
thinking could he do that would change anything? To stave off the evil moment
he decided to work his way around the rim, inch by painful inch, to the protest
of his buttock muscles. And he saw, after a while, a difference in that
down-dropping tube. There was a recess in that wall of it, coming more into
sight as he hitched along.
A hollow, with a bar across.
The sort of thing a man might lay hold of, to climb down. Or up, even. Except
that it was a

vast
thing. Then Jack remembered that the Dargoon were giants. Jasar had said so.

And
now he had a problem that taxed his mental powers to the extreme. If that
thing he could see really was the first in a series of rungs, that a man would
climb on, how far apart would they be? He struggled with that, and settled for
a value of a foot apart. And Jasar had said the Dargoon were about twenty yards
tall. Jack furrowed his brows on it, wishing he had paid more attention to his
mother's efforts to teach him how to count and cipher. He tried for a suitable
simplicity. He was two yards tall, the Dargoon was twenty, so there ought to be
a twenty times difference
...
no, ten
times! And that was easy. The ladder rungs would be ten feet apart. His sense
of accomplishment withered as he recited the figure. Ten feet apart! Perhaps
he could drop from one to the next. He liked that idea less the longer he
looked at it. But what else was there to do? Never for a moment did he consider
not
going after Jasar.

With
all his thinking done he took sightings on the location of the handhold and
started inching back around that rim until he was reasonably sure he was poised
immediately above the ladder. Checking his bits and pieces one last time, he
wriggled over onto his stomach and slid cautiously down, his hands and toes
pressing desperately to the smooth metal to slow his slide. His palms grew hot.
He felt his toes clear the edge. Now his knees, thighs, belly, and he was
falling
...
and snatching frantically
at the crossbar as it came up to him. It was arm-thick, and solid, and he clung
to it and dared to look down into the depths. There was a ringed glow down
there.
A long way down.
And the warm updraft was
stronger, quite positively "breathing" up the shaft. He had the
awful sensation of entering into the bowels of some vast monster, but it was
too late now to think of that. He couldn't go back up.

He
squinted and peered at the next rung, lowered himself as far as he could,
dropped and struck with his feet, fell into a crouch and grabbed and held on
while he got his breath back. Then he did it again.
And
again.
And each perilous drop served to assure him that he could never
go back.
Never.
His arms ached first,
then
his legs, and the warm updraft puffing made him sweat.
He became aware of a growing sound, a vast murmuring rumble. Then, quite
startingly, he was no longer in a tube at all. The black walls angled abruptly
away to become a roof over an enormous cavern, leaving him perched on what was
really a ladder now. He hung and stared. Distance stretched all around him.
Vast pipes, like colored worms, looped and squirmed about that roof, here and
there dipping down to join with crouching monsters on the floor. There were
steaming vats of liquid in many colors, machines that crouched by them and
growled, and lights that danced and flickered in green and red and white.

And
there, another fifty feet or so to the
floor,
was
Jasar, sprawled in a motionless heap close by one of the uprights of the
ladder, a pathetically small figure against the dark red of the floor.
Forgetting all his fatigue, Jack balanced, used the upright of the ladder for
help, and dropped swiftly down the remaining rungs to the point where he could
safely leap to the floor. It was resilient, yielding to his feet, making no
sound. Jasar was on his back, one arm twisted, his legs splayed, his eyes fast
shut. But he breathed and was warm. Jack knew a little about broken bones,
enough to make him very careful as he drew that twisted arm straight and
settled it. So far as his touch could tell him, there was nothing broken under
that walnut skin. That was hard to believe from such a fall, but Jack didn't
waste time wondering at it. With all these pipes and vats there ought to be
water near. He prowled, searching.

The
cavem floor was laid out in long lanes between bulky blocks that he assumed were
all machines of some kind or other. All were purring, or growling, or clicking,
like so many great animals drowsing. He ran a little way,
then
back, tried a side lane, using his ears. There! In a recess in one machine a
small pipe spouted a thin stream of water into a coppery cup, to fill it. Then
it ceased, waiting until the cup was drained, and began all over again. Above
that cup a patient green light winked on with each filling, as if counting.
With great daring Jack thrust his cupped hands into the path of the stream,
then ran fast to dash the water into Jasar's face. As he came back from a
second run the little man stirred, opened his eyes, and groaned.

"Jack! What
...
Tm all wet!" He started to sit up and groaned again, lay
carefully back.
"Stars and comets!
I'm all jelly
inside. What the
...
ah! Yes! I fell
down
..
."—his eyes rolled to pass Jack's anxious face and see the ladder—"down
there, was it?" Jack nodded, and the little man sighed. "All I
remember is that it was a long drop. And impact. If it hadn't been that my belt
was set for one-eighth gee, I'd be dead now for sure.
Stupid
thing to do.
I'm not exactly bursting with health as it is!"
"Are you mortally hurt, Jasar?"

"I
doubt it. By the feel, I'm all scrambled inside, but that doesn't mean much.
Wait there while I probe." Jasar lay still, seemed to sag, and go utterly
inert. Even his breathing ceased, for what seemed an agonizingly long time, to
Jack. Then he stirred again, drew an enormous breath, opened his eyes and
smiled, but only briefly.

"Don't
look so distressed, lad. I was only tracing out my systems. But
...
I forget
...
you probably don't understand that. It's one of the
curiosities in humanoid cultures, so our wise men
say,
that a culture has to reach a fairly high level of development before it
bothers to acquire an efficient physical awareness of the individual. Odd,
isn't it? You'd think the first thing any sentient body would learn would be
its own workings, wouldn't you?" Jack stared at him blankly, not
understanding, and Jasar smiled again. "Never mind, lad. The important
thing is
,
I assure you, that I'm all right. Or will be
when I've had a bite to eat and a chance to rest up."

"How are we to achieve
that, here?"

"That's
the next thing to work on. Give me your arm." With help, Jasar struggled
to his feet and was able to stand, none too steadily, while he looked around.
"Some kind of pump-room, by the look of it.
With continuous-process analysis and control.
Nutrient vats.
Supply pipes.
Probably automated.
Not much risk of
meeting opposition here. It would help if we knew which way the central tower
lies from here."

"I
think I know," Jack offered, staring at the ladder and casting his mind
back to his painful crawling around the rim up there. He moved to stand under
the tube, scratched his head in thought,
then
nodded.
"The tower is in that direction, immediately opposite to the
handholds."

"You sure?"
Jasar came to look up, then at the ladder, and then at Jack. "You
came down that thing?"

"What else could I do,
Sir Jasar?"

The
little man shook his head slowly, looked stern. "I could think of a few
things, offhand. Jack Earl Fairfax, take my hand. I tell you this. I Jasar-am-
Bax,
am honored and proud to call you friend and equal.
Three times now have you saved my life and in several ways have shown that you
are the equal and peer of any man I know. From here on I speak no more of your
primitive origins, but regard you as partner and friend."

Jack felt humbled by the formal speech and
the strong handclasp. "I did no more than any man would do for another,
Jasar. I look not to be your equal, only to help as best I can."

"I
know. But you've done more than that, and I admit it. Now, let's move.
I’ ll
be thankful for your arm,
foT
a while, until we find some nook to hide in. That way, you said?"

As
they started to march, Jasar was more of
an awkwardness
than a burden, seeming to regain a little strength and balance with every step.
Jack was full of intriguing questions. "There are so many things," he
said, "that I do not understand properly. Why, for one, would this wondrous
armor of yours turn the blade of my ax, and yet not the bite of the rat, or the
fall from a great height? And what is this physical awareness you speak of,
that permits a man to heal himself from great injuries? Can I learn the trick
of it?"

Jasar
hunched a shoulder as they passed a machine that blew a small warm gale at
them, and chuckled deep in his chest. "Armor is armor, Jack. Not magic. A
man in armor is saved from being cut up by an edge, but he still feels the
impact of the blow. There's not much point in telling you about energy-weapons
yet, but if ever one is aimed at you, then you'll see how good the belt-shield
is. As for the other thing, yes, you could learn physical awareness, I suppose.
It would probably be harder for you, at your age, than it is for us.
We leam it from the first few exploratory attempts to stand and
walk.
It's a part of our educational system."

"What must I do first?" Jack was
willing to try anything that seemed to confer power. Jasar grunted
good-hu-moredly.

"Try
this. While we are walking, as now, think of your right foot. I mean 'think' of
it. Feel it strike the floor, bend and stretch and shove, feel the rub of it
inside your shoe.
All of it.
Attend to it."

Jack
tried, and the effort was surprisingly great, interfered with the natural
rhythm and balance of walking so that what was simple and commonplace became
difficult. But, after a while, he could say, "I think I have it!"

"Good.
Now think only of the smallest toe on that foot. Feel it, all of it, under and
over, root and nail, all by itself."

This
was infinitely harder, so difficult that all at once his foot seemed to bulk
large in his shoe, to dangle dangerously at the end of his leg, and he lost
the swing of his stride, so that he stumbled and almost fell.

Jasar
chuckled, not unkindly. "Not so easy, is it? But that, in fact, is all the
essence of it. You select one small part of your body and think about it until
you have it.
Then another.
And you repeat, and
practice, until you can touch and feel, with your mind, any part. And that,
just by itself, helps you to make repairs. Because by the time you can do that
efficientiy, you will also know by feel what is wrong, and be able to put it
right. We do it as a drill."

Jasar
was walking alone now, striding along, eyes everywhere, seeming to understand
everything, and yet he had time to talk, and think about other things.
"Curious creatures, we humanoids," he murmured. "The
physiologists all agree that we have an unbalanced brain-system, designed so
that we have a constant and overriding drive to direct our attention outward,
away from ourselves, toward other things. Almost all other life-forms are
self-centered. Did you know that?"

Jack
gave up trying to isolate his little toe. He had only the vaguest idea what
Jasar was talking about. "What manner of place is this?" he asked,
more to change the subject rather than from curiosity.

"As
I've already said, it's a pump and circulation complex that serves to supply
that weed up there.
Also atmosphere control.
And it
looks as if we are getting to the end of it now."

Ahead
was a wall of close web-work in silvery metal, coming nearer with every step.
And now a distinct smell that reminded Jack of a pigsty.
Jasar put up a hand for caution and they approached the wire barrier slowly.

"Beast-pen
of some kind," Jasar murmured.
"For fresh protein.
Seems the Dargoon do themselves well here. On a ship, or the usual space
station, a man expects to have to be satisfied with synthetic protein. I wonder
what kind of stock they keep here." They came to a halt now on either side
of an upright metal column that served to support the wire web.

Jack was curious about the floor beyond the
fence. It was pierced with holes in regular array, so far as he could see under
the random scatter of dry weed. "How would a man muck out such a
chamber?" he demanded sofdy. "The droppings would fall through those
holes!"

"That's
the whole idea. The stuff falls through and is carried away by machinery and
processed automatically."

"But
..."
He was about to object that a beast could put its foot through holes like that,
and break a leg, when a squeal caught his ear and attention. Directly ahead,
some twenty feet away, a flap-door lifted open under the push of a head and
snout, and he goggled at the beast that came into view. It was only slightly
smaller than a shire-horse in height, it galloped heavily on six stumpy legs,
and it looked for
all the
world like a wild pig that
had run into a wall and flattened its snout beyond recovery. Yellow tusks
flared on either side of a mouth like a shovel blade under a sack, and beady
black eyes were half hidden under flop-ears. Jasar snorted gently.