Angado

'All right, Earl?'

'Get back! Watch that rope!'

His lifeline if he should slip but Angado's death together with his own if the man was careless. Dumarest waited then resumed the descent. Grass yielded beneath his weight to reveal crusted stone traced with roots. A second tuft held and he paused to examine the face of the cliff. It was rotten, eroded with wind and weather, turning to dust beneath his touch.

He inched lower, hoping that rock would provide a firmer surface, brushing aside the tall shoots as he reached the ledge bearing the bamboo. Tall poles a couple of inches thick covered with thorned leaves which dewed the back of his left hand with blood. Behind them, hidden by the foliage, gaped the open mouth of a cave.

Suddenly it filled with vicious life.

It came with a rush, a thing gleaming with chitin, mandibles open, faceted eyes reflecting the sun as if they had been rubies. A centipede-like insect three feet long nine inches thick, multiple legs covered with cruel spines which ripped and tore at Dumarest's arm as the mandibles reached to close on his throat.

Closing on his left forearm instead as he swung it up to block the attack.

The creature doubling to drive its sting into his face.

Dumarest felt the rasp of the body as he jerked his head aside, kicking so as to drive himself out and away from the ledge. Spinning, dropping, he reached for his knife, lifting it as the insect scrabbled at his arm, the sting slamming against his shoulder. Acid stung his cheek as he stabbed upward, the blade digging deep into the armored body. A blow with little result and he freed the knife and slashed instead, the keen edge cutting deep before the sting, crippling, cutting again to lop off the last few segments of the writhing body.

Hurt, maimed, the creature twisted, raking Dumarest with mandible and spines, then reared up to catch the rope and run up it. Halting, it began to tear at the plaited strands.

'Angado!' Once weakened, the rope would break and he would fall a mile to end as a bloody pulp on the scree. 'Up, man! Up!'

A shout followed by a jerk which sent Dumarest crashing hard against the face of the cliff. Above him the insect slid down the rope, the upper half of its body twisting to take a new hold, to send the entire creature scuttling down toward Dumarest's head.

A moment and it was on him, mandibles tearing at his scalp, legs ripping at his eyes. Instinct drove the knife upward to cut, slash, stab at the ruby eyes, cut away the threshing legs. Ichor oozed from the lacerated body to dew him with odorous slime. Then, as Angado hauled at the rope, the thing fell away to drop, spinning, to the ground below.

'God!' Angado dropped the rope to help Dumarest as he climbed over the edge. 'Your face! What the hell happened?'

His face tightened when, later, Dumarest told him. Water from a canteen had washed away the ichor and slime and an ampule of drugs had ended the pain from the acid-burn of bites and scratches. But nothing could have saved his eyes and the lacerations on his brows told how close the sting had come.

'A thing like that living in the cliff. You were lucky, Earl. But maybe it was a loner.'

'No.'

'It could have been. A freak of some kind.' Angado wanted to be convinced. 'Or maybe they only lurk near the edge.'

Dumarest said, 'It had a lair behind that clump of bamboo. My guess is that we'll find others like it wherever there is cover. Other things too-the cliff is riddled with holes and they can't all be natural. And don't forget the wind.'

'What has that to do with it?'

'It blows from the ground out there to the cliff and it brings all sorts of things with it. Spores, seeds, insects, eggs, birds-anything which gets caught winds up here. Food, and where there's food there will be predators. I just happened to run into one.'

Angado walked to the edge and looked over. The sun, now in its descent, threw golden light over the slope, painting it with a false warmth and gentleness.

Returning to where Dumarest sat, he said, 'Aside from the insects could we climb down it?'

'With luck, maybe, but we'd need a hell of a lot of luck.' Dumarest met his eyes. 'With what I figure is lurking on the face it's impossible.'

'So we're stuck up here.'

'That's right. We're stuck-unless we can find another way down.'

* * *

That night they saw lights, faint glimmers far in the distance, blooming to die as if born from a struggling fire that sputtered and fumed and roared into new and angry life.

'A camp,' mused Angado. 'I guess you're right, Earl. It has to be a camp.'

'Maybe more than that.'

'Hunters, maybe, or-' Angado blinked. 'What?'

'Those reports I heard and the flash. The noises could have been sonic bangs high up and going away from us. If they had emanated at ground level we'd have run into them on the journey. The flash could have been from an Erhaft field.'

'Lavender?' Angado shook his head. 'A field is blue.'

'Normally, yes, but the air could have colored it.' Dumarest paused then added, 'Or there could have been another reason. Do you know anything about generators?'

'You're talking about a malfunction in the phase effect resulting in a spectrum drop.' Angado smiled with a flash of white teeth. 'We studied chromatic analysis of the Erhaft field during my last semester at university. The Daley-Ash University of Space Flight,' he added wryly. 'I guess you could say I know something about generators.'

'You surprise me.'

'Why? Because I act the dilettante?' Angado shrugged. 'I had an ambition when a child and tried to achieve it. I wanted to be someone who could do things. A doctor or an engineer, healing and building, even be an expert on something so I'd be respected. Family pride,' he said bitterly. 'A defense against family pressure. So I went to university and studied until I was told to stop wasting my time.'

'So you called it a bad dream and ran from it? The necessity of having to make a decision?'

'Call it that.' Angado was curt. 'A family can be a prison, Earl. You live by rules not of your making. You conform to ideals established before you were born. Play along and everything's fine. Step out of line and-' His hand slapped the ground as if he were squashing an insect. 'End of ambition. End of career. End of any pretense of freedom. So I sold out. Can you blame me?'

'That isn't my business. Could what I saw have been a ship?'

'It could and you know it. You've known it from the first.' Hope animated the younger man's face. 'That camp! If it was a ship you saw and the field was showing phase malfunction then it must have made an emergency landing. Which means-' He rose and stared at where they had seen the fire. 'It's still here, Earl. Still here. A way out of this damned trap!'

'If we can get to it.'

'What?' Angado slumped. 'I'd forgotten. That blasted cliff. How the hell can we get down it?'

'Tell me.'

'What's there to tell? We can't climb down. We can't slide or-' He broke off, shaking his head. 'No. The terminal velocity would be too great. Even with air-drogues we'd never make it and that's assuming we can find material to build sledges and a slope shallow enough to try it. I must have been crazy to think about it. So what else is left?'

Dumarest said, 'How about flying?'

'Hang gliders?' Angado was quick to assess the possibility. 'No. It could be done but we haven't the materials. The wing would have to be strong and so would the covering. If either went we'd be dead.' He frowned and said, 'But maybe a kite? Two kites, big ones, one for each of us? Earl, how can we build a couple of kites?'

'From bamboo,' said Dumarest. 'That can be got from the ledge. I'll go down at first light and get it, it'll be