shields, tipping the cone around so that its own attraction-repulsion balance brought it nearer and nearer to the ledge.
Horne pulled off his shirt and arranged it over the back of his seat, so that from a distance it would look as though someone was still sitting there.
'You too, Yso,” he said.
She stared at him, and he shouted, “Would you rather be modest or alive?'
Turning away from him, she peeled off her shirt and stretched it over the seat back. Then she sat hunched up with her arms folded across her front.
Horne had other things to think about. He helped Ewan out of his shirt one arm at a time while the cone flopped and heaved and side-slipped toward the ledge. “There,” he said, “that may satisfy them if they don't come too close.'
The ledge flew at them, tilted crazily.
'Be ready to jump,” said Ewan, “the instant we touch.'
Horne put his hand on the canopy release.
The cone cracked down hard on the ledge against the cliff face. Horne sprung the canopy. He practically threw Yso out. The cone toppled, tottered, and began to lift. Ewan jumped and landed on all fours. He was screaming at Horne. Horne saw the ledge going away from him and flung himself frantically into the air. He hit far too near the edge for comfort. Ewan grabbed him and dragged him in. They crouched together panting on the rock and watched the cone drift off, tossed and battered by the wind. When it was within shoo range, it was impossible to tell that the three bright shirts showing through the canopy had no people in them.
'All right,” said, Horne. “Let's find cover.'
They scuttled along the ledge and down into the crack, which was much bigger than it had looked from a distance and full of big boulders. They crawled in like three animals among the crevices and lay there, watching.
Their derelict cone drifted farther and farther away. Presently one of the Vellae cones dropped out of the overcast and spotted it. Apparently Ardric's force had split up for the search. The Vellae cone made one pass at the derelict and hit it squarely with a beam on the first try. It burst into flame and began a spiral plunge downward. The Vellae cone hit it again on the way down to make sure. It crashed out of sight into a maze of narrow rocky gorges. The Vellae cone rose up high and hovered.
Presently the rest of the force joined it. They watched for awhile until the last thin wisp of smoke had blown away. Then they lifted up and went whistling over the ridge toward Rillah.
Ewan said tightly, “It worked.'
Horne looked bitterly after Ardric and muttered, “Some day, so help me…'
Then the two men and the girl pulled themselves out from under the rocks and began the long and dangerous climb down to whatever lay below.
By Earth reckoning the descent would have taken them about a day and a half. This being Skereth, the sky was still burning with the furious colors of sunset when they stood above the last slope and looked out over the most God-forsaken badland Horne had ever seen on any world.
Red and purple and yellow sky, above red and yellow, brown and purple and sandy rock. And the rock was cut and gouged and churned as though in incitation of the stormy clouds above it, then frozen by some gorgon breath into a permanent nightmare.
There was no place to go but on. Thirst and hunger were vital things with them now. There might be water in some of those crazy cracks and where there was water there might also be food.
They went on, stumbling and staggering, while the glaring colors turned somber and died out of the sky and were dimmed in the rocks beneath, and gradually everything was made to look softened and lovely in the long, long twilight.
They didn't find any water. They found fine dry sand at the bottom of a serpentine crevice, and they followed the sandy bed partly because it was easier walking and partly because they no longer had a very clear idea of what they were doing.
Instinct and reaction still functioned. Horne stopped suddenly, reaching for his stunner. It was oddly heavy in his hand and he had difficulty gripping it. Yso stopped too and went down on her knees and Ewan stumbled over her.
'Quiet,” mumbled Horne. “Listen.'
In the twilight and the empty rock, somewhere near them, something moved, and it did not move like anything human.
CHAPTER X
It had been a quick and furtive sound, as though some creature scurried out of sight to lie in wait around the next bend of the crevice. Horne shook his head violently to clear the cobwebs out of it.
Ewan had his gun out. It was a much more formidable weapon than Horne's stunner, which he guessed was almost exhausted of its charge anyway.
'Stay here with Yso,” he said to Ewan. “I'll try and see what it is.'
He started forward, one step at a time. He was very tired and curiously reluctant for any more fighting. He wanted to lie down and die, or sleep, he didn't much care which, so long as it was restful. But he went on toward the dark pillar of rock, dragging his feet.
A voice spoke to him. It was a very queer, creaking, rusty voice with long-drawn sibilants and a general sound as though human speech was a trial to it.
'Don't ssshoot,” it said. “Pleassse. I am friend.'
Horne stopped, a quiver running down his backbone. “Friend, are you?” he said harshly. “Then why are you hiding?'
'People ssshoot,” said the voice. “Too quick. I have food and water for you. Pleassse?'
Horne laughed. “You do, huh? For us. That's fine. But it's kind of a silly lie. You couldn't possibly know anything about us.'
The voice said, “Fife hass a radio. He heard the talk of the Vellae.'
'Fife?'
'Our leader.'
'But the Vellae thought we were dead.'
'We were closer to the wreckage than they. There were no bodies in it. Fife sssaid you got away. We have been looking for you all this time.'
'Who are you?” Horne said.
'I am Chell of Chorann.'
Horne remembered Chorann. It was one of the remotest worlds of the Fringe, beyond even Allamar, far out on the rim of the galaxy. He had touched there just once, in a ship carrying machinery to a mine project that had been established there. The mine-clearing had been nothing but a pinpoint opening enclosed by the vast, glowering, grotesque forests of that world. The engineers at the mine had spoken of the mysterious form of life that drifted in those mighty forests, aloof, never showing itself in friendliness, glimpsed only as flitting shadows. The memory of that did not make Horne feel any great rush of confidence in the unseen creature who called himself Chell.
He said, “Yes, but who are you with? Where's your group? You said ‘we'.'
Chell answered quietly, “We are those few who have escaped from the Vellae slave-pens.'
Yso caught her breath and stood up. She came forward.
'Tell him to come out, Horne. I want to talk to him.'
'Don't ssshoot?” said Chell.
'Not unless you do something you shouldn't,” Horne said.
There was the faint sound, louder and less furtive this time, but still in some way not human. A peculiar shadow moved out slowly from behind the rock, taking on bulk and solidity in the twilight gloom.'
'Sssee?” said Chell, without rancor. “It is safer for usss of Chorann to ssspeak first.'
