After everyone was served, a white-haired half-man who seemed to be in charge of the group grunted something to the most firm-breasted female. She looked as if she was about to disagree or refuse him, then thought better of it. Timidly, as if she were frightened near to death of Salsbury, she edged up to the ledge where he rested and placed a bowl of gruel in front of him, then skittered nervously out of the cavern into an adjoining room, much to the delight of the men who guffawed and chortled like a bunch of schoolboys planning deviltry of the first order.
Victor had not eaten since that half sandwich hours before entering the portal between probabilities, for he had been too nervous. Since then, he had been put through quite a bit and was nearly physically exhausted. Yet he could not bring himself to eat the soupy mixture that had been placed before him. It was the color of polluted water and swimming within it were bits of dark, stringy meat of questionable origin. The smell that rolled off the surface of the stuff was reminiscent of spoiled meat, rotting vegetables, and stale corn soup. He gagged, shoved it aside, and looked back to the rest of the assemblage.
Keeper and the others were eating heartily and talking animatedly among themselves like women at a card party. The only difference was that these gossipers did not smell of perfumed soaps and bath powders. And they lacked the table manners those matrons would have shown.
The women were called, and everyone had a second bowl of the slop except Salsbury who only wished they would remove his first uneaten portion. Some of the women smiled toothy yellow smiles, and he suspected they were being complimented on their culinary finesse. ?The firm-breasted half-woman who had gingerly offered him a bowl of gruel took it away, looking at him strangely, as if she could not fathom why an inferior creature like him would not go for civilized food.
When everyone was finished, and when Salsbury had become a rather accepted phenomena, the other half- man who had been with Keeper produced the gas pellet pistol and held it aloft for the assembly to inspect. There were a number of startled grunts, and Victor received several stares of re-evaluation. The only place they would have seen something that well machined would have been down the mountainside in the vacii settlement. Surely the vacii had come among them-though perhaps the aliens would not have bothered experimenting on such a raggedy, moronic group as this-and would have left reminders of their superiority by demonstrating their weaponry a few times.
?Put that down!? Salsbury shouted.
They looked at him stupidly.
?You'll kill each other!? That was not really such a bad prospect, but they might also kill him in the process.
The white-haired half-man took the gun from the other's paw and turned it over and over, fascinated with the knobs, lines of design. He was intelligent enough to see just how it was meant to be held, though his own fingers were too large to grasp it as delicately as was intended. His fingers brushed the trigger, fired a pellet into the chest of the half-man who had brought the gun into the caves in the first place.
The creature's chest seemed to expand as if it were a balloon being blown up by a giant with fantastic lung capacity. Then it burst outward, showering gore on those seated nearby. The half-man looked down curiously at its ruined body, grunted something the others of its kind didn't even seem to understand, turned and stared at Salsbury with swiftly glazing eyes, then slumped forward- dead.
The chief dropped the gun, hooting insanely, and danced to his feet, much more agile than he appeared. He was in a fury, waving his arms about, chanting over the fallen body. When he was finished, the corpse had not moved even a fraction of an inch as all of them seemed to expect it might. Keeper reached out and rolled his friend over. Together the half-men inspected the gaping hole that revealed their ex-comrade's innards. Then, almost as one organism, they turned to stare at Salsbury where he sat on the ledge.
Salsbury felt like stone.
He knew they were thinking of breaking him down into gravel any moment now.
He stood, nervously watching them.
They were a tableau, frozen on different ends of the room. In their eyes, Salsbury was the bad guy, they were the good guys. After all, he was the odd fellow. He was the one who had brought evil magic into their snug little haven when they had been asleep dreaming half-men dreams of half-women. His gun, his evil magic, had killed their buddy. It made no difference to them that their own stupidity was involved.
Before any of them could move, Salsbury jumped from the ledge, hit the cave floor running, and burst through the archway into the room from which the half-women had brought the soup earlier.
The women were still there, squatted about the room chittering to one another, their fingers messy with gruel, the hair around their mouths matted with revolting streaks of wet food. When Salsbury broke in on them, the four of them screamed and darted into a corner, huddling together, their eyes wide under the deep shelves of their heavy foreheads. He spotted another tunnel leading away from this chamber and started across the room toward it. He would have to pass within a few feet of the women, and he didn't like to think what would happen if one of them built up enough courage to swat at him. Baring his teeth and building his voice into a stentorian roar, he shouted: ?Aarrrggghhh!? at the top of his lungs.
The half-women screamed and tried to crawl on top of one another. While they were thus engaged, trying to press farther into the corner, he went through the archway into the new tunnel and ran as fast as his weary legs would carry him. It would not be fast enough, he knew, for he could remember with what ease Keeper had loped past him in the forest.
In time with his fears, the white-haired chief and the rest of the pack entered the tunnel a hundred feet behind. Salsbury put on speed, then saw that he was running into more trouble instead of away from it. Ahead, in the cavern into which this passage fed, a lamp was lit and glowed cheery red. In that glow, he could see other half-men coming awake, roused by his pursuers who were screeching and hooting furiously.
He stopped-though every nerve in his body screamed to him to move-and searched the walls which were shot through with small, dead-end caves. One of these looked deeper than the rest; at least he could not see the back of it. Besides, it was only wide enough to admit a man. The gorilla-like morons would have a devil of a time trying to come in after him.
He didn't know what good it would do to gain a temporary respite. Did he really think dying of thirst or starving was any better than being torn apart by the local savages? You're damned right he did! Because he could imagine how slow a process the half-men would make of his death. Savages enjoyed torturing their enemies. He did not want to be their plaything. He crawled into the opening and wriggled into the cave to a place where it widened out enough for him to turn around. Just then, the chiefs face appeared at the opening, glaring in at him.
Salsbury backed up another foot, then settled down to see what would happen. The chief reached in with a long, filthy arm and groped for him, but the creature's fingers were a good five feet short of their target. Salsbury breathed a sigh of relief that he felt fully in every cell of his being. The chief withdrew his arm, mumbled with the others for a time. Several more of them took their chance, but none of them was long-armed enough.
Fifteen minutes passed without any action.
That was just enough time to give Salsbury a chance to calm down and consider the direness of his predicament. Seventy-six worldlines away from Lynda? Stranded miles from the vacii ship which held his only chance of return? Trapped in a cave just out of reach of a horde of gabbling, lame-brained monkeymen? If he had been a betting man, he would not have placed more than twenty cents on his chances of living out the night. Or even the next hour, for that matter.
Soon the half-men were back. They had put their meager IQ's together and devised a plan. There was a rattling and scraping sound, a dimming of the light as the chief blocked the entrance again. Then something jabbed Salsbury hard on the shoulder, retreated, came back again, skinning the side of his face. They had cut a long stick, had sharpened the end, and were poking him with it in hopes of killing him, or wounding him sufficiently to make him crawl out where they could reach him.
He took two more jabs, the last of which broke the skin on his shoulder, then reached out and grasped the stick, thrust it backwards with all his might. He caught the chief off guard. The other end of the pole slipped through his paws and rammed him solidly in the chest. He heard the beast make a whuffing sound and suck in new breath. The stick was withdrawn and not used again.
But they were working their fevered little minds overtime to come up with something, and for a few terrible moments, it seemed as if they had hit upon a good idea. One of them brought a torch to the mouth of the cave and held it inside. A thin column of smoke was carried back to him. Another half-man collected a pile of grass and
