He moved toward the
Ysanne said, 'We should stay here for a while. Search for gems, spices, things to sell. New catalysts will cost money and there'll be other expenses. If we set up camp and went hunting we could smoke the meat and make a decent trade. Hides for leather and there could be furs.'
'From the beasts which don't exist?'
'Damn you, Earl. You know what I mean.'
A cargo for the gathering and anything it fetched would be a bonus-but the price of collecting it could be too high.
Leaning close Batrun said quietly, 'That check you asked me to make, Earl.'
'Yes?'
'Positive.'
The final proof of sabotage if it were needed and by his admission the captain had proved his innocence. Dumarest looked at the woman, sitting with her face turned toward the stars, lost in euphoric imaginings born of alcoholic stimulus.
She said, not looking at him, 'The drums, Earl. What's happened to the drums?'
Rising, Dumarest stared at the ship. Craig had had more than enough time to have reached the vessel and switched to fresh tanks. The base-port was open to throw a fan of light into the darkness. As Dumarest neared it, rifle in hand, he saw its edge broken by the silhouette of the engineer.
'Jed?'
'I thought I saw something.' Craig turned to face Dumarest as he approached. 'A movement over there. See?' His hand lifted to point. 'Near that big tree.'
It reared to one side at the edge of the fan of brilliance. Tall, spined, crested with fronds. Small points caught and reflected the light in transient gleams. An oddity, gnarled, distorted-vegetation shaped and fashioned by the conflict of local forces.
A tree where none had stood before.
A thing alive-betrayed by the quivering of its bulk.
Dumarest said, 'Get the others into the ship and stand by to seal the hull.'
'Earl? What-?'
'Do it!'
Lifting the rifle Dumarest fired as nightmare flowered before him.
It was big, fast, darting from where it had stood, then freezing, to lunge forward again as another bullet followed the first. The missiles appeared to do no damage as the thing changed from the likeness of a tree into something bizarre which scuttled in the fan of light and lashed the air with barbed whips.
Dumarest jumped back and heard the thin, vicious hiss of parting air. Felt the jar as something hit his leg just above the knee. The blow ripped plastic to reveal the protective mesh buried beneath the surface. Beads of yellow fluid edged the rip and scarred the metal with acid fury.
'Earl!' Ysanne called, shocked into sudden sobriety. 'My God! Earl!'
He saw the flash of her movement and ignored it as the thing lunged, spined legs tearing at the loam. A thing like an insect, a mass of fronds covering serrated claws, feathery tufts masking questing antennae. Spawn of this bleak world attracted by their scent and hungry for the kill. Dumarest fired again, knowing the bullet had hit but seeing no sign of damage. The missile could have passed through the creature or been absorbed by woodlike tissue.
Again he heard the hiss of parting air and threw himself down and to one side as living whips cut the space he had occupied. The rifle blasted as he rolled, again as he rose, and from one side he caught the livid beam of a laser.
Ysanne firing, wasting her time, betraying her position.
'Stand clear!' he yelled. 'Spread out and stand clear!'
The thing reared a little as they obeyed, ridged protuberances lifting to track the sound of their passage, palps working beneath a waited crust. Camouflage carried to the extreme; living plants growing on the monstrous body, hiding it, masking its outlines. But the move had shown where to find the head.
Dumarest fired, traversing the area in an effort to hit the eyes. Splinters flew and the spiteful whine of ricochets filled the air. Again the bullets had done no apparent harm.
Ysanne called, 'Earl! Maybe I can draw it away!'
Using her laser as a goad, but the thing was too big and too well protected for the handgun to have any real effect.
'Earl?'
'Leave it! Wait!'
The thing was at rest and could be studied. A creature which had adopted a bizarre camouflage; the bullets had ricocheted from stone and now he could see branches and slabs of slaty material among the fronds. A pattern-there had to be a pattern. All things of the wild followed instinctive procedures in order to ensure survival. To hunt, to wait, to lurk until ready to strike. To be attracted by motion…
'Freeze!' yelled Dumarest. 'Don't move!'
'For how long?' Craig spoke from one side, his voice tense. 'How do we get into the ship?'
Batrun was calmer. 'A plan, Earl? You have a plan?'
He had a plan based on his knowledge of the wild. Of crabs which adorned their carapaces with shells and fragments of stone and weed in order to appear other than what they were. If the creature followed similar dictates they had a chance.
As he explained Ysanne said, 'Earl! You're crazy! We-'
'Have no choice.' He was curt, impatient. 'Once it drives us from the ship we'll be helpless.'
They'd be left to starve, unprotected from the elements, the prey of other, similar creatures eager to feast. Dumarest narrowed his eyes as he checked distances. The door spilling the fan of light was twenty yards from where he now stood. The creature was about thirty yards from the vessel-and its whiplike tendrils had left scars on the hull.
A race; unless Dumarest reached the door and passed through it before the creature could strike he would be dead.
'Ready?' He sucked air as Ysanne answered in the affirmative, hyperventilating his lungs. 'Now!'
She fired, aiming at the head, the invisible eyes. A moment of distraction which Dumarest used as he threw himself toward the port. A step from it and he heard the whine of parting air. As he reached it something rasped against the metal above his head. As he dived into the opening a slashing blow hammered across his back, hurling him forward to roll in agony on the deck as fire surged in his kidneys. Pain he set to one side as he lunged at the row of newly filled tanks.
They were four feet tall, squatly round, fitted with a standard valve. Dumarest grabbed one, tasting blood as he heaved, feeling sweat bead his face and neck as he dragged it to the port. The opening swam before him as he lifted the weight, holding it poised in his hands. Before him, blotched by his shadow, the alien creature waited in watchful immobility.
'Now!' yelled Craig. He threshed at the vegetation. 'Now!'
The noise attracted the beast, and the motion caused it to spin, tendrils lashing. As it moved, Dumarest lunged through tide port, arms swinging beneath the weight of the tank, muscles exploding in a burst of energy to send it hurling through the air. A brightly colored container which hit and rolled and came to rest close to the creature's bulk.
The thing froze. It became a nightmare shape of blurred configurations then, after an eternity, it moved with cautious slowness, inching toward the container, touching it, a claw rolling the cylinder.
Opening to grip it, to lift it closer to the masked head. The invisible eyes.
'Ysanne!' Dumarest threw himself toward the rifle. 'Hit it!'
She fired before he had landed, the beam of her laser impinging on the tank, its heat causing the paint to fume and vanish. The pulse-beam allowed vapor to dissipate so as better to heat the metal. Softening the prison containing the trapped gases.
