He shared out supplies, noting that the animals made no move to hunt their own food.
“Hunting bad?”
Simba regarded the now gray-black mass of vegetation.
“There is hunting—for others—“
“Others—“ That word might not echo in the air, but it did repeat itself in Troy’s mind. He tried not to think of the captive in the web. Yes, there had been cruel hunting for others here.
“That which caught the man?” Against his will almost, Troy pressed the point. Did darkness activate what the recaller had summoned out of the past? With that thrust of apprehension, to be fed by his species’ age-old distrust of the dark, Troy put out a hand to gather up the supply bag. Tired as he was, he had the atom torch, and he could keep going on the ramp until he dropped rather than face that weaver of webs. The residue of terror here bit at him now.
“No.” Simba seemed assured of that. “Other things— this their place—“
As though on cue there came a cry out of the miniature jungle, a long, wavering screech that was made up of pain, terror, and the approach of death. Yet it was no cry that could have come from any animal he had ever known. And those he did know retreated, edging in around him, their heads turned to the jungle, their eyes alert, their lips lifted in snarls of warning.
“Out of here!” Troy’s torch snapped on. “Up—“
He did not have to urge. The foxes sprang from the camp site to the ramp; the kinkajou was already racing after them. As Troy, carrying Sahiba and the bag, started that same climb, Simba fell in behind, looking back over his shoulder now and again, a low growl coming from his throat to warn off would-be trailers.
They went on climbing, the torch showing only the rise before them. Soon they were above the surface of the garden cavern, now in a sloping tunnel enclosed by rock walls.
They came to a level with corridors starring out at five different points, bare corridors in which his torch showed the dust disturbed, perhaps by the feet of the men who had planted the recaller and died for it.
Another length of walled-in climbing, then again corridors—four this time.
Troy’s ribs ached; his breath came in heaving gasps. More and more often he had to pause to rest. But he was driven now by the need to gain the open air and the world he knew. How long that climb continued he could not have told, for at last he moved through a daze of fatigue, weaving and staggering from wall to wall on the ramp, no longer aware of any communication with the animals, or even if they were still with him. It seemed that the residue of terror that had sent him out of that cavern grew stronger instead of weaker as he went, until it blanketed out his normal reactions and whipped him on and on—
Then there was gray light—and cool air, fresh air—air that bore with it the burden of fine rain, but which cleansed him and fought the shadows in his mind. Troy reeled, caught at a block of masonry, dimly conscious that he was out in the open now and that he was done. With that crumbling wall as a prop to keep him from crashing on his face, he slid down and lay on his back, the soft steady rain pouring over his face and body, plastering his clothing to him.
“Danger!” That word rang in his head as a shout might have torn at his eardrums. Troy raised his head groggily. The rain was over. There was a patch of sunlight on the ground just beyond his hand. He shook his head, trying to wake up fully.
Then he heard more than that mental warning. He heard the sound made by a flitter hovering over a ‘landing site in a cramped space. A flitter!
More by instinct than by any conscious move, Troy drew back against the wall that had given him partial shelter, trying to locate the machine, which, by the sound, must be very close. Around him were the domes and walls of surface Ruhkarv. There could be only one reason why anyone had invaded this forbidden territory—they must have traced him here. And who were “they”? The patrollers, Zul—or the rangers on their usual duty of keeping the unauthorized out of this danger zone?
For the first time he looked about for the animals. And they were nowhere to be seen. Even the injured Sahiba had disappeared. Yet they had warned him mentally—or had they? Perhaps he was only still tuned in on some wave length of their intercommunication.
The sound of the flitter grew louder, and Troy tried to squeeze his bulk smaller in the shadow of the wall. He saw the flyer as it crossed between two domes. It was that of a ranger.
Troy crept backward, angling toward the mouth of the ramp. He discovered that the fact he might be the object of an air search removed a great deal of the nebulous distaste he had known in the depths. Then, to his astonishment, for he had felt very naked and plainly in sight, he watched the flitter keep straight on course and vanish behind the rise of another dome, the sound of its passing dying away in the distance. With a sigh of relief he sat up.
“Simba, Sahiba—“ He pictured the cats in his mind, aimed his mental call.
“One comes.”
Troy was not sure of the direction of that ambiguous answer.
“The flitter has gone.” He tried to reassure the furred company, to summon one of them into sight.
“One comes.” It was repeated. “One comes from the big man.”
From the big man—Kyger! Zul?
“Where?” Troy pushed that effort at communication to the top pitch he could hold. For a long moment he feared they had cut their contact, refusing to answer. Then Shang frisked around the smell of the dome behind which the flitter had disappeared, showed himself to Troy, and was gone again.
With far less speed and agility the man followed that lead, crossing the space between wall and dome with care as to his path but as quickly as he could. Then, one hand braced against the side of the structure, the other gripping his stunner, he began a slow and, he hoped, a noiseless journey. He could hear the buzz of a few insects. But there were no birds here, no sign of life in this desolation that was the upper cover of Ruhkarv. And he caught no sign of the animals save that momentary glimpse of Shang.
Fourteen
Perhaps it was because his body was pressed so tightly to the masonry of the dome that Troy caught the first vibration, a faint tingle through blood and bone that was familiar, bringing with it a vague memory of darkness and suspense.
That throb grew faster, and it pulled, pulled against his intelligence, against the need for caution, making Troy want to run toward its source.
He battled that impulse, holding to cover, but moving on with that hardly heard beat for his goal, that thrumming which registered on his nerves and muscles before it did on his eardrums. And along with his involuntary answer to that call, there came now an- other emotion—not his, but the animals’! A desperation—the hopeless fear of bound and helpless prisoners.
Tasting their fear, Troy guessed the truth. Some- where ahead Zul was using the cylinder that had rested in Kyger’s lifeless hands. And the animals, conditioned to answer its summons, were being drawn to their own end without any chance to fight for their freedom. Just as that cord within him, which was able to serve as a communicating link from their brains to his, was also responding—
Only he had not been conditioned—he could fight back! And Zul would lead him straight to where he wanted to go.
Troy ceased to resist, allowed his hidden compass to guide him. But, though he followed the line of that infernal piping, he still kept to cover.
Between two more domes, then into a space of open land with straight towers of rock outcrops. As soon as Troy was sure of his goal, he swung to the right, pulling out of the direct line of the piping, circling to bring up to the rear of the suspected ambush. Was Zul alone? So much depended upon that.
Troy reached the first of the rock outcrops, went in a half stoop to round it and thread a path of his own. The piping still continued, which meant that Zul had not yet pulled the animals out of hiding. But, as Troy came to the tallest pillar in that broken land, it stopped abruptly, and then he knew that he must trade caution for speed.
His stunner ready, he whipped around the base of that tower to find the scene he had expected. Zul was there, and between his knees was the tube from Kyger’s chambers. He had one hand still cupping its length. The other, with wrist steadied on the head of the cylinder, grasped a blaster. While facing him, crouching, snarling, betraying in their tense bodies their hatred and their fear—and helplessness—were the animals.