I took a look at Sara and she was – somewhat mussed. Her natty explorer outfit was wrinkled and dusty and she had a dark smudge across one cheek.
I grinned at her. Through it all, I saw, she’d hung onto her rifle. I wondered if she had it glued to her.
Something small and running very fast went past me and then another one and as the tiny runners burst out onto the ramp I saw they were ratlike creatures. Each of them grabbed one of the bouncing pellets in their mouth, grabbing them even as they bounced, and then they were coming back, with their rodent teeth locked about the pellets.
From the darkness behind us came a rustling sound, interspersed with squeaks, and a second later hundreds of those ratlike creatures were pouring past us, running between our feet, bumping against our legs in their maddened haste, all heading for the ramp and the bouncing pellets.
With the coming of the ratlike horde, the hobbies had scurried to one side, beyond the doorway, to get out of the way. We followed the hobbies. The little scurrying animals paid us no attention. Their only interest were the pellets and they dashed back and forth, fetching and carrying as if their lives depended on it, running into one another, leaping over one another, each one for itself.
Outside the dark balls kept coming in, bursting with dull thumps, continuing to scatter pellets.
Hoot came over beside me, pulled up his feet and collapsed upon his belly. He let his tentacles down upon the floor.
“They harvest food,” he said, “against the coming of the great hunger.”
I nodded. It made sense, of course. The dark balls were pods filled with seeds and this broadcasting of them was the method by which the trees could give them distribution. But they likewise were something more than pods of seed. They could be used as weapons and they had been used on us. As if the tree had been aware of us and once we’d come in range, had opened fire. If the range had been a little shorter and if we’d been trapped out in the open, they could have done us damage. My ribs still ached from the hit I’d taken and there was a little scratch along one cheek that was very tender. We had been extremely lucky that the building had been close.
Sara sat down upon the floor and laid her rifle in her lap.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Tired is all,” she said. “I suppose there is no reason we can’t camp right here.”
I looked around and saw that Tuck had gotten off his hobby, but Smith still was sitting in the saddle, bolt upright, as straight as he could sit, with his head held tall and rigid, twisted a little to one side, as if he were listening. On his face he still wore that idiotic, terrifying happiness.
“Tuck,” I said, “would you and George unload the hobbies. I’ll look around for wood.”
We had a camp stove with us, but there was no sense in using up the fuel if we could rustle wood. And there is, as well, something to be said in favor of a campfire as a thing to sit around and talk.
“I can’t get him down,” said Tuck, almost weeping. “He won’t listen to me. He won’t pay attention.”
“What’s the matter with him? Was he hit?”
“I don’t think so, captain. I think he has arrived.”
“You mean the voice…”
“Right here in this building,” said Tuck. “At one time it might have been a temple. It has a religious look to it.”
From the outside, come to think of it, it had had a churchy look but you couldn’t get much idea of how it looked inside. By the door, with the sunlight slanting from the west, there was plenty of light, but other than that the interior was dark.
“We can’t leave him sitting there all night,” I said. “We’ve got to get him down. You and I together can pull him from the saddle.”
“Then what?” asked Tuck.
“What do you mean then what?”
“We take him down tonight. What do we do tomorrow?”
“Why, hell,” I said, “that’s simple. If he doesn’t snap out of it, we boost him in the saddle. Tie him on so he can’t fall off.”
“You mean you’d cart him off again when be finally had arrived? When he had finally reached the place he’s been yearning toward for a great part of his life?”
“What are you trying to say?” I yelled. “That we should hunker down and squat right here and never leave because this blubbering idiot. . .”
“I must remind you, captain,” Tuck said, nastily, “that it was this blubbering idiot who charted the way for us. If it had not been for him. . .”
“Gentlemen,” said Sara, getting to her feet, “please lower your voices. I don’t know if you realize it, captain, but we may not be leaving here as soon as you might think.”
“Not leaving here,” I said, between my teeth. “What is there to stop us?”
She gestured toward the doorway. “Our friend, the tree,” she said, “has us zeroed in. I’ve been watching. All the stuff he’s throwing at us is landing on the ramp. There aren’t any misses. It would be worth your life to step outside that door. Fast as they are moving and little as they are, those seed-gathering animals are taking casualties,”
I saw that the ramp still seemed alive with the bouncing, dancing seeds and here and there upon it lay tiny bodies, limp and motionless.
“The tree will get tired of it,” I said. “It will run out of energy or out of ammunition.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, captain. How tall would you say that tree might be. Four miles? Five miles? With foliage from a few hundred feet off the ground to its very top. The spread of the foliage at its widest point close to a mile, perhaps. How many seed pods do you think a tree like that might bear?”
I knew that she was right. She had it figured out. If the tree wanted to, it could keep us pinned down for days.
“Dobbin,” I said, “maybe you can tell us what is going on. Why is the tree pegging pods at us?”
“Noble sir,” said Dobbin, “nothing will I tell you. I go with you. I carry your possessions. No further will I do. No information will we give and no help. Most shabbily you have treated us and in my heart I cannot find the reasons for doing further for you.”
Hoot came ambling out of the dark interior of the building, his tentacles waving, the eyes on the end of the two of them shining in the light.
“Mike,” he hooted at me, “a curious feel this place has about it. Of old mysteries. Of much time and strangeness. There be something here, a something that falls minutely short of a someone being.”
“So you think so, too,” I said.
I had another look at Smith. He hadn’t moved a muscle. He still sat bolt upright in the saddle and his face still was frozen with that dreadful happiness. The guy was no longer with us. He was a universe away.
“In many ways,” said Hoot, “there is a comfort in it, but so strange a comfort that one must quail in fear at the concept of it. I speak, you understand, as an observer only. One such as I can take no part in such a comfort. Much better comfort and refuge can I have if I so desire. But it be information I impart most willingly if it be of service.”
“Well,” said Sara, “are you two going to get George down off that hobby or do you plan to leave him there?’
“It looks to me,” I said, “as if it makes no difference to him if he stays up there or not, but let us get him down.”
Tuck and I between us hauled him from the saddle and lugged him across the floor and propped him up against the wall beside the door. He was limp and unresisting and he made no sign to indicate that he was aware of what was going on.
I went over to one of the hobbies and unlashed a pack. Rummaging in it, I found a flashlight.
“Come on, Hoot,” I said. “I’m going to scout around and see if I can find some wood. There must be some old furniture or such.”
Moving back into the building, I saw that it was not as dark as I had thought at first. It was the contrast of the brightness of the sunlight pouring through the door that had made it seem so dark. But neither was it light. An eerie sort of twilight filled the place like smoke and we moved through it as though we moved through fog. With Hoot pattering along beside me, we went deeper into the interior of the building. There wasn’t much to see. The walls were blocked out by the twilight mist. Here and there objects loomed up darkly. Far overhead a glint of light showed here and there, let in by some chink or window. Off to our right flowed a tide of busy little ratlike creatures harvesting the seeds. I shone the light on them and little red, burning eyes glowed fiercely back at us. I snapped off the light. They gave me the creeps.