I slipped the rifle off my shoulder and held it ready. The sliding sand carried me slowly down the dune, whispering as it slid. When I had slid so far that I could no longer see over the crest of the dune, I set off at an angle to the left and began to climb again, crouching to keep my head down. Twenty feet from the top I got down and crawled flat against the sand. When my eyes came over the crest and I could see the birdcage once again, I froze, digging in my toes to keep from sliding back.
Below the cage, I saw, was a scar of disturbed sand and even as I watched, new blobs of sand broke loose beneath the, cage and went trickling down the slope. It had not been long ago, I was sure, that the cage had impacted on the dune crest-the sand disturbed by its landing had not as yet reached a state of equilibrium and the scar was fresh.
Impacted seemed a strange word, and yet reason told me that it must have impacted, for it was most unlikely that anyone had placed it there. A ship of some sort, perhaps, although a strange sort of ship, not enclosed, but fashioned only of a frame. And if, as I thought, it were indeed a ship, it must have carried life and the life it carried was either dead within it or somewhere nearby.
I glanced slowly up and down the length of the dune and there, far to the right of where the birdcage lay, was a faint furrow, a sort of toboggan slide, plunging from the crest downward into the shadow that lay between the dunes. I strained to penetrate the shadows, but could make out nothing. I’d have to get closer to that toboggan slide.
I backed off down the dune and went spidering across it, angling to the right this time. I moved as cautiously as I could to keep down the sound of the sliding sand that broke free and went hissing down the dune face as I moved. There might be something over on the other side of that dune, listening for any sign of life.
When I thrust the upper part of my head over the dune crest, I still was short of the toboggan slide, but much closer to it and from the hollow between the dunes came a sliding, scraping sound. Straining my ears, it seemed to me that I caught some motion in the trough, but could not be sure. The Sound of sliding and of scraping stopped and then began again and once more there was a hint of movement. I slid my rifle forward so that in an instant I could aim it down into the trough.
I waited.
The slithering sound stopped, then started once again and something moved down there (I was sure of it this time) and something moaned. All sound came to an end.
There was no use of waiting any longer.
“Hello down there!” I called.
There was no answer.
“Hello,” I called again.
It could be, I realized, that I was dealing with something so far removed from my own sector of the galaxy that the space patois familiar to that sector was not used by it and that we would have no communications bridge.
And then a quavering, hooting voice answered. At first it was just a noise, then, as I wrestled with the noise, I knew it to be a word, a single hooted question.
“Friend?” had been the word, “Friend,” I answered.
“In need am I of friend,” the hooting voice said. “Please to advance in safety. I do not carry weapon.”
“I do,” I said, a little grimly.
“Of it, there is no need,” said the thing down in the shadows. “I am trapped and helpless.”
“That is your ship up there?”
“Ship?”
“Your conveyance.”
“Truly so, dear friend. It have come apart. It is inoperative.”
“I’m coming down,” I told it. “I’ll have my weapon on you. One move out of you…”
“Come then,” the hooter croaked. “No move out of me. I shall lie supine.”
I came to my feet and went across the top of that dune as quickly as I could and plunging down the other slope, crouched to present as small a target as was possible. I kept the rifle trained on that shadowed area from which the voice came.
I slid into the trough and crouched there, bending low to sight up its length. Then I saw it, a hump of blackness lying very still.
“All right,” I called. “Move toward me now.”
The hump heaved and wallowed, then lay still again, “Move,” it said, “I cannot.”
“OK, then. Lie still. Do not move at all.”
I ran forward and stopped. The hump lay still. It did not even twitch.
I moved closer, watching it intently. Now I could see it better. From the front of its head a nest of tentacles sprouted, now lying limply on the ground. From its rather massive head, if the tentacle-bearing portion of it actually was its head, its body tapered back, four feet or so, and ended in a bluntness. It seemed to have no feet or arms. With those tentacles, perhaps, it had no need of arms. It wore no clothing, upon its body was no sign of any sort of harness. The tentacles grasped no tool or weapon.
“What is your trouble?” I asked. “What can I do for you?”
The tentacles lifted, undulating like a basketful of snakes. The hoarse voice came out of a mouth which the tentacles surrounded.
“My legs are short,” it said. “I sink. They do not carry me. With them I only churn up sand. I dig with them a deeper pit beneath me.”
Two of the tentacles, with eyes attached to their tips, were aimed directly at me. They looked me up and down.
“I can hoist you out of there.”
“It would be a useless gesture,” the creature said. “I’d bog down again.”
The tentacles which served as eye-stalks moved up and down, measuring me.
“You are large,” it croaked; “Have you also strength?”
“You mean to carry you?”
“Only to a place,” the creature said, “where there is firmness under me.”
“I don’t know of such a place,” I said.
“You do not know… Then you are not a native of this planet.”
“I am not,” I said. “I had thought, perhaps, that you…
“Of this planet, sir?” it asked. “No self-respecting member of my race would deign to defecate upon such a planet.”
I squatted down to face him.
“How about the ship?” I asked. “If I could get you back up the dune to it…”
“It would not help,” he told me. “There is nothing there.”
“But there must be. Food and water…”
And I was, I must admit, considerably interested in the water.
“No need of it,” he said. “I travel in my second self and I need no food or water. Slight protection from the openness of space and a little heat so my living tissues come to no great harm.”
For the love of God, I asked myself, what was going on? He was in his second self and while I wondered what it might be all about, I was hesitant to ask. I knew how these things went. First surprise or horror or amazement that there could exist a species so ignorant or so inefficient that it did not have the concept, the stammering attempt to explain the basics of it, followed by a dissertation on the advantages of the concept and the pity that was felt for ones who did not have it Either that or the entire thing was taboo and not to be spoken of and an insult to even hint at what it might entail.
And that business about his living tissues. As if there might be more to him than simply living tissues.
It was all right, of course. A man runs into some strange things when he wanders out in space, but when he runs into them he can usually dodge them or disregard them and here I could do neither.
I had to do something to help this creature out, although for the life of me I couldn’t figure just how I could help him much. I could pick him up and lug him back to where the others waited, but once I’d got him there he’d be no better off than he was right here. But I couldn’t turn about and walk away and simply leave him there. He at least deserved the courtesy of someone demonstrating that they cared what happened to him.
From the time I had seen the ship and had realized that it was newly crashed, the idea had arisen, of course, that aboard it I might find food and water and perhaps other articles that the four of us could use. But now, I admitted, the entire thing was a complete and total washout. I couldn’t help this creature and he was no help to us and the whole thing wound up as just another headache and being stuck with him.