Travis tripped, staggered forward, fighting to regain his balance, and plowed on his hands and knees into the open. He was facing the entrance to the tower, a long, narrow slit of opening. From within came the sounds. Ross, blaster in , hand, leaped past him, a blue streak of concentrated action. The Apache scrambled up, was only a step or two behind the time agent as they entered, finding themselves directly on the foot of an upward-leading ramp. One of those squalling roars, sounding above, ended in a cough. A mass of dull red > fur, flailing legs, a flat, narrow, weasel’s head showing snapping jaws, rolled down, struggling in convulsive death agony. Ross leaped aside.
“Blaster got that one!” he shouted. “Chief! Ashe! You up there?”
If there was any answer to that hail, the words were ‘ drowned in the screech of the animals. The light was dusky here, but there was enough for the Terrans to spot the barrier across the ramp. It was a barrier which had been there some time but was now showing a gap, choked by two of the red beasts struggling against each other in their eagerness to force that doorway. Behind them snarled a third.
Travis steadied the barrel of the blaster across his forearm and nicked a darting weasel-head with a sniper’s expert aim. The thing did not even cry out, but reared, somersaulted backward down the ramp as the men jumped apart to give it room.
One of the creatures at the gap caught sight of the two below and pulled back, allowing its fellow through the barrier while it whirled to spring at Ross. His blaster beam raked across its shoulders and it screamed hideously, collapsed, scratching frantically with its hind feet to gain footing. Ross fired again and the animal was still. But the rage of the fight beyond the barrier continued.
“Ashe!” Ross shouted. And Travis, catching his breath, echoed that call. To go through the gap in the barrier before them and perhaps be met by a blaster beam from a friend was certainly not to be desired.
“Hullloooo!” The cry was weirdly echoed, dehumanized, and it appeared to come from some distance ahead or above. But both of them had heard it and now they pushed past the barrier into a wide hallway.
There was light here, coming in white flames from smoking brands which lay on the floor at the far end as if tossed from a higher level. One of the red beasts lay dead and they hurdled the body. Another, dragging useless hindquarters, crept with deadly purpose toward them and Travis picked it off. But the beam in his blaster died before he lifted finger from firing button. Another try proved his fears correct—the charge in the weapon was exhausted.
There was a scrambling on the second ramp at the far end of the hall. Ross stood at the foot, his blaster up. Travis stooped to scoop up one of the torches. He whirled the brand in the air, bringing the smoldering end into a burst of life.
Ross aimed at a charging weasel-head, missed, flung himself to the side of the ramp and over to the floor to escape the rush. But the beast plunged insanely after him. Travis whirled the torch a second time, -bringing its flaming end down in a swing against the snaky, darting head of the attacker. One of those powerful forepaws aimed a vicious swipe, tore the torch from the Apache’s hold. But Ross was up to his knees again, blaster ready. And the red animal died. Travis retreated, a little unsteadily, to pick up a second torch.
“Hullloooo!” Again that shout from overhead. Ross answered it.
“Ashe! Down here. . . .”
There were no more squalls from the ramp. But Travis wondered if more of the beasts lay in wait. With a useless blaster he had no desire to climb into the unknown. A flint knife was nothing against the weasel-heads.
They waited, listening, at the foot of the ramp. But when there came no other attack, Ross pattered ahead and Travis followed, nursing his new torch. His hand shot out, closed on Ross’s arm, as he caught up with the other. Something was waiting for them up there.
Travis thrust the torch into that pocket of gloom at the head of the ramp, saw Ross’s blaster at ready— ,
“Come on in!” The words were ordinary enough, but Ashe’s , voice sounded a little breathless and in higher pitch than usual. But it was Ashe, unharmed and seeming his usual self, who stepped into the pool of light and waited for them to join him. Only he was not alone. Half-seen shadows moved behind him. Ross did not holster his blaster and Travis’ hand , rested on his knife hilt.
“You all right, chief?”
Ashe laughed in answer to Ross’s demand. “Now that the space patrol has landed, yes. You boys introduced the right play at the proper moment. Come on and meet the gang.”
The torch sputtered as those shadows moved in closer to Ashe. Then a new light blazed up well above floor level and Travis blinked at the company that fire revealed.
Ashe was six feet tall, giving Travis himself an inch or so. But in this company he towered, for the tallest of his companions came only a little above his shoulder.
“They have wings!”
Yes, with a sudden twitch a flap of wing—not feathered, but ribbed skin—had unfurled, pointing up above its owner’s shoulder. Where had he seen a wing such as that? On the statue from the domed building!
However, the faces now all turned toward the Terrans were not as grotesque as the one of the image. The ears were not so large, the features were more humanoid, though the noses remained vertical slits. Either the statue had been a caricature, or it represented a far more primitive type.
The natives hung back, and from their narrow, pointed jaws came a low murmur, rising and falling, which Travis could not separate into distinct sounds or words.
“Local inhabitants?” Ross still held his blaster. “They the ones who kidnapped you, chief?”
“In a manner of speaking. I take it you accounted for the wild life below?”
“All we saw,” Travis returned, still •watching the winged people, for they were people, of that he was sure.
“Then we can get out of here.” Ashe turned to the waiting shadows and bolstered his own weapon with an emphatic slam. Two of the winged men beckoned and the rest stood back, allowing Ashe, Ross and Travis to pass them, to climb a third ramp. At the top the Terrans saw the open yellow of sunlight, and came out into a wide hall with archways, not doors, down its length.
Travis’ nostrils expanded as he caught a mixture of scents, f some pleasant, some otherwise. There was activity here; there were indications that this was a permanent settlement. The archways were hung with nets of green into which were tucked flowers here and there, many like the one he had found on his first day of exploration. Logs, hollowed out and so made into troughs, stood about the walls. From them grew a mixture of plants, all reaching toward the sun which came through windows, running a curtain of green from floor level to ceiling.
The people were no longer just shadows. And in this brighter light their humanoid resemblance was marked. The furled wings covered their backs as might folded cloaks, and they wore no clothing save ornaments of belt, collar or armlets. The weapons, which all within sight carried, were small spears —little enough protection against the red killers which had assailed them from below.
They watched the Terrans closely, keeping up their murmur of speech, but making no threatening gestures. And since it was impossible for the Terrans to read any expression on their faces, Travis did not know whether the three from the ship were considered prisoners, allies, or merely strange , objects of general interest.
“Here. . . .” Ashe stopped before one of the curtained archways and pursed his lips to give a gentle hoot.
The curtain parted and he went in, signaling the other two to follow him.
Under their feet was thick matting plaited from vines and ‘ leaves. And there were low partitions of latticework over which living plants climbed to form dividing walls, cutting one large room into a series of smaller cubicles around a central space fronting the archway.
“Pay attention to nothing around the wall,” Ashe said quickly. “Keep your eyes on the one at the table.”
Squatting by a table raised some two feet from the j carpeted floor was one of the winged men. Those they had seen in the outer hallway had had skins which were a dusky lavender color, close in shade to the very stone from which the image had been carved. But this one was darked, almost a deep purple. And there was something in his constrained movements which suggested the stiffness of age.