There was no answer from the other save that his body stiffened in Nik’s hold as if he would pull away. Nik kept his grip tight.
Vandy was still stiff in his hold when he spoke. His lips were so close to Nik’s ear that the puffs of his breath touched the other’s now smooth cheek.
“There’s something – something on the ledge – over there!”
Nik turned his head slowly. It was almost totally dark for him even with the goggles. How could Vandy see anything? A ruse to distract him? It WAS there, and to Nik’s eyes it showed with frightening plainness. Where had it come from – out of the watery depths below or down the wall from above? Its hunched body had some of the greenish glow of the crushed slime plants, but Nik could not be sure of more than a phosphorescent lump.
Between them and it dangled a glowing spark that danced and fluttered. It took a full moment for Nik to trace that spark back to the humped body to which it was attached by a slender, whip-supple antenna. Now another of those antenna snapped up into action, and a second spark glistened at its tip, flickering about. Save for that play, the thing made no move to advance toward them.
But before that display of twin dancing lights, there was other movement on the ledge. Whether the second creature had been there all the time or whether the action of the antenna fisher had drawn it, Nik was never to know. But a four-legged furred shape, like one of the hunters, arose from a flattened position and began to pace hesitatingly toward the fisher.
The antennae with their flashing tips slowly withdrew, luring the other after them. The pacer showed no excitement nor wariness; it followed the lures unresistingly.
“What – what is happening?” whispered Vandy, and Nik realized that the goggles gave him a view of the hunt that the boy lacked.
“Something is hunting.” He described what he saw.
The drama ended suddenly. As the antennae vanished into the owner’s bulk, the prey appeared to awake to its danger. But already the fisher had launched itself from the stone with a flying leap into the air that brought it down on the unfortunate it had lured into striking distance. There was a shrill humming either from fisher or prey, and Vandy cried out, his hands catching Nik’s tunic.
Continuing to crouch on its captive, the fisher was still. Nik could not yet sight a separate head – nothing save a bulk with that unhealthy, decaying sheen about it.
“Hacon, it wants – it wants us!” Vandy did not whisper now. His voice was shrill. Whether that was a guess on his part or whether some sense of malice was transmitted to the boy, Nik did not know. But when those twin twinkling, dangling lights once more erupted from the black bulk and whipped through the air in their direction, he chose prudence and used the blaster.
As the ray lanced into the bulk, Nik caught his breath.
He was not sure that he actually heard anything. It was more like a pain thrusting into his head than any cry his ears reported. But the thing and its prey twisted up and fell down into the rush of waters, to be carried on into whatever depths the ancient ruins covered.
“It’s gone!” he assured Vandy. “I rayed it – it’s gone!”
Vandy’s shivers were almost convulsive, and Nik’s alarm grew. He must get the boy under control, arouse him from the fear that made his body starkly rigid in Nik’s hold – that had frozen him.
“It’s gone!” he repeated helplessly. But he knew what might lie at the base of Vandy’s terror. To be blind in this hole could feed any fear, could drive even a grown man to panic. If they only had two sets of goggles! And what if something happened to the one pair they did possess? What if both of them were left wandering blind on the outer shell of Dis, prey for the creatures of the dark? Their flight from the refuge had been a wild mistake. He was armed now. Better go back and take his chances with Orkhad than remain in this wilderness of horror.
Just let the storm die and they would do that. Nik could find the trail back from this point to the break in the tunnel, and from the tunnel he could scout the living quarters of the refuge, find a safe hiding place until Leeds came –
“Vandy!” He strove to make his words penetrate the locked terror he could feel in the body he held. “We’re going back to the tunnel just as soon as the rain is over. We’ll be safe there. And until then – well, we both have blasters. You used yours, remember, when the animals had you cornered in the ruins. Used it well, too. I couldn’t have found you if you hadn’t set fire to the plants. We hold this ledge. Nothing can come at us here as long as we’re armed.”
“But – I can’t seel”
“Are you sure, Vandy? You told me that thing was there before I saw it, and I have the goggles. How did you know?” Vandy’s body was not quite so rigid and his voice, when he replied, was alive again and not dehumanized with terror. “I guess I saw something – a sort of pale light – like those plants we squashed with our boots.”
“Yes. Some of the living things here appear to have a light of their own. And maybe you could see that better than I could just because you did not have goggles on, Vandy. Perhaps we’ll need both kinds of sight to watch here.” How true that guess might be Nik did not know, but its effect on the boy was good.
“Yes.” Vandy loosed one hand hold. “And I do have the other blaster.”
“Don’t use it unless you have to,” Nik was quick to warn. “I don’t know how long a charge will last.”
“I know that much!” Vandy had recovered to the point of being irritated. “Hacon, this was all part of a city once, wasn’t it? It’s scary though – like the Haperdi Deeps.”
If Vandy could return to one of his fantasy adventures for a comparison, Nik decided, he was coming out of his fright. “Yes, it was a city, I think. And it does seem like the Haperdi Deeps, though I don’t recall that we ran into any fishers with light for bait there.” He hoped Vandy’s confidence would not soar again to the point of confusing reality with fantasy, regaining a belief in their own invincibility. Hacon, the hero, could wade through battles with horrific beasts and aliens untouched, but Nik Kolherne was very human and perishable, as was Vandy, and the hope of survival must move them both. He said as much, ending with a warning as to what might happen if the cin-goggles suffered any damage before they regained the refuge. To his satisfaction, Vandy was impressed.
Now that he had made his decision to return, Nik was impatient to be on his way, but the water still rushed down beyond the ledge. And now and then the roll of thunder, the cry of the storm, carried to them. How long would this fury of Disian weather last? A day – or longer? And could they remain on their present perch for any length of time? Nik had no fear that they could not defend it against attack, but fatigue and hunger could be worse enemies. The supply containers they had brought with them had been left with the blankets back in the window passage. Already Nik was hungry and knew that Vandy must be also.
Time dragged on. Vandy went to sleep, his head resting on Nik’s knees. Now and then he gave a little whimper or said a word or two in a tongue that was not the basic speech of the galaxy. Nik had plenty of opportunity to plan ahead, to examine all that had happened. He would, he decided, have done the same again – given his word to Leeds and the Guild for a new face, And the payment was bringing Vandy to Dis. Bringing Vandy –
Leeds’ story of what was wanted from the boy and Orkhad’s counter story – Vandy believed his father still alive. Did Vandy have information the Guild wanted, or was the boy himself the goods they were prepared to deal in?
Nik’s fingers slipped back and forth across smooth cheek and chin, across flesh that felt firm and healthy, bone that was hard and well-shaped. How long would he continue to feel that? How long before his fingertips detected new, yet well-remembered, roughness there to signal his own defeat? There was no possible answer except to wait for Leeds.
And to tamp that thought and the uneasiness behind it well back into his mind, Nik tried to assess his immediate surroundings. They had not come too far from the tunnel opening. They could get back, and most of the way was under cover. His ears gave him hope. The rush of water below had slackened, and he did not hear the wild sounds of the storm any more. Even a lull would allow them to regain the window passage and the food there. He shook Vandy gently.