“Wake up!” He shook Barketh. No need to pour water on the Patrolman; the rain was doing that. But Nik could not drag the other any farther, and neither could he go off and leave a blind and helpless man on the edge of a rain river.
Barketh moaned just as Nik was giving up hope of bringing him around. He opened his eyes, and his expression changed from vacancy to fear.
“Dark.” Nik had to lean close to hear that word. He spoke distinctly in return.
“Your goggles are gone.”
“You – who are you?” Barketh struggled to lever himself up, digging his elbows into the muddy ground.
“I’m Hacon.” Nik clung to the name Vandy had given him. “Now listen, the rain is slacking. I’ve your supply bag, and I’m going on with it. Here’s your torch. When you can’t feel the rain, shine it as a signal.”
But, Nik wondered, would such a signal bring more than just Barketh’s men? The furred hunters – the Disians? He felt for the blaster he had taken from the other. To leave a man without a weapon, without cins, alone here –
“You have goggles?” Barketh demanded.
“Yes. But I’m keeping them!”
Barketh felt for his blaster. “You took that, too?”
“Yes. I’m leaving you the torch. And wait.” Nik twisted out of the Patrolman’s hold. They could not be too far from the reef. And there Barketh would have shelter. Hurriedly, he explained.
“You won’t get far.” the other commented levelly.
“Maybe not, but I have the food, and Vandy needs it. How long would it take you now to get your squad rounded up again, for you to get going?”
“A point – small – but a point. All right, for the time being you give the orders. Stow me away and get going. I agree the boy has to have food.”
He held out his hand, but Nik avoided that too easy contact. Reaching behind Barketh, he took hold of the Patrolman’s belt and pulled him to his feet. Remaining at the other’s back, Nik gave him a small push forward.
“Use your torch,” he ordered, “and march.”
He had slung the strap of the supply pouch over his own shoulder, where it swung loosely. The light cut a path through the dark, picking up more rock outcrops. Suddenly Nik heard a shout in the murk. He thought it came from above and to the right, as if they had been sighted by some scout who had made the reef. With that he loosed his hold on Barketh’s belt, at the same time giving the Patrolman a swift shove, which he hoped would at least momentarily send him off balance and keep him from turning his light on Nik as a target.
As for his own path, he turned left and dodged in and out among rocks, keeping to the best cover he could and heading for the point he must pass. The supply pouch bumped his hip as he ran, and he had the blaster weighing down the carry hooks. By chance alone, he was coming out of this better than he had dared hope.
It was heavy going over the rain-sodden sea bottom. Pools from the drain streams linked here and there into lakes before they drained a second time to the lower level and the waiting “sea” there. Nik had to watch his footing to avoid both water and slick mud and stone. Once or twice a wind gust blew the drizzle so strongly against him that he experienced again the sensation of drowning in water-filled air.
Whether he could be marked by anyone now on the reef, Nik did not know. He went on with a curious tingling between his shoulder blades as if he expected to feel the ray of a blaster beam there. It seemed almost impossible that he would be able to get away without challenge. But he was certain it would not be without pursuit. Nik kept on doggedly, never once looking back, with the odd feeling that his refusal to look for danger in that direction gave him some form of protection.
The heat was rising as the rain slackened, following the pattern of the earlier storm when he and Vandy had seen the mists of steam curling from the ground. Now he smelled an unpleasant odor and moments later came out upon the edge of a great gouge extending from the shore straight across his track. Lightning had struck here and brought about a collapse of the first level of sea bottom. Between Nik and the road he must take to find the island hill was a slash of still-sliding earth and rock.
He went along its verge back to the cliff face, but there was no way to span it here. The rock was too sheer and slippery. Down the center of the gouge splashed a stream, which constantly ate at the stuff of its walls, bringing down more earth slips. He would have to follow it back to the second seaward shelf if he were to cross at all.
That was a nightmare journey, the worst Nik had attempted since he had climbed from the tunnel cut with the unconscious Vandy. Now he had only himself to worry about, but the loosened ground was as treacherous as a whirlpool, and every step started fresh movement.
Nik threw caution aside at last, determined that the only way was to choose his path and then go it with all the speed he could muster to keep ahead of a slide. The debris of the cut carried well out into the second level, and in the basin there the water collected, backing up to keep this disturbed earth fluid and shifting.
He took a deep breath and jumped from ground already moving under his boots to land on a relatively clear space, plunging into slimy soil halfway to his elbows, for he landed on hands and knees. Then he struggled up, rolled down to the verge of the lake, and splashed on with all the energy he could summon for a quick and powerful effort. There was no use trying to breast the other side of the cut. He had been unusually lucky in getting down, but to climb a constantly shifting surface was out of the question.
Nik dodged as a good section of wall gave way, thickening the stream water and sending up spray to fog his goggles. He clawed his way along in what he believed were the shallows, having to depend upon chance and unsure footing. Once he fell as a stone turned under his weight, but luckily the force of the stream was already slackening, and he was able to flounder out before he was carried into the depths of the lake.
Silvery streaks under the surface of the water converged on something floating not too far away. The surface roiled as those streaks fought and lashed. Where the fish had gathered from, Nik did not know, but their ferocious attack on the body of a dead furred hunter sent him splashing in turn as far and as fast from the dangerous proximity of the feast as he could get.
Rounding a point of the slide, he saw that the smaller pool into which the gash fed its water here joined the lake that had existed earlier, a lake that might, in years or centuries to come, form the sea, the flare had steamed from Dis. To swim that, after seeing the carnivorous fish, was impossible. He would have to take the equally dangerous path along under the level rise, where there could be other slips to engulf the luckless.
The rain had almost ceased. The steam grew into a mist, which even the cin-goggles could not penetrate. Nik tightened the strap of the ration pouch and waded on. He had the cliff edge for his guide – and that he could not lose. Eventually, it was going to bring him back to the island hill.
With the waters ankle-high about his fungi-furred boots, he trudged along, wondering if he would ever feel dry again. The fresh dehumidified air of the refuge seemed a dream now. This had been going on for always – lifting a foot, setting it down into oozing sludge, trying to breathe through a watery haze – this had been forever and ever, and to it there would be no end.
Chapter XIV
THE STEAM CLOAKED but did not completely hide the island hill. It was now more truly island than hill, for the lake water had risen to lap about its base. Nik gazed eagerly up at the ledge where he had left Leeds and Vandy. He could see nothing there – they must be lying flat.
Water arose about him as he sloshed to the hill. Removed slowly, worn out by the hours’ long push he had made from the reef, suspicious of the footing here. There were signs of the fury of the storm other than just the water. The body of a Disian had been washed between two rocks and floated there face down, rising and falling with the movements of the lake.