While the merman fastened the locking bar, bringing out of the long-motionless metal another protesting screech. Dalgard had a chance to look about him. They were in a room some eight or nine feet long, the violet light showing up well tangles of equipment hanging from pegs on the walls, a pile ‘. of small cylinders on the floor. At the far end of the chamber was another hatch door, locked with the same type of bar . as Sssuri had just lowered to seal the inner one. The merman nodded to it.
“The sea-“
Dalgard slid his knife back into its sheath. So the sea lay beyond. He did not welcome the thought of passing through that door. Like all of his race he could swim-perhaps his feats in the water would have astonished the men of the planet from which his tribe had emigrated. But unlike the mermen, he was not sea-born, nor equipped by nature with “ a secondary breathing apparatus to make him as free in the world of water as he was on land. Sssuri might crawl through ‘ that hatch without fear. For Dalgard it was as big a test as to turn and face what now raged in the corridor on the inner side.
“There is no hope that they will go now,” Sssuri answered his vague question. “They are stubborn. And hours-or even days-will mean nothing. Also they can leave a guard there and rove at will, to return upon signal. That is their way.”
This left only the sea door. Sssuri padded across the chamber and reached up to free one of the strange objects dangling from the wall pegs. Like all things made of the marvelous substance used by Those Others for any article which might be exposed to the elements, it seemed as perfect as on the day it had first been hung there, though that date might be a hundred or more Astran years earlier. The merman uncoiled a length of thin, flexible piping which joined a two-foot canister with a flat piece of metallic fabric.
“Those Others could not breathe under the water, as you cannot,” he explained as he worked deftly and swiftly. “Within my own memory we have trapped their scouts wearing aids such as these so that they might spy upon our safe places. But their last foray was some years ago and at that time we taught them such a lesson that they have not dared to return. Since they are not unlike you in body and since you breathe the same air aboveground, there is no reason why this should not take you out of here.”
Dalgard accepted the apparatus. A couple of elastic metal bands fastened the canister to the chest of the wearer. The fabric molded into a perfect, tight face mask as it touched the skin.
Sssuri went to the pile of cylinders. Choosing one he tinkered with its pointed cone, to be rewarded with a thin hiss.
“Ahhhh-“ again his recognition of the rightness of things. “These still contain air.” He tested two more and then brought all three back to where Dalgard stood, the canister strapped into place, the mask ready in his hand. With infinite care the merman fitted two of the cylinders into the canister and then was forced to set the other aside.
“We could not change them while under water anyway,” he explained. “So it will do little good to take extra supplies with us.”
Trying not to speculate on the amount of air he could carry in the cylinders, Dalgard fastened on the mask, adjusted the air tube, and sucked. Air flowed-he could breath Only for how long?
Sssuri, seeing that his companion was fully provided for, worked at the bar locking the sea hatch. But in the end it took their combined strength to spring that barrier and win through to a small cubby which was the actual sea lock.
Dalgard knew one moment of resistance as the merman closed the hatch behind. them. For an instant it seemed that the dubious safety of the dressing chamber and a faint hope of the hunters’ giving up their vigil was better than what might lie before them now. But Sssuri pushed shut the hatch, and Dalgard stood quietly, without offering any visible protest.
He tried to draw even breaths-slowly-as the merman activated the lock. When the water curled in from hidden openings, rising from ankle to calf and then to knee, its chill striking through flesh to bone, he kept to the same stolid waiting, though this seemed almost worse than a sudden gush of water sweeping them out in its embrace.
The liquid swirled about Dalgard’s waist now, tugging at his belt, his arrow quiver, tapping on the bottom of the canister which held his precious air supply. His bow, shielded from the wet by its casing, was swallowed up inch by inch.
As the water lapped at his chin, the outer door opened with a slow inward push which suggested that the machinery controlling it had grown sluggish with the years. Sssuri, perfectly at home, darted out as soon as the opening was large enough to afford him an exit. And his thought came back to reassure the more clumsy landsman.
“We are in the shallows-land rises ahead. The roots of an island. There is nothing to fear-“ The word ended abruptly in what was like a mental gasp of either astonishment or fear.
Knowing all the menaces which might lie in wait, even .in the shallows of the sea, Dalgard drew his knife once more as he plowed through water-ready to rescue or at least to offer what aid he could.
10
THE DEAD GUARDIANS
THE SPACEMEN spent a cramped and almost sleepless night. Although in his training on Terra, on his trial trips to Mars and the harsh Lunar valleys, Raf had known weird surroundings and climates, inimical to his kind, he had always been able. to rest almost by the exercise of his will. But now, curled in his roll, he was alert to every sound out of the moonless night, finding himself listening-for what he did not know.
Though there were sounds in plenty. The whistling call of some night bird, the distant lap, lap of water which he associated with the river curving through the long-deserted city, the rustle of grass as either the wind or some passing animal disturbed it.
“Not the best place in the world for a nap,” Soriki observed out of the dark as Raf wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable position. “I’ll be glad to see these bandaged boys on the ground waving good-by as we head away from them -fast-“
“Those weren’t animals they killed-back on that island,” Raf brought out what was at the heart of his trouble.
“They wore fur instead of clothing.” Soriki’s reply was delivered in a colorless, even voice. “We have apes on Terra, but they are not men.”
Raf stared up at the sky in which stars were sprinkled like carelessly flung dust motes. “What is a ‘man’?” he returned, repeating the classical question which was a debating point in all the space training centers.
For so long his kind had wondered that. Was a “man” a biped with certain easily recognized physical characteristics? Well, by that ruling the furry things which had fled fruitlessly from the flames of the globe might well qualify. Or was man a certain level of intelligence, no matter what for! Mused that intelligence? They were supposed to accept the latter definition. Though, in spite of the horror of prejudice, Raf could not help but believe that too many Terrans secretly thought of “man” only as a creature in their own general image. By that prejudiced rule it was correct to accept the aliens as “men” with whom they could ally themselves, to condemn the furry people because they were not smooth-skinned, did not wear clothing, nor ride in mechanical transportation.
Yet somewhere within Raf at that moment was the nagging feeling that this was all utterly wrong, that the Terrans had not made the right choice. And that now “men” were not standing together. But he had no intention of spilling that out to Soriki.
“Man is intelligence.” The com-tech was answering the question Raf had almost forgotten that he had asked the moment before. Yes, the proper conventional reply. Soriki was not going to be caught out with any claim of prejudice.
Odd-when Pax had ruled, there were thought police and the cardinal sin was to be a liberal, to experiment, to seek knowledge. Now the wheel had turned-to be conservative was suspect. To suggest that some old ways were better was to exhibit the evil signs of prejudice. Raf grinned wryly. Sure, he had wanted to reach the stars, had fought doggedly to come to the very spot where he now was. So why was he tormented now with all these second thoughts? Why did he feel every day less akin to the men with whom he had shared the voyage? He had had wit enough to keep his semi rebellion under cover, but since he had taken the flitter into the morning sky above the landing place of the spacer, that task of self-discipline was becoming more and more difficult.