So one morning, immediately after sunrise, Veig, Hrolf and Niall left the burrow and marched towards the northern horizon. They were armed with flint knives, spears and slings, and carried their food in the sheets of spider-silk that would later be used as parasols to protect them from the sun. Niall loved to caress the spider silk; it was smooth and cool and seemed to ripple under his fingers like a liquid. He carried the smallest of the three bundles, containing the cactus fruit and a sealed gourd of water.
An hour later, they passed the distorted columns of red sandstone, worn into strange shapes by the sand-laden wind. They sat down to rest in their shade and ate some cactus fruit. From here, they could see that the land dipped into a shallow bowl, strewn with large boulders. It was important to press on quickly; in a few hours, these boulders would be too hot to touch. On the far edge of the bowl, they could see trees. Veig, who had the keenest eyesight, believed he could also see water.
The distance was greater than they had thought. By midday, they were still in the middle of the rocky wilderness, although the boulders had now given way to flints and shards of granite. They cleared a space of a few square yards, drove spears into the rocky soil to form makeshift tent-poles, and spread the spider silk over them. With the sun directly overhead, the shade was poor, but it was better than nothing. The ground was too hard and irregular to lie down, so they sat there, clasping their knees and staring out over the depressing wilderness towards the trees on the northern horizon, and the green vegetation that was now clearly visible. Niall was again daydreaming of scented flowers and running water.
After three hours’ rest, they again set out towards the north. The day was still hot, but they had to move now if they hoped to reach the trees by nightfall. Niall’s legs had become leaden weights, and he was suffering from homesickness; but he kept his eyes fixed on the trees, which grew steadily closer; Veig said they were date palms, which at least promised food. Niall was passionately fond of dates, but seldom had a chance to eat them.
The terrain was now changing; the rocks underfoot were smaller, seldom larger than a fist, and inclined to roll underneath them; plodding wearily with his eyes on the trees, Niall suddenly felt his feet sliding from under him and landed on his back, taking the skin off both elbows. He wanted to rest for a few minutes, but Veig insisted that they had to keep moving. Niall dragged himself to his feet and kept his eyes on the ground, partly to avoid another accident, partly to conceal his tears of fatigue. A few moments later, he caught Hrolf and Veig exchanging a troubled glance, and realised both were wishing they had left him at home. It had the effect of making him clench his teeth and force himself to make an effort to control his misery. For a brief moment, the misery became more acute, so that he felt like flinging himself on the ground and giving way to tears. Then, as he concentrated, the point of light glowed inside his head. Quite suddenly, the fatigue vanished — or rather, it was still there in his limbs, but he felt quite detached from it, as if observing it from above. He was controlling his fatigue instead of being controlled by it. It was such an exhilarating sensation that he gave a chuckle of satisfaction; Veig looked at him in astonishment and was amazed.when Niall smiled back cheerfully.
They strode on, over the hot rocks that shimmered in the heat; through the distorted air, the green countryside ahead looked doubly welcoming. Now Niall observed another change in the terrain. The stones beneath their feet were smaller, varying in size from a hen’s egg to a mere pebble, and at fairly regular intervals there were funnel-shaped craters, each about twenty feet deep. As they approached a particularly large crater, they stopped to look down into it. If they had been less tired, they might have scrambled down the sides, merely to satisfy their curiosity; but in this heat, it would have been a pointless waste of energy. As it was, Niall kicked a stone down and watched it bounce to the bottom. Then he noticed a green plant, not unlike the waru, growing a few feet down the side; in its centre was a spherical, pale green fruit similar to the cactus fruit. Niall sat down, and cautiously slid down towards it. The ball, about the size of an apple, was hard and unyielding to the touch; a firm twist pulled it loose, and he tossed it up to Hrolf. The movement dislodged the stones he was sitting on and he felt himself slipping. He lay flat on his back and tried to dig in his heels; this worked for a moment, but the stones were too loose and cascaded away from under his feet. His momentum made it more difficult to use his hands or feet as brakes. Finally, halfway down, he came to a halt, and cautiously sat up, aware that any sudden movement would cause him to start slipping again.
Then, very slowly, he turned over onto his hands and knees and began trying to scramble up again.
A shout from Veig made him look round, and his heart contracted with terror. The stones in the bottom of the funnel were moving, heaving as if pushed aside by a giant mole. First, long feelers emerged, reflecting the sun as if they were made of blue metal. The top of the head was a blue dome covered with downy hairs, on either side were large, metallic blue hemispheres, not unlike the eyes of the saga insect; yet to Niall it seemed there were a second pair of eyes at the base of the feelers, narrow and predatory, and surrounded by yellow armour. The rest of the face was also yellow, but with bands of blue, with a protruding, sickle-shaped jaw which made it look not unlike a baboon. The head was followed by a mobile neck, then by powerful-looking forelegs. The armoured yellow and black body might have been that of a coloured armadillo.
It was unmistakably looking at Niall, and he tried frantically to scramble up the slope. He gained a few feet, then began to slide again. He looked round, expecting to see the armour-plated monster advancing on him; but it was only sitting there, its strange, monkey face turned blankly towards him.
Something struck his hand; it was the end of the rope woven from alfa grass that they always carried on hunting expeditions. Thankfully, Niall grabbed it with both hands. Heaving on the other end, Veig and Hrolf began to pull him up the slope.
Suddenly, a blow on the head, and another in the small of the back, drove the breath from his lungs. For a horrified moment he thought the monkey-faced creature had seized him; but when he looked down, he saw it was sitting in the centre of the pit, its face turned away from him. Then, as he watched, it seemed to bury its head in the loose stones and jerk it violently backwards. With astonishing accuracy, the shower of stones struck the side of the pit just above him and rolled down on him; one struck his eye, and he felt blood running down his cheek. Another shower of stones struck his body, making him gasp with pain. At that moment, Veig gave a jerk on the rope; his bruised hands released it, and he began to slide, feet-first, down the side of the pit. Now, at last, the creature turned and began to move towards him, with a slowness that suggested it was quite sure of its prey. Again Veig threw the rope, but it was too short and landed several feet above Niall’s hands.
Now Veig, recognising that the creature’s jaws were close to his brother’s feet, began to scramble down the slope, hurling stones as he went. One of them struck the creature on the head, and it paused to survey its attacker. There was something very frightening in the robot-like impassivity of that brightly coloured face. Veig tried to bring himself to a halt, slid on the stones, and threw himself on to his back to slow down his fall. He managed to dig in his heels, and lay with curved back and bent knees, suddenly aware of his folly in venturing into the pit. Niall had used this diversion to climb a few feet up towards the end of the rope. Slowly, Veig turned over on to his belly and tried to claw his way back up the slope. Immediately, a well-aimed shower of stones struck him on the head and shoulders, knocking him flat.