The climb-belt was at half-weight as she reached the partition wall. She jumped, clapped her hands to the top, went up and over.
Seven years before, she’d seen a wriggler swarm hit a human diver. It was largely a matter of how close one happened to be to the apple when it tumbled down out of the floatwood forest, struck salt water and split. In the same moment thousands of tiny writhing black lines spilled from it and flashed unerringly toward any sizable animal bodies in the immediate vicinity, striking like a cluster of needle drills, puncturing thick hide or horny scales in instants.
The three guards lay face down, partly submerged, in the water that covered the floor. Two were motionless. The third quivered steadily, something like a haze of black fur still extending along his torso below the surface. All three were paralyzed now, would be dead in minutes as the swarms spread through them, feeding as they went.
And the passage was safe for Nile. The wrigglers were committed.
She reached the stand with Ticos’ communicator on it, flipped switches, turned dials, paused an instant to steady her breath.
“Sotira-Doncar!” she said into the speaker then. “Sotira-Doncar! Parahuans here! Parahuans here!” And cut off the communicator.
No time to wait for a reply. No time at all—
“Can you needle the stink-fogs into action?”
“Of course. But—”
“Hit them!” Nile drew the climb-belt tight around his waist, clipped the UW to the top of her trunks. “If we can get out, we’ll be out before it hurts us.”
Ticos glanced up at the force-screened window oblong, grunted dubiously. “Hope you’re right!” His finger tapped a control. “They’re hit. Now?”
Nile bent, placed her hands together. “Foot up! Try to keep your balance. You’re minim-weight—you’ll go up fast. Latch on to the grid and drop me the belt. I think I can make it to your ankles.”
She put all her strength into the heave. He did go up fast, caught the grid and hooked an arm through it. The climb-belt floated back down. Greasy clouds boiled about the aroused stink-fogs near the entrance door on the left as Nile snatched the belt out of the air and fastened it around herself. Ticos was hanging by both hands now, legs stretched down. She sprang, sailed up along the wall, gripped his ankles and swarmed up him, the antigrav field again enclosing both of them. Moments later she’d worked her knees over a grid bar, had the belt back around Ticos. Breathing hard, he pulled himself up beside her and reached for the control device.
“Fogging up down there, all right!” he wheezed. “Can’t see the door. Might alert a few more monsters, eh?”
“Any you can without killing us.” Somebody outside the room must know by now that the execution plans had hit a snag. Clinging by knees and left hand, Nile placed the UW’s muzzle against one of the grid casings that should have a force screen generator beneath it, held the trigger down. The beam hissed and spat. The casing glowed, turned white. An incredible blending of stenches rose about her suddenly, closing her throat, bringing water to her eyes. She heard Ticos splutter and cough.
Then the casing gave. Something inside shattered and flared. Wind roared in above Nile, salty and fresh.
“Up and out, Ticos! Screen’s gone!” She hauled herself up, flung an arm across the ledge. Her shoulder tingled abruptly. Nerve charge! Parahuans in the lab. . . . Below her, Ticos made a sound of distress. Straddling the ledge, she squinted down, saw him blurrily. He’d dropped the control gadget, was clinging to the grid with both hands, shaking in hard convulsions. Heart hammering, Nile reached for him, caught his arm, brought the low-weight body flopping over the ledge and into the growth outside the window. He grasped some branches, was steadying himself, as she turned back.
Half the lab below was obscured by stink-fog emissions, whirled about by the wind. There was an outburst of desperate hootings—one or more Parahuans had run into a specimen which wasn’t bothered by smells. She had glimpses of bulky shapes milling about, blinded by the fog. They should also be half-strangled by it. But at least one of them had seen Ticos up here long enough to take aim with a nerve gun. . . .
The greasy mist swirled aside from a section of floor where four glassy containers stood on a low table. Nile had seen what was inside them when she came into the lab. The top of the nearest container splintered instantly now under the UW’s beam. She shifted aim. The startled organism in the shattered container already was contracting and expanding energetically like a pump. A second container cracked. As Nile sighted on a third one, a Parahuan reeled out of the stink-fog cloud, swung a big gun up at the window.
She ducked back behind the ledge. No time for gun duels. And no need. Two of the containers were broken and she’d seen jets of pale vapor spurting from both. The specimens in them were called acid bombs, with good reason. Nobody in the lab at present was likely to leave it alive—and certainly no one coming in for a while was going to get out again in good enough condition to report that the captives had fled by way of the force screen window.
She aimed along the room’s ceiling to a point where the central lighting bars intersected. Something exploded there, and the lab was plunged into darkness.
Nile swung back from the window, the stink-fog’s reek wafting about her. Ticos was leaning against branches, clinging to them, making abrupt jerking motions.
“How badly are you hit?” she asked quickly.
He grunted. “I don’t know! I’m no weapons specialist. What did hit me? Something like a neural agitator?”
“In that class. You didn’t stop a full charge, or you wouldn’t be on your feet. With the climb-belt, I can carry you. But if you can move—”
“I can move. I seem able to hold off some of the effects. If I don’t slow you down too much.”
“Let’s try it out,” Nile said. “They shouldn’t be after us immediately. Let me know if it gets too difficult. . . . ”
Her bundle was in the niche of floatwood where she’d left it. She opened it hastily. Ticos stood behind her, clinging to the vegetation, bent over and gasping for breath. Nile was winded enough herself. They’d scrambled straight up from the roof of the blockhouse into the forest, cut across south of the sea-haval rookery, clambered down again toward the lagoon. It hadn’t been a lightweight dance along the branches for her this time. Her muscles knew they’d been working. Even so, Ticos, supported by the climb-belt, had been pushed very hard to keep up with her. He wasn’t equipped with dark-lenses, wasn’t sufficiently skilled in the use of the belt; and at intervals the nerve gun charge he’d absorbed set off spasms of uncontrollable jerking and shaking. There were antidotes for the last, and no doubt the Parahuans had them. But there was nothing available here. He’d have to work it out. Another five or ten minutes of climbing might do it, Nile thought. It had better do it: she knew now Ticos had lost half his reserves of physical energy since she’d seen him last. If the effects of the alien weapon corresponded at all closely to those of its humanly produced counterparts, a more central charge should have killed him quickly. The load he’d stopped might still do it, though that seemed much less likely now.
She fished the pack of dark-lens gel from the pouch, handed it to him. “Better put on your night eyes.”
“Huh? Oh! Thanks. I can use those.”
A series of shrill whistles rose from the lagoon. Ticos’ head turned quickly.
“Sounded almost like one of your otters!”
“It was. Sweeting.” Nile had heard intermittent whistling for the past several minutes, hadn’t mentioned it. The wind still drowned out most other sounds. She pried the end of the buti stem open with her knife. “Got the lenses in place?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s see how fast you can put on a coat of buti. We might have a problem here rather soon.”
Ticos took the stem, began rubbing sap hurriedly over his clothes. “Parahuans?” he asked.
“Perhaps. Something seems to be coming this way along the lagoon. That was Sweeting’s warning signal. Did you know your friends had a tarm here?”
“I’ve seen it.” Ticos’ tone held shock, but he didn’t stop working. “You think that’s what’s—”
“It’s more likely to be the tarm than Parahuans.”
“What can we do, Nile?”
“Buti seems to be good cover if it doesn’t see us. The thing got close to me once before. If it comes this far, it probably will find our trail. I’ll go see what Sweeting has to tell. You finish up with the buti. But don’t smear the stuff on your shoe soles yet.”