The next moment he was flying backward toward McKay, flung by a convulsive motion of the tentacle, no doubt caused by intense pain.
McKay, instead of ducking, grabbed Kickaha and they both went down. The catcher suffered more punishment than the caught, but for a minute or more they both lay on the ground, Kickaha on top of McKay. Then the redhead rolled off and got to his feet.
He looked down at McKay. “You okay?”
McKay sat up and said, “I don’t think I broke anything.”
“Thanks. If you hadn’t softened my fall, I might have broken my back. Maybe. I’m pretty agile. Man, there’s real power in those tentacles.”
Anana was with them by then. She cried, “Are you hurt, Kickaha?”
“No. Black Angus here, he seems okay, too.”
McKay said, “Black Angus? Why, you son of a bitch!”
Kickaha laughed. “It’s an inevitable pun. Especially if you’ve been raised on a farm. No offense, McKay.”
Kickaha turned. The three advance scouts were no closer. The swelling hill had steepened its slopes, making it even more difficult for them to maintain their balance. The horde behind them was also stalled.
“We don’t have to retreat up the hill,” Kickaha said. “It’s withdrawing for us.”
However, the slope was becoming so steep that, if its rate of change continued, it would precipitate everybody to the bottom. The forty-five degree angle to the horizontal could become ninety degrees within fifteen minutes.
“We’re in a storm of matter-change,” Kickaha said. “If it blows over quickly, we’re all right, If not…”
The tree’s tentacles were moving feebly. Apparently, Kickaha’s foot had injured it considerably. Pale fluid oozed out of its mouth.
Kickaha picked up the axe that McKay had dropped. He went to the tree and began chopping at its branches. Two strokes per limb sufficed to sever them. He cut at the tentacles, which were tougher. Four chops each amputated these.
He dropped the axe and lifted one end of the trunk and swung it around so that it could be rolled down the slope.
Anana said,”You’re wasting your energy.”
Kickaha said, “Waiting to see what’s going to happen burns up more energy. At this moment, anyway. There’s a time for patience and a time for energy.”
He placed himself at the middle of the trunk and pushed it. It began rolling slowly, picked up speed, and presently, flying off a slight hump, flew into a group of trees. These fell backward, some rolling, breaking their branches, others flying up and out as if shot out of a cannon.
The effect was incremental and geometrical. When it was done, at least five hundred of the things lay in a tangled heap in the ravine at the foot of the slope. Not one could get up by itself. It looked like the results of a combination of avalanche and flood.
“It’s a logjam!” Kickaha said.
No log jam, however, on Earth featured the wavings of innumerable octopus-tentacles. Nor had any forest ever hastened to the aid of its stricken members.
“Birnam Wood on the march,” Kickaha said.
Neither Anana nor McKay understood the reference, but they were too tired and anxious to ask him to explain it.
By now the humans were having a hard time keeping from falling down the slope. They clung to the grass while the three advance guards slid down on their “backs” toward the mess in the hollow at the base.
“I’m getting down,” Kickaha said. He turned and began sliding down on the seat of his pants. The others followed him. When the friction became too great on their buttocks, they dug in their heels to brake. Halfway down they had to halt and turn over so their bottoms could cool off. Their trouser seats were worn away in several spots.
“Did you see that water?” Kickaha said. He pointed to his right.
Anana said, “I thought I did. But I assumed it was a mirage of some sort.”
“No. Just before we started down, I saw a big body of water that way. It must be about fifteen miles away, at least. But you know how deceiving distances are here.”
Directly below them, about two hundred feet away, was the living logjam. The humans resumed their rolling but at an angle across the ever-steepening slope. McKay’s helmet, Kickaha’s bow and quiver, and Anana’s beamer and axe, impeded their movements but they managed. They fell the last ten feet, landing on their feet or on all fours.