“Your ‘spiders,’ “ he burst out as soon as he sighted Rogan, “are plants!”
“But they moved!” protested Dard. “They had legs.”
Kordov shook his head. “Roots, not legs. And plants they are in spite of being mobile. Some form of aquatic fungi.”
“Toadstools with legs yet!” Rogan laughed. “Next, trees with arms, I suppose. What about the dragon—was he a flying cabbage?”
Kordov did not need any urging to discuss the dragon.
“Poisonous reptile—and carnivorous. We shall have to beware of them. But it was full grown, we need not worry.”
“About their coming in larger sizes?” asked the relaxed Kimber in a lazy voice. “Let us be thankful for small favors and hope that they do a lot of that screeching when they go ahunting. But now—let us think about tomorrow.”
“And tomorrow-and tomorrow—“ Rogan repeated sleepily hut Cully sat up thoroughly aroused.
“When do we wake up the others?” he wanted to know.
“And are we going to stay right here?”
Kordov locked his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the wall of the cabin. “I will revive Dr. Skort—Carlee-in the morning. She can help me with the others. Do you intend to explore the immediate terrain then? We should decide soon whether to stay here or try to find semi-permanent headquarters elsewhere.”
“There is just one thing,” said Kimber, “I can lift ship again, yes. But I can’t guarantee another safe landing. The fuel-“ he shrugged. “I don’t know how long our voyage here lasted, but if we hadn’t made this landfall when we did, we might not have been able to come in at all.”
“So?” Kordov’s lips shaped a soundless whistle. “Then we had better be very sure before we think of a move. What about taking out the ‘sled’?”
“I’ll break it out first thing tomorrow. That is, I will if this storm blows itself out by then. I don’t propose to take that contraption up in a high wind—the bugs aren’t out of it yet,” Kimber retorted.
“And how about food?” Cully asked. “Specifically here and now for us, and objectively for the rest when they wake up.”
“Specifically,” Kordov opened one of the storage cabinets and took out five small packages which he tossed around to the company. “Concentrates. But, you’re right, supplies are not going to last forever. We shall not be able to awaken all our company until we are reasonably sure of food and shelter. But—we’ll get Harmon out of storage and have him investigate the soil up river where the vegetation is so thick. The exploration party might also hunt.”
“Not dragons, I hope,” Rogan mumbled through a mouthful of the dry concentrate cake. “I have a distinct feeling dragons will not agree with my internal arrangements! Or traveling fungi either—“
For the first time Dard ventured to break in upon his elders. “Some fungi-mushrooms-are good.” He had no desire to lunch off red spiders, but he knew what real hunger meant and if it were a question of being hungry or eating swimming mushrooms, he could close his eyes and eat.
“Just so,” Kordov beamed at him. “And we shall investigate the food value of these. I shall get the hamsters out of cold storage and try the local products on them.”
So if they don’t curl up and go blue in the face we feast,” Kimber stretched and yawned. “Since we have quite a full day before us tomorrow, suppose we hit the sack now. Toss for the bunks and the acceleration pads.”
They solemnly tossed a coin—one with a hole in it which Kimber wore on a chain about his neck as a lucky piece. Dard found that Fortune relegated him to one of the acceleration pads and did not care. To his mind the soft sponge of that support was infinitely more comfortable than any bed he could remember.
But when he curled up on it he found that he could not sleep. All the wonders of the new world whirled through his mind in a mad dance. And behind them lurked fear. Lui Skort had been a strong young man but he had not survived the passage. How many more of the boxes housed below in the star ship held death instead of life? What about Dessie?
Now that there was nothing to distract him, nothing he could give attention to, he remembered only her—the tight yellow braids sticking out at sharp angles, how she had been able to sit so quietly in the grass that birds and little animals accepted her as part of their world and had been entirely unafraid—how good and patient she had always been. Dessie!
He sat up. To lie there and sleep when Dessie might never wake to see this new land! He couldn’t!
On his hands and knees Dard crawled out of the control cabin and between the bunks. Kimber was curled in a ball on one, but the other, which had fallen to Kordov, was empty. Dard started down the stair.
The deck below showed a patch of strong light and he could hear someone moving. He ventured to the door of the laboratory where he had helped to revive Cully and Rogan The First Scientist was busy there, setting out instruments and bottles. He looked up as Dard’s shadow fell into the room.
“What is it?”
“Dessie!” the boy blurted out. “I’ve got to know about Dessie!”
“Ah, so? But it is for their own comfort and protection that our companions must continue to sleep. Until we are sure of food and shelter.”
“I know that.” But the desperation in Dard could not be so sensibly silenced. “But-isn’t there any way at all of telling? I have to know about Dessie—I just have to!”
Tas Kordov pulled out his lower lip with thumb and forefinger and allowed it to snap back hate place with a soft smacking sound.
“That is a thought, my, boy. We can tell whether the mechanism has in any way failed. And perhaps—just perhaps we can have other assurance. I must open that particular compartment in the morning anyway to bring out Carlee Skort. Carlee—“ his face puckered with the misery of an unhappy child. “And then I must be the one to tell her about Lui. That will be a very hard thing to do. Well, we do not escape the hard things in this life. Come along.”
They went down five levels in the ship. Here the few lights were very dim, and the force of the wind against the hull could be more strongly felt. Kordov verified markings on the sealed door and at last released the fastening of a portal which came open with a faint sigh of displaced air. The chill of the room fed Dard’s unease. He edged along after Kordov, between doubled racks of the coffin boxes to the final set. The First Scientist dropped to his knees and snapped on a hand torch to read dials.
“Dessie and Lara Skort are in this one together, they were so small they could share a compartment.” The light in Kordov’s hand flashed from one dial to the next, and the next. Then he smiled up at Dard.
“These are all as they should be, son. There has been no organic or chemical change inside since this was sealed. To my honest belief they are alive and well. Soon they will be out to run about as little girls should. They shall be free—as they never could have been on Terra. Do not worry. Your Dessie shall share this world with you!”
Dard had himself under control now and he was able to answer quite levelly:
“Thanks—thanks a lot, sir.”
But Kordov had moved to another box and was reading more dials. He gave that case a slap of approbation as he straightened to his full height again.
“Carlee, too-we have been so very lucky.”
3. STORM WRACK
“GOOD LORD!”
The tone rather than the words of that horrified exclamation awoke Dard and brought him up on the acceleration pad. Kimber, Rogan, and Cully were crowded together before the visa-screen. The hour might have been in the middle of the night, or late in the morning, for inside the ship day and night had no division. But on the screen it was day.
A gray sky was patched by ragged drifts of cloud. And as Dard leaned over the back of the pilot’s seat, he saw what had so startled the others.
Where the day before there had stretched that smooth sweep of blue sand, forming a carpet clear to the base of the colorful cliffs, there was now only water, a sheet of it. Rogan set the viewer to turning so that they could see the flood completely surrounded the ship. Even the river had been swallowed up without any red stain left to betray its flow.
As the scene reached the seaside Rogan pushed the button which held it there. The beach was gone, it was the sea which had come in to enclose them.