He went down them cautiously at first, then faster as he caught the knack. He came to another cubicle and, across the short space of the floor, other stairs led downwards.
-Changer?
-Go down them. Go down three sets of them. Then go out of the door. It leads into a room, a large room. There’ll be many creatures there. Go straight ahead until you reach a large opening to your left. Go out of that opening and you will be outdoors.
-Outdoors?
-On the surface of the planet. Outside the building (the cave) that we are in. They have caves on top of the ground here.
-Then what?
-Then run!
-Changer, why don’t you take over? You can handle it. You are like these creatures. You can just walk out.
-I can’t. I haven’t any clothes.
-The coverings? The artificial skins?
-That’s right.
-But that is silly. Clothes…
-No one stirs anywhere without them. It is the custom.
-And you are bound by custom?
-Look, you’ll take the creatures by surprise. For a moment they’ll be frozen at the sight of you. Just staring, not doing anything. You resemble a wolf and…
-You said that before. I do not like the thought. There is something dirty…
-A creature now extinct. A fearsome creature that struck terror into the hearts of people. They’ll be frightened when they see you.
-OK, OK, OK. Thinker, how about it?
-You two go ahead, said Thinker. I have no data. I cannot be of help. We must rely on Changer. This is his planet and he knows it.
-All right, then. Here I go.
Quester went padding swiftly down the stairs. The thick, metallic sense of fear lay everywhere. The mind-waves pounded on relentlessly.
If we get out of this, thought Quester, if we get out of this…
He felt his own fear creeping in upon him, the descending weight of uncertainty and doubt.
-Changer?
-Go ahead. You’re doing fine.
He went down the third flight and faced the door.
-This one?
-Yes, and be fast about it. Your arms this time, remember. Your body bumping the door might not open it wide enough. It could fall back and catch you.
Quester squared off, extruding his arms. He bunched his body and flung himself at the door.
-Changer, to the left? The opening on the left?
-Yes. About ten of your body lengths.
Quester’s outstretched arms struck the door and slapped it open. His body catapulted out into the room. He had a confused sense of startled screaming, of open mouths, of creatures moving swiftly and there was the opening to his left. He pivoted and plunged towards it. A pack of creatures, he saw, were coming towards the opening from the outside – more of the strange creatures who peopled this planet, but draped in different kinds of artificial skins. They opened their mouths to shriek at him and lifted their hands, which held black objects which belched sudden flashes of fire, emitting bitter stenches.
Something smashed into metal very close to him and made a hollow whining sound and something else chewed with a crunching sound into a piece of wood. Then Quester, unable to stop even if he had wished, was among the creatures and the old war-cry was thundering through his body, his head jerking and slashing, his hands striking out. In among them for an instant, then through them and away, streaking along the front of the great cave which reared into the sky.
From behind him came sharp reports and some small, but heavy objects which travelled very fast gouged into the floor on which he ran, throwing up fragments of the material of which the floor was made.
It might be night, he thought, for there was no great star in the sky, although there were many distant stars shining in the sky and that was well, he thought, for it was unthinkable for a planet not to carry with it a canopy of stars.
And there were smells, but now the smells were different, not as acrid, not as sharp or harsh as had been in the building, but more pleasant, gentle smells.
Behind him the popping sound continued and tiny things went past him, then he was at the corner of the cave that went up into the sky, and around the corner, still running, remembering that Changer had said that he must run. And enjoying the running, the smooth, sleek slide of muscles, the feeling of the floor on which he ran, solid underneath his pads.
Now, for the first time since it all had started, he had the chance to gather in the aspects of the planet and it seemed, in many ways, a very busy place. And in other ways very strange, indeed. For who had ever heard of a planet that was floored? The floor ran out from the edge of the cave that reared up into the sky – out into the distance as far as he could see. And everywhere he looked there were other caves, stretching upward from the surface, many of them shining with yellow squares of light, and in front of many of them, and in little areas fenced in on the floor, were metallic or stony representations of the planet’s residents. And why, Quester wondered, should things like this exist? Could it be, he wondered, that when those creatures died they were turned to metal or to stone and left standing wherever they had died? Although that did not seem reasonable, for many of the creatures turned to stone or metal seemed larger than life size. But it was entirely possible, of course, that the creatures came in many different sizes and perhaps only the larger ones were metamorphosed into stone or metal.
There were not many of the planet’s living residents in evidence, and all those a distance off. But moving on the surface of the floor, and very rapidly, were metallic shapes that had glowing eyes on the front of them and that made a whooshing sound and sent out a blast of air as they streaked along. From these metallic shapes came brain-waves, the sense of a living thing, but a living thing that in many cases had more brains than one, and the brain-waves were quiet and gentle, not loaded with the hate and fear that he had sensed back there in the cave.
It was strange, of course, but Quester told himself it would be unusual if one met only one kind of life upon a planet. So far there had been the things that walked on two hind legs and were protoplasmic, and the metallic things that moved very rapidly and purposefully and shot light from their eyes and had more brains than one. And there had been that other time, he recalled, on that wet, hot night when he had sensed many other forms of life that seemed to hold either poor intelligence or no intelligence, beings that were little more than bundles of matter which held the gift of life.
If only, he thought, this planet were not so hot and its atmosphere not so heavy and oppressive, it might prove very interesting. Although it all was most confusing.
-Quester.
-What is it, Changer?
-Off to your right. The trees. The large vegetation. You can see them against the sky. Head for them. If we can get in among them, they will help to hide us.
-Changer, asked Thinker, what do we do now?
-I don’t know. We’ll have to think about it. All three of us together.
-These creatures will be hunting us?
-I presume they will.
-We should be one mind. Quester and I should know everything, you know.
-We will, said Quester. There has been no time. There has been too much happening. The distractions have been great.
-Reach the trees, said Changer, and we’ll have the time.
Quester swerved away from the side of the mighty cave that rose into the sky, cutting out across the wide strip of flooring, heading for the trees. Charging out of the darkness, its two eyes gleaming hard, came one of the metallic creatures, with the soft sighing of its windstorm. It swerved and headed straight for him and Quester flattened out. His legs blurred and his body hugged the gleaming surface of the floor, his ears laid back, his tail pointed straight behind him.
Changer cheered him on.
-Run, you mangy wolf! Run, you haggard jackal! Run, you frantic fox!
15
The chief of staff was a calm and officious man. He was not the kind of man one would expect to bang his fist upon a desk.
But now he banged his fist.
‘What I want to know,’ he bellowed, ‘is what stupid knot-head phoned the police. We could have handled this ourselves. We needed no police.’
‘I would imagine, sir,’ said Michael Daniels, ‘that whoever might have called them thought they had some reason to. The corridor was littered with people all chewed up.’