I could hear now, and there were sounds in plenty. The buzzing of insects, sharp calls, and now and then a distant heavy thud, as if someone beat a huge drum and listened to its echoes dying gradually away. There was a rustling and crackling, too. I could smell a stench which was certainly born of burning, though I did not see any movement of tree-dwelling things which would suggest that the inhabitants of these leafed heights were fleeing a fire.
Behind me the pool plant shriveled, its bruised leaves falling away in festering shreds. Now the inner petals or leaves which had cupped the water unclasped and a flood poured out, to cascade and then drip from the big limb into the mass of vegetation below, carrying with it wriggling, struggling things which had lived in it. The plant continued to die and rot until only a black blot remained on the limb, a most nauseating odor rising from it, making me move on.
The limb road grew wider and thicker. Now it was a running place for vines, which crossed it and looped around it, forming traps for the feet of the unwary. I continued to sweat as the muggy heat held me. And the suit became more and more of a burden. Too, I was hungry, and I remembered the drinker at the pool, wondering if I could turn hunter with any success.
“Out-!” Eet was economical with words now, but his meaning was plain. I put down his traveling box and opened it. He flashed out of its confines and stood poised on the limb, his head flicking from side to side.
“We must have food-“ I remembered what he had said about being able to tell what was edible and what was not. The fact that on an alien planet practically all food might mean death to off-worlders was to the fore of my mind. We might have made a safe landing here only to starve in the midst of what was luxurious plenty for the natives.
“There-“ He used his nose as a pointer, elongating his neck to emphasize his statement. What he had selected was an outgrowth on one of those serpentine vines. It rose like a stem, from which quivered some narrow pods, more flat than round. They shook and shivered as if they possessed some odd life of their own. And I could not see why Eet thought them possible food. They appeared less likely than the cluster of ovoid berries, bursting with ripe pulp and juice, which hung from another stem not too far away.
I watched my companion harvest the pods with his forepaws. He stripped off their outer shells to uncover some small, far too small, purple seeds, which he ate, not with any appearance of relishing that diet, but as one would do a duty.
He did not fall into convulsions, or drop in a fatal coma, but methodically finished all the buttons he could strip out of their pods. Then he turned to me.
“These can be safely eaten, and without food you cannot go on.”
I was still dubious. What might be good for my admittedly half-alien companion might not nourish me. But it was the only chance I had. And there was another cluster of the trembling pods not too far beyond my hand.
Slowly I drew the space stone from my gloved finger, stowed it away in a pocket on my harness, and then unsealed the gloves, allowing them to dangle from my wrists as I reached for the harvest.
Once more I saw the healing scars of the blisters. My flesh was pink and new-looking in unseemly splotches against the general brown of my skin. Though I was not as space-tanned as a crewman might be, my roving life had darkened my skin more than was normal for a planet dweller. But I was now spotted in what I was sure must be a disfiguring manner, though I could not see my face to judge. Until the blotches faded, if they ever did, I would be marked as undesirable to any off-worlder. Perhaps it was just as well we had not made landing at a port; one look at me and I would have been sent into indefinite quarantine.
Carefully I husked the pellets. They were larger than grains of hoswheat, hard and smooth to the touch. I raised them to my nose, but if they had any odor, it was slight enough to be overlaid by the general blast of smells all about us. Gingerly I mouthed several of them and chewed.
They seemed to have no discernible taste, but became a floury meal between my teeth. I found them dry, hard to swallow, but swallow I did. Then, since I had taken the first step and might as well go all the way, I harvested all within reach, chewing and swallowing, giving Eet another two clusters when he signified they would be acceptable.
I allowed us some small sips from the canister of liquid out of the ship, which I had made fast to my harness. That cleared the dry-as-dust feeling from my mouth tissues.
Eet had been moving impatiently back and forth along the branch as I ate, progressing in darting runs, pausing to peer and listen, then returning. Although it had been but a short time since his birth, he had all the assurance of an adult, as if he had achieved that status.
“We are well above ground.” He came back to settle down near me. “It would be well to get to a lower level.”
Perhaps as I had depended upon his instincts to find us food, so I should harken to him now. But the suit was clumsy to climb in, and I feared a false step where the vines were so entwined.
I crawled on hands and knees, testing each small space in advance. Thus I came to the point from which those vines spread, the giant trunk of the tree. And that bole was giant indeed. I believe that had it been hollow, it would have furnished room for an average dwelling on Angkor, while its height was beyond my reckoning. I wondered just how far it was to the surface of this vegetation-choked world – if the whole planet was covered by such trees.
Had it not been for the vines, I would have been marooned aloft, but their twists, slippery and unpromising as they looked, did afford a kind of looped stairway. I had two cords with hooked ends coiled in my harness – intended to anchor one during space repairs, though I had not discovered them in time to keep me on the Vestris. These I put to use now, hooking them to vines, lowering myself to the extent of the cord, loosing by tears to hook again. It was an exhausting form of progress, and I grew faint with the struggle. The muggy heat made it worse.
Finally I came to the jut of another wide branch, even larger than the one I had left. I dragged myself out on that, thankful to have reached such a small link with safety. The thick foliage made this a gloomy place, as if I were in a cave. And I thought that if I ever did reach the surface of the forest floor, it would be to discover that day was night under the sky-hiding canopy. Perhaps it was the tear made by the LB which allowed even this much light to filter through.
Those patches of moss with the breathing cups were not to be seen on this level. Instead there was a rough, spiky excrescence from which hung long drooping, thread-thin stems or tentacles. These exuded drops of sap or a similar substance. And the drops glowed faintly. They were, I believed, lures, attracting prey either by that phosphorescence, or by their scent. For I saw insects stuck to them, sometimes thrashing so hard to be free that the threadstems whipped back and forth.
Eet halted beside me, but I could sense his impatience at the slowness of my descent. Unburdened by a suit, he could have already reached the ground. Now he kept urging me to go on. But if he had some special fear of this arboreal world, he did not share it with me. His attitude had grown more and more like that of an adult dealing with a child who must be cared for, and whose presence hinders and makes more difficult some demanding task.
Groaning, I began the descent again. Eet flashed by me and was gone with an ease I envied bitterly as I took up my crawl, hook, hold, free, hook, crawl. As the gloom increased I began to worry more about my handholds, about being able to see anchors for the hooks.
It was as if I had started at midday and were now well into evening. The only aid was that more and more of the vegetation appeared to have phosphorescent qualities and that the spike growths with lures became larger and larger, giving a wan light. This glow grew brighter as darkness advanced. Perhaps the dusk really was due to the passage of time, and planet night was nearly upon me.