EIGHT
“Any suggestions as to how we do find the ship?” I asked Eet.
Without inquiring if I cared to be his mode of transportation, he had climbed to my shoulders. In this dank heat and with the weight of the suit pressing me down, his presence was a drag.
Eet’s head waved back and forth, almost as if he could sniff out our path. There was a constant patter of drops from above. It might have been raining forever in the dusk of the forest – or rather, dripping from the condensation of moisture above.
No underbrush existed here, save for the parasitic plants, which apparently did not need sunlight and were rooted on tree or vine trunks. Most of these gleamed ghostlily.
But there was no clear vista in any direction. The trunks of the tree giants stood well separated one from the other because of their size, the large and strong forcing their way to the light and sun, the weaker dying. However, every one bore a lacy coating of vines, those twined and twirled from their own rootings to make a chocked maze.
Under the tree where we had seen the clubber make his kill we came upon a kind of path, maybe a game trail. It was tempting to turn into that easier way – tempting, but dangerous.
“Right!” Eet’s head swung in that direction.
“How-?”
“Smell!” he rapped out. “Burning-hot metal- At least this body has some good points. Try right and walk softly.”
“As I can,” I snapped in return. Slogging through the soft muck of long-dead vegetation was not easy. The plated boots I wore sunk in at each step and I had to pull my way wearily through either sifting sand or glutinous mud. Yet I clung to the suit, unwieldy as it was for such travel, because it gave me a sense of security.
As usual Eet proved to be right. Light pierced the gloom ahead after we rounded two more of the giant tree boles and their attendant festoons of vine stems. In this dusk the brilliant, eye-dazzling shafts of sunlight made me stop short, blinking.
There was a mass of splintered limbs, torn and mangled vines. Smoke still arose in languid trails, the stench of burned vegetation as thick as gas. But so full of sap or moisture was that growth that the fire set by the crash of the LB had not spread, but been quickly smothered. The ship had rammed down on nose and side and was buried deep in the muck, the metal shell crumpled and rent in some places.
Across the forest hole its fall had torn, brilliantly hued insects darted or drifted, lighting to crawl over the still-oozing sap. I saw a scurry as some four-footed explorer crossed the burst hull. And, surveying that wreck, I was shaken by the closeness of our escape. What if we had not been able to scramble out before the LB had plunged from its first landing in the treetops?
Fighting my way over the mass of splintered, entangled, and half-burned debris about the ship was a slow and painful business. Eet had jumped from my shoulder and reached our goal with a couple of bounds, then raced along the sloping side.
“The hatch is buried,” he reported. “But there is a break here – not large enough for you-“
“But all right for you.” I snapped apart a nasty trap of spiky, splintered limbs, pulled it away, then stepped out on a charred crust, my tread raising smoke and a bad smell.
I was just in time to see Eet vanish into the rent. From here the wreck looked even worse, and I believed that the inside of the cabin must be folded and pleated until there could be room there for no explorer larger than the mutant.
“A line-“ came my companion’s thought command. “Drop me a line-“
I clumped through the smoldering debris and wriggled close to the break, dropping one of the hooked lines I had used in my tree descent. A weight swung upon it and I hauled in slowly, the line jerking as if Eet steadied whatever it raised.
One of those things I had thought might be a weapon appeared, butt first. I grasped it eagerly. To have some arm available gave one a feeling of security. It did not fit comfortably in my palm and I guessed it had not been wrought for use by a human hand. There was no firing button such as one saw on laser or stunner, only a small lever difficult to finger. I pointed it at a ragged stub of limb projecting not too far away and drew back on that lever.
There was a weak flash, hardly more than a blink of light, but nothing else. Whatever charge this weapon had once operated upon had been exhausted. It was of no more use to us now than an awkwardly shaped club. And I said so to Eet.
He expressed no disappointment, but dived once more into the ship, while I dropped the line. In the end we assembled a motley collection of survival equipment. There was another canister of liquid, a sharp-bladed, foot-long tool which at least was still effective, for my practice swings at spikes cut those neatly through. Lastly there was a roll of fabric which could be folded into a small packet, or shaken out into a wide square, and which appeared to be moisture-resistant.
I had found among the shredded debris some more of those pods; and had shelled their seeds into the canister we had already drained. We ate and drank before we decided in which direction to go.
There was no use in lingering by the wrecked ship. Had it been an LB of my own people, we could have set up a call signal and stayed hopefully nearby – though even then eventual rescue would have depended upon so many chance factors that we might never have been found. But we now had not even that slender tie with any predictable future.
“Where?” I asked as I made the fabric into a pack to lash to my harness. “Where-“ And I added to myself, “Why?”
Eet scrambled up on the elevated end of the wreckage once again. His head turned and his nostrils expanded, as if he cast about for some scent as a guide. But as for me I could see no goal in this wilderness. We could continue to wander through the dusk under the trees until we died, and find no way out.
“Water-“ His thought reached me. “A river- lake If we can find such-“
A river meant an open highway of sorts – but leading where? And how were we going to find a river?
I had a sudden inspiration. “The game trail!”
Surely any animals large enough to beat that slot in the forest muck would need water. And a well-marked trail could lead to it.
Eet ran back along the battered tail of the wreck.
“An apt suggestion.” He jumped to land heavily on my shoulder, nearly rocking me off balance. “To the left, no, more that way-“ He used his forepaw to point. The path he indicated was not that which had been made by my blundering feet, but led off at a sharper angle to the left.
As we left the torn clearing, I glanced back. Eet’s body somewhat masked it from view, but I saw that my dragging progress left very visible tracks. Anything with eyes could tail us. And what of the hunter with the club? Drawn to this break in the forest ceiling through curiosity, a native might well hunt us down.
“A contingency we cannot help. Therefore we can only be alert,” Eet returned.
Alert he certainly was, and not to my comfort, he constantly changed his position. Too, since his weight was not inconsiderable, I was afraid of stumbling. The long knife from the LB allowed me to cut a path through the rim of debris beyond the burned space; then we were back in the dusky forest.
I would have been entirely lost as soon as the clearing was left behind, for we had to weave in and out to avoid the latticework of the vine roots. But Eet appeared to know just where we were going, sniffing at intervals and then directing me, until I almost fell into a sharp slot which marked the game trail. It had been so well used that it was cut more than a hand’s breath below the surrounding surface soil. On it were prints of what might have been hoofs and paws, and even odder marks, overlaid one upon another.
We came in time to another opening, where one of the giant trees had crashed to its death, perhaps seasons earlier, taking with it the lesser growth, giving living room to bushes and shrubs. So riotously had these grown that they made a vast matted plug in the opening. There were things which might be flowers, wide of petal, with deep throats. But I saw a green tentacle whip from one of those gaping throats, seize upon a small, winged thing which had lit on a petal, and carry the victim, still struggling, back into the cavity. The petals were brilliant yellow, striped with a strident green, and the whole thing gave off a sickly odor which made me turn away my head.