I fingered the beamer on my harness. If the creatures were mainly night hunters, a flash in their eyes would dazzle them for a moment. But my own folly in picking this hole with its towering walls about us might be the deciding factor – against us.
“It is not as bad as all that,” Eet broke in. “There is a top to the wall-“
“Well above my reaching. But if you can climb it – climb!” I ordered.
I felt a sharp tug at one corner of the covering I had drawn over us.
“Let this free,” Eet countered. “Climb I can, but perhaps we shall both be safe because of the fact that my claws are useful.” He was out of my lap, dragging the cover behind him, though it was a burden which pulled his head to one side.
“Hold me up,” he commanded then, “as high as you can reach, and take some of the weight of this thing!”
I obeyed, because I had no counterplan, and I had come, during our association, to give credit to Eet. I lifted his body, held it above my own head, and felt him catch hold, and draw himself up. Then I fed along the length of the shelter cloth, keeping its weight from pulling him back as he went. Suddenly it was still, no longer tugged.
“Tie the knife to it and let go-“ Eet ordered.
Let my only weapon out of my hands? He was crazy! Yet even as my thoughts protested, another part of me set my hands busy knotting that tool-weapon to the end of the dangling cloth. I heard it, even through the storm, clang and rap against the stone as it was drawn aloft by Eet.
I faced around, to the open side of the enclosure. Though I did not have Eet’s warning alert, I was sure that the aliens no longer hesitated, that they moved through the darkness. I pressed the button on the beamer, looking down the ray path.
They did indeed gather there, half crouched, their clubs ready in their fists. But as the light struck them full on, they blinked, blinded, their small mouths opening on thin, piping cries. The middle one dropped to his knees, his arm flung up to shield his hideous face from the light.
“Behind you- up!” Eet’s mental cry was as loud as a shout might have been in my ear. I felt the brush of something at my shoulder, flung out my hand to ward it off, and touched the fabric of the shelter. My fingers closed about it and I tugged. But it did not fall; somewhere aloft it was anchored, to give me a possible ladder to safety.
Dared I turn my back upon the three the light still held prisoners? Yet how long could I continue to hold them so? I must chance it-
If only that improvised rope and whatever Eet had found aloft to anchor it would hold under my weight! But that was another chance I must take. I gave a short leap and caught the dangling folds with both hands, swung out a little to plant my feet against the wall, and climbed, or rather walked up that surface, the shelter my support.
TEN
I was not to escape so easily. There arose behind me a shrilling that topped the sound of the storm. Something thudded against the wall only inches from me, rebounding to the ground. I had kept the beamer switched on and the light jerked back and forth as I struggled to put distance between myself and the natives below. Perhaps that moving light misled them, or perhaps they were less adept with their clubs than we credited them with being. However, one hurled weapon grazed my leg and almost broke my hold on the fabric rope.
Fear alone gave me the strength to pull up on the rough crest of the wall. My leg was numb and I was afraid to trust my weight to it, so I dragged along like a broken-legged creature. The claws of the natives stuck in my mind. Those should aid them in gaining our perch.
Up here the wind and the rain buffeted us. I had not realized how much protection the walls had afforded below. I clung to the knobs and broken projections and pulled myself along, though I took time to switch off the beamer that I might not so brightly advertise our going.
“On, to your right now, and ahead-“ Eet ordered.
I followed the line of the fabric to its end, found where the knife pinned it firmly into a crack between an eroded knob and the wall, paused long enough to worry it loose, and thrust that weapon into my harness.
To the right and ahead? The blasting of the storm was such that for some long moments I was not sure of the difference between right and left, having to think of my hands as guides. Eet’s direction would apparently take me over the wall. Yet I was certain he did not mean us to descend again.
I discovered as I crawled on, dragging my aching leg, that here the wall was joined by another, leading off at a sharp angle in the direction Eet had indicated. It was slow and rough going, for the crest was as encumbered with humps, hollows, and stubs as the other had been. But at least they now served as anchorages against the wind and drive of rain.
The visibility was nil as far as I was concerned. I had to depend upon my sense of touch and Eet’s guidance. Every moment I feared to hear the shrilling which would announce that the club holders were hard behind us.
The numbness in my leg was wearing off, leaving behind an ache which, when I barked that limb against one of the projections, made me yowl with pain. But I did not try to get to my feet. Crawling this uneven way seemed the safest.
We were heading out from the place where we had sheltered, directly into a dark unknown. Now I could hear, above the storm, not the shrilling of pursuers, but a roaring. And it was toward that that we headed.
At last I became so uneasy I paused in the lee of a large lump to use the beamer, sweeping the way before me. For a space the ray showed wall- then- nothing!
I swept the beam down, along the right-hand side of the wall. Water – raging water, beating its way around a vast tumble of rocks. As I sent the ray left, it caught the edge of something else, and I swiftly centered on that.
A rounded swell of mound? No, though it was patched with plants and moss which caught the light and held it, continuing to glow after the beam had passed. A curved object, taller than the wall at the highest point, stretching back and out into darkness where my beam could not reach.
The water which battered at the outer end of the wall washed it on one side, but apparently it was too securely rooted to be moved by that flood. I kept the ray playing on the portion nearest the wall, trying to calculate if I could cross to it. But that other surface, in spite of the growth of plants, suggested too smooth a landing, especially since my take-off room would be limited on this side.
“Well,” I shot at Eet, “where do we go? On into the water? Or do we grow wings and head straight up?”
When he did not reply, I was suddenly afraid I had been left alone. Perhaps Eet, aware of his own ability to travel where I was a handicapped drag, had struck out for himself. Then his answer came, though I could not tell from what direction.
“To the ground, on the left. The water does not come this far. And the ship will give us shelter-“
“Ship?” Once more I swept the beamer ray, studied the mound. It could be a ship – yet it was not shaped like-
“Do you think there is only one pattern of ship? Even among your own people there are several.”
He was right, of course. There is little resemblance between a slender Free Trader, meant to cut into planetary atmospheres, and a colonizer – so large it does not enter atmospheres at all, but uses ferry ships to load and unload passengers and supplies.
I edged to the left side of the wall. The nose of the vast object on the ground projected not far below. On that stood Eet, his wiry fur not in the least plastered down by the rain, his eyes pin points of light as the beam touched them. I swung over and allowed myself to drop, hoping I would be able to find secure footing.
Had I worn the magnetic boots, my feet might have clung. As it was, my fears were realized. I landed squarely enough, but skidded on, my hands and feet unable to find anchorage in the frail plants, tearing those out by their roots in thick wet pads as I went. I met the ground with a bump which drove most of the breath out of me. From my bruised leg there was such a stab of pain that I blacked out for a space. But the drip of water falling on and running down my face restored me.